Recently Diagnosed - continued from intro forum

[JayDi]

first, thank you so much to everyone for their advice and shared experiences in my original posting. This is probably more of a rant so feel free to go to the end for my questions I picked my cat up a few minutes ago and am livid! First, the vet did not even come to see me, instead a vet tech told me to administer 2 units twice per day and was ready to send me on my way. I then asked well shouldn’t I be monitoring his blood glucose levels? She told me no... just give him the two doses daily and with food, he’ll be regulated. She also told me that my cat had not ate any food during his time there. I called multiple times and talked directly to the vet yesterday about diet and offered to bring in food. I paid the additional amount for the insulin and syringes and got my cat the hell out of there. My questions for this forum are 1) i should definitely be monitoring his levels at home, right?!? I purchased the alphatrak system from amazon to be prepared to do so.

2) I really think that diet will make a major improvement based on the changes I had seen in the two days following our first vet visit. Would it be ill advised to monitor the blood glucose and administer a lower amt of insulin (if the bg levels are not elevated) with the diet change to see if we can get a hold of this that way?


Any advice is greatly appreciated!

 

[JanetNJ]

1. Yes! Awesome you're planning to test! It's the safest way and the best way to know if a dose is too much or too little.

2. Feed a low carb wet food. The recommended starting dose is 1 unit twice a day. It would be wise to switch to a low carb wet food ands do 1 unit while you get the hang of testing. If the 1 unit proves to not be enough raise the dose by 0.25-0.5 unit increments.

 

[JayDi]

Thank you so much for the quick reply!!!! I’ll do that for sure and hopefully all goes well!

 

[Okie]

Our cat was just diagnosed too andnoriginally the tech said not to test. But I work in heathcare and wouldn't dream of advising a human to inject insulin without knowing what their glucose level is, so why would anyone do so with a cat? When I went for my training, the vet said she tells clients it's not necessary because a lot of cats won't allow it or the owners don't want to mess with it. But she was happy I had taken the initiative.

 

[Idjit's mom]

Good morning JayDi. I have to admit I became a little incensed reading your post here, so I can certainly understand your feelings. It's wonderful that you are going to look into a better diet for kitty (it really does make a difference), and that you are going to be testing.
Please create your signature so that we can see kitty's pertinent information when you post. It saves asking/answering over and over, or trying to comb through previous posts for info. Here is a link on how to do that: SIGNATURE
It's really helpful if either in your profile or the signature that you tell us where you are, even generally, so we know the time zone. We have members all over the world that respond, and it's handy to know about what time it is where you are.
Then get the spreadsheet going. This is a way to record the testing data, as well as when/what dosage insulin is given. This is linked to the signature and members can see patterns, and be able to keep an eye on progress to advise more effectively. SPREADSHEET INSTRUCTIONS and UNDERSTANDING THE SS GRID
You are going to be learning quite a bit about Feline Diabetes and treatment in the next few weeks. The FAQs forum is an excellent resource: FAQS There is also critically important information about Hypos there that you do need to know, just to be prepared in case.