Re: Pics of my cat's leg weakness.
Thanks all for your responses. A couple questions I should get out before I forget to ask them:
1...How important is it to get the cat to eat a certain amount of food
before the insulin dose? I ask this because currently Krystal is having appetite problems. Sometimes, though, I'm able to get her to eat more
after she's had her insulin shot.
2...She's had these appetite problems on and off ever since the diagnosis. Recently I got the vet to prescribe Cyphroheptdadine for her appetite, and for the first couple of days it seemed to work. I'd give her the pill, then five minutes later I'd put the food in front of her and she'd start going to town on it. But in the last couple of days the Cyphro hasn't worked at all. Tonight she refused to eat either the dry or the moist M/D, so I had to force-feed her the moist M/D. The only thing she willingly ate on her own were some treats, which I only gave her as a positive affirmation for putting up with me force-feeding her. Other than telling the vet about this when I take her in on Monday, I don't know what else to do about this...
3...I'm planning on traveling
out of the country (Ecuador) from January 6-13. How much of a risk am i taking here? I'm planning on having my next door neighbor take care of her and give her insulin shots, etc... I've trained the neighbor on the injection and the importance of getting her to eat, and about taking her to the vet if there are any bad signs. I imagine many of you are saying I should cancel my trip until she's more stable, but this is a trip I'd planned since before the diagnosis, and I didn't get trip cancellation insurance. Not only that, but if I resolve not to take any long trips until my cat "gets stable", well, I have no idea how long that might take, it could take years for all I know, and that could drive me nuts.
Vicky & Gandalf said:
Hi Steve,
Although I am not a Lantus user, it is a long acting insulin like the kind I use, brand name Levemir. 3U of a long acting insulin is a lot to begin with, so I am curious how long your cat has been using that dose and how the dose was determined.
I'll try to describe this to the best of my memory:
She was diagnosed back in October. At that time the vet started her on 1 unit of the Lantus. After the first insulin shot that night, the vet had me take her in to the clinic the next day and leave her there all day so that they could do a glucose curve. If I remember correctly, the vet told me after that first curve that the 1 unit was acting too strong, and that it was possibly because she still wasn't eating enough, and emphasized that I needed to get her to eat like, a half a can of the Hills M/D. I told her she never would eat a half a can in one sitting, even back before she was diabetic. Then the vet had me reduce the insulin dosage to a half-unit twice daily if the cat eats less than 1/8 cup of Hills M/D, dry or moist, before the shot, but giver her the full unit if she does eat at least that amount.
Then, a couple weeks later, she had me up the dose to 2 units, I don't recall why. I think it was because the latest curve they did was still showing overall glucose levels between 300 and 400. Then at one point the vet talked about doing some sort of ultra-sound to see if there was some other issue going on in addition to the diabetes that would be affecting her appetite, and because she was saying the glucose curves they were doing on her at the clinic were inconclusive because she was too stressed out being at the vet all day long. That ultra-sound would have cost me 500 bucks and I told her I wasn't willing to pay that much. At that point she said she would talk to some colleague of hers to explore other alternatives besides the ultrasound. That's when she came back to me with the idea of doing my own glucose curve at home. Why she didn't suggest that from the beginning, I have no idea. The first two curves that they did at the clinic cost me $120 each. So far I've done two curves in which I tested her six times during the day (on my day off, of course).
Here's a link to another thread where I posted the numbers of that curve. It showed a low of 236 mg/dL and a high of 322.
Anyway, at some point I think about two weeks ago, my vet suggested I try upping the dose to 3 units since the glucose level is still kind of high, so that's where I am right now.
As I'd described above, I'm going to Ecuador for a week in January, and unless there are any severe changes for the worse in symptoms, the vet doesn't want to change the dose until after I get back from Ecuador.
Vicky & Gandalf said:
Home testing is a crucial element and I hope you have gotten started on that.
I do have a glucometer as described above, and have done some curves, and occasional single tests, but haven't gotten into the TR pattern of testing before each insulin shot. One thing I've also tried the other night just out of curiosity, was use the same glucometer to test my other cat Kramer, who's not diabetic, just to see how his blood sugar compared to Krystal's. Kramer's level was 57.
Vicky & Gandalf said:
Hi Steve,
Diet is another crucial element and I hate to tell you, but the prescription M/D food is not the best quality or lowest carb food on the market. If Hill's M/D is affordable for you, then I recommend the Wellness brand canned food, it is grainfree and has several varieties so you should easily find one or more your cat likes. Even Fancy Feast or 9Lives or Friskies canned offer varieties lower in carbs than M/D if you need a cheaper alternative.
Well, I guess that brings me to the issue of whether I'm seeing the right vet about this. I've had a pretty long relationship with this vet since before she diagnosed Krystal with FD. My vet is convinced that the Hills M/D is the best diet for my diabetic cat right now. I showed her some printouts of articles I'd read online about the importance of wet foods, etc, but there was no changing her mind. She's apparently read all those arguments before. She said she's been to the Hills factory and saw how they make the food, and is convinced that Hills does an excellent job of "engineering" the nutrient content of the food, whether in dry or wet form, to give my diabetic cat the nutrition it needs. I'm not saying that you're wrong, but until and unless I make a formal decision to change vets, I don't know what else to do.
I should mention that my vet clinic is a Banfields. Banfields are clinics that are located inside most PetSmart stores. I don't know, maybe that's a bad thing, because perhaps PetSmart has some relationship with Hills, and so Banfields, PetSmart, and Hills are all in cahoots with each other? I don't know, I'm just throwing out some conspiracy theories now, I really have no idea. I live in the Phoenix area. If anyone else on this board is from Phoenix and knows a vet who they think is good with feline diabetes, your advice and referrals are appreciated.
