Pumpkin,Olivia and LeAnne

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Pumpkin Olivia LeAnne POL

Pumpkin Olivia LeAnne POL

Member Since 2017
hello all,
I am LeAnne and my daughter is Olivia. We are the parents of Pumpkin. She is a 14 y/o calico. We thought she had a UTI, and took her to the vet . On 5/21/17 her glucose was 412. They sent her home with diabetes diagnosis.
She spent three days in the hospital trying to regulate and running every test under the sun ($2800 later)
We came home switched to DM wet food with small bits of DM dry. She likes dry, but I see wet is the way. We have two other healthy cats. They shared one can wet plus dry between them BID. Feeding schedules are a wreck, I used to feed all at 6:00 am &pm.
Insulin started at 9 & 9. Everyone is hungry in the am. We backed pumpkin feeding to around 8am. We have test strips and monitor but have not started testing. Maybe today? I have been reading the posts, and I find them reassuring.
As for shots.... pumpkin knows what the syringe looks like and wants no part. I will post questions for advice in another post. For now thanks and we look forward to learning more each day. ❤️
 
Welcome LeAnne, Olivia, and Pumpkin!

Unless your cat was in DKA, there was no reason for her to spend overnight at the hospital. that's weird that they did. What insulin are you using? What dose?

OK for food, vets like to sell expensive perscription stuff... IT'S TOTALLY NOT NECESSARY! and cut out the dry dm all together... it's way too high in carbs for a diabetic cat. (Ironic since it's sold FOR diabetic cats, eh?) The wet dm is fine as far as carbs go, but there's nothing in it that is better for your cat than regular grocery store food. Most of us on here feed Fancy Feast Classic or Friskies Pate. Here's a chart showing the carb counts for various wet foods. http://catinfo.org/docs/CatFoodProteinFatCarbPhosphorusChart.pdf

It's an outdated notion that diabetic cats need only be fed twice a day. You can feed as often as you like, but just not two hours before your preshot blood glucose test. Unregulated diabetic cats are hungry because their bodies aren't utilizing the food properly... they are literally starving even though they are eating, so usually need to be fed more than they would otherwise. I'm glad to hear you are planning on home testing --we can teach you how... it's really the number one way to keep your cat safe and know if a dose is effective or too much or too little. We can help you learn to do home testing if your vet didn't show you how. I have a video in my signature showing it.

Some people find it easier to give the shot while the cat is still finishing up their meal... so he doesn't see it coming. haha
 
Wow thanks. When you are going through the crisis we just consider the vet is right... we have the other cats on Friskies patte yay! Pumpkin loves the DM DRY boo! So, can we use that as a treat to coax her? She come out of hiding for it.
I thought we had to wait 15 min after finishing meals to give the insulin. I am getting mixed answers from the posts.
While feeding (yours)
Fifteen minutes (vet)
Up to an hour later (forum)
For sure not less than two hours BEFORE eating?
One post said they add additional water to the wet??? Pumpkin drinks good. We have an indoor Catit fountain and her own bowl.
BTW how do I know who to post to? It asked for a name and I don't know anyone yet.
 
LeAnne and Pumpkin said:
Wow thanks. When you are going through the crisis we just consider the vet is right... we have the other cats on Friskies patte yay! Pumpkin loves the DM DRY boo! So, can we use that as a treat to coax her? She come out of hiding for it.
I thought we had to wait 15 min after finishing meals to give the insulin. I am getting mixed answers from the posts.
While feeding (yours)
Fifteen minutes (vet)
Up to an hour later (forum)
For sure not less than two hours BEFORE eating?
One post said they add additional water to the wet??? Pumpkin drinks good. We have an indoor Catit fountain and her own bowl.
BTW how do I know who to post to? It asked for a name and I don't know anyone yet.[/QUOTE
LeAnne and Pumpkin said:
Wow thanks. When you are going through the crisis we just consider the vet is right... we have the other cats on Friskies patte yay! Pumpkin loves the DM DRY boo! So, can we use that as a treat to coax her? She come out of hiding for it.
I thought we had to wait 15 min after finishing meals to give the insulin. I am getting mixed answers from the posts.
While feeding (yours)
Fifteen minutes (vet)
Up to an hour later (forum)
For sure not less than two hours BEFORE eating?
One post said they add additional water to the wet??? Pumpkin drinks good. We have an indoor Catit fountain and her own bowl.
BTW how do I know who to post to? It asked for a name and I don't know anyone yet.
Click to expand...

We use PROZINC 2 units bid
Are you actually saying we can leave the cat food out? My other cats Katie and Buddy will love this.
Does pumpkin only need to wait two hours FOR TESTING?
OR FOR INJECTIONS?
this is or might be schedule changing info. Olivia is much stricter than I am, but Pumpkin is her baby.
Click to expand...
 
Hi and welcome to FDMB.

The feeding vs shot times depend on the insulin you are using so I am going to assume you are using one which needs to have some food on board 15 to 20 minutes before the shot is given. Follow your vets advice on this but the trick is to withhold a tsp. or so of the meal, get the shot ready and then after the 15 minutes offer that remaining portion and give the shot while kitty has their face buried in their bowl wolfing it down.

I'm not sure what you are referring to with some of your questions but I'm going to take a shot in the dark and hope I clear up the confusion.

There are some insulins that eating right at shot time is not an absolute must as long as one knows kitty WILL eat.

We do not feed our cats for at least two hours before their shot is due. This is so when we do a BG readings before giving insulin (pre-shot tests), the reading is not food influenced.

As for adding water to the food, that is up to you and your kitty. If Pumpkin is a good drinker then you don't need to add water to her food. As long as she stays well hydrated, feed her as you normally do.

I take it you clicked on one of the avatars and started a conversation. You can do this to have private conversation with anyone on the forum but to create a public thread in the Health Forum, which is what you want to do a this point in time, follow this link
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/forums/feline-health-the-main-forum.28/

In the upper right part of the screen, you will see a button called "Start a new Thread". Click on that and type away. If you have any trouble, let us know and we'll help you out. :)
 
Pumpkin Olivia LeAnne POL said:
Wow thanks. When you are going through the crisis we just consider the vet is right... we have the other cats on Friskies patte yay! Pumpkin loves the DM DRY boo! So, can we use that as a treat to coax her? She come out of hiding for it.
I thought we had to wait 15 min after finishing meals to give the insulin. I am getting mixed answers from the posts.
While feeding (yours)
Fifteen minutes (vet)
Up to an hour later (forum)
For sure not less than two hours BEFORE eating?
One post said they add additional water to the wet??? Pumpkin drinks good. We have an indoor Catit fountain and her own bowl.
BTW how do I know who to post to? It asked for a name and I don't know anyone yet.
Click to expand...
Ok the order is test, then feed, then shoot. I said to shoot while eating if it's really stressful on the cat to see the shot coming. You do want to make sure she's eating though to make sure she has food on board.

You don't feed two hours prior to the preshot test though so that the test is not food influenced. You have to be sure the numbers are high enough to shoot. For new people just starting we usually recommend not shooting under 200 until you have more data. Does that make sense?

Great that they already like Friskies pate! You might give a few dm kibble for a treat... You can also save it as a medium carb food if the cats numbers are low and you need to steer up. It's also a good idea to have honey on hand and high carb gravy lovers food for an emergency when you have a crash that needs quick raising of numbers. (Read our info on hypoglycemia)


I add water to wet.... Not mandatory but cats notoriously don't drink enough. Lol.

I have a couple of Catit fountains too.... The cute flower ones. :).
 
I leave food out. No food for 2+ hours... Test... Feed... Shoot... Then they can eat whenever just no food 2 hours prior to the next test.
 
Welcome LeAnne, Olivia, and Pumpkin! You've been given some great advice already so I'll just say Hello and leave you with some extra things that help us help you in your FD journey :)
Signature setup instructions for information about Pumpkin: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/editing-your-signature-profile-and-preferences.130340/
The Spreadsheet template for putting those testing supplies to good use :smuggrin::
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/fdmb-spreadsheet-instructions.130337/
If you need help setting one up, just ask!
Lastly, I like to give this to new members but hope you never need it: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/how-to-treat-hypos-they-can-kill-print-this-out.15887/
 
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