Six months in, and a question

[ftuyytfuytduy]

Good evening,

I am new to the forum but have encountered it periodically over the past six months. I am grateful for the supportive attitude and information it has provided.

A QUESTION: I see some suggested protocols in some of the forums with the disclaimer that the author is not a vet. I am curious how you have achieved the "autonomy" to manage your cat's dosing while continuing to receive prescriptions for insulin from vet. My understanding is that most vets would want to have complete control over the insulin dose.

Thanks, and again, happy this forum exists.

 

[FurBabiesMama]

Hi, and welcome. Simply put, you find the right vet. The more I educated myself, the more the ignorance of my initial vet was apparent, so I moved on. The same thing with the second vet I tried. Then, finally, with the third one (who is an internal medicine specialist with a special interest in endocrinology) I found the right fit. We were able to have a very intelligent discussion about feline diabetes, and everything he said was in harmony with what I had learned. He was very impressed and pleased with my knowledge and with the monitoring I was doing and records I was keeping. So, we agreed on a 'game plan', and he is fine with me making dosing adjustments. He said to call him if there are any issues; otherwise, come see him every three months or so for a check up.

With diabetes, active daily management is involved, and unless you are a vet or have one living with you, it just does not make sense for a vet to be involved in every little decision. You have to live and breathe this, and if you put in the effort to learn and are willing to do home testing and keep records, you can become quite qualified to make a lot of the decisions without the vet. It does not have to be all up to the vet or all up to you to make the decisions, there is a happy medium. I wanted a partner. I know I am not a vet, but I am intelligent and invested and have the right to play a role in my babies treatment. So, my vet is there when I need guidance or if any issues arise, but for the most part I am in charge!

 

[Noah & me (GA)]

I see some suggested protocols in some of the forums with the disclaimer that the author is not a vet.

Like FurBabiesMama said, finding the right vet means everything! Nigel, Noah's brother, was our first diabetic cat. Our vet gave us a great education and phoned us morning and night for 14 days to get us set up. After a year of bringing in colour coordinated charts of his doses, 3 and 5 day averages and almost bringing in a PowerPoint projector she trusted us enough to leave us on our own. After that first six months neither Nigel or Noah have ever been to the vet for a diabetes related matter. There's a matter of total trust here; our vet knows we have things under control, we admit our mistakes and will call her if we even think there's a diabetes related problem. I just phone in our prescritions for insulin and Buprenorphine. I also make sure I'm talking to a tech that trusts us. If *** answers the phone I just say "sorry, wrong number". Demonstrate to your vet your competence and she'll have the same faith in you. That's not always easy.
You'll notice a lot of signatures contain the phrase "Do not copy dosing". That's because we trust you to know your cat is different and what works for one cat can kill another cat. Any suggestions we make are generally about food, equipment, testing procedures and FDA accepted drugs for common ailments. Anything well past that is forbidden. The protocols we suggest have years of proven reliability. We're also self peer reviewed so if I make a mistake (typing too fast, moving a decimal point over) I'll get corrected and no one gets offended. We're not Facebook, nobody will snicker behind your back and no question is too stupid and that's why our system works.
There is an administrative "board" but they're few in number, they're not always here and none of them are vets. Vets that want control over everything aren't there when your cat won't eat or his numbers aren't textbook.
That's a long answer but I hope it explains why our secret society works so well. Guess it's not so secret when there's over 16,000 members, I only wish I was here from the first day.

 

[Tracey&Jones (GA)]

Totally agree with FurBabiesMama - the right vet. Mine, unfortunately is on maternity, but she was great with Jones. Always taking my input, giving feedback, willing to answer questions. Not saying we say eye-to-eye each time but.....

You will eat, breathe and sleep this FD dance so who knows your cat better? A good vet will know that. Jones' Dr. was very impressed with his results that we got following the protocol here and his IM Dr. only advises on the IBD issue - he leaves the FD issue to me to work on.

 

[Noah & me (GA)]

I'm breaking in my vet's new partner. It's strange having a guy in a clinic always staffed by women.

 

[Veronica & Babu-chiri]

I totally agree, the key is to find the right vet that will work with you specially if you can show him that you have things under control, that you are testing, and that the protocols have been tested for many years and with many cats and do have scientific bases.

Mine is an amazing surgeon and actually takes care of Babu in many other issues, he's got plenty so vet can have his share and actually ended up leaving the DB control to me he usually just asks how is he doing and when I say ok that's it ,he is aware I follow this protocols and did reviewed them at the beginning even if I don't need a prescription to buy insulin or syringes here

 

[Amanda and a Loudogg]

Good evening,

I am new to the forum but have encountered it periodically over the past six months. I am grateful for the supportive attitude and information it has provided.

A QUESTION: I see some suggested protocols in some of the forums with the disclaimer that the author is not a vet. I am curious how you have achieved the "autonomy" to manage your cat's dosing while continuing to receive prescriptions for insulin from vet. My understanding is that most vets would want to have complete control over the insulin dose.

Thanks, and again, happy this forum exists.

Everyone who has responded so far is completely right. We've been doing this dance for 5 months now, and we have not been lucky enough to find a vet we have confidence in. My experience may be more extreme than others. Basically, we learned almost right away that we were on our own when my buddy Lou went hypo a week in. Our vet suggested 4 units twice a day. I hedged and started him at 2, but then quickly upped him to 3 units when I thought it required it (the vet said 4, so I thought it'd be okay). Thankfully I had found this site right away, so I knew what to do to bring his numbers back up (no info from the vet on treating hypo episodes). We got some great advice here and got him regulated almost right away. When I contacted my vet, I was basically told that she couldn't believe my numbers because I wasn't using a vet "approved" glucometer. Weird that she approved of me home-testing, but refused to open her mind to me utilizing cheaper options to do so. So basically, I just stopped contacting her about dosing, because they either don't know what they're doing or seemingly refuse to work with me. We didn't have a fight about our differences, I just don't ask them for their opinion. I bring him in when I think there's something else going on, and I'll provide them information, but we don't go into detail about dosing. They are apparently okay with that and they give me my new insulin vials when I request them. It works at this point. I would definitely love to find a vet I can have as a partner, but I won't hold my breath. At the end of the day, I have seen Lou flourish with the advice and support I've received from this forum, and he would likely be dead if I'd just blindly followed my vet's advice. I just go with what makes logical sense, what makes him happy and healthy, and what keeps us all as sane as possible (ha). Best of luck on your journey!

 

[JanetNJ]

Good evening,

I am new to the forum but have encountered it periodically over the past six months. I am grateful for the supportive attitude and information it has provided.

A QUESTION: I see some suggested protocols in some of the forums with the disclaimer that the author is not a vet. I am curious how you have achieved the "autonomy" to manage your cat's dosing while continuing to receive prescriptions for insulin from vet. My understanding is that most vets would want to have complete control over the insulin dose.

Thanks, and again, happy this forum exists.

Once I started home testing my cat didnt see the vet for another year. I adjusted the dose and would periodically send an email with a link to her spreadsheet. The vet would of course tell me her opinion but I found insulin needs can change week by week and even day by day.

 

[Noah & me (GA)]

It's actually pretty amazing that a potentially fatal condition does not receive enough education at most veterinary colleges and is then left to us to deal with all by ourselves at home. I've seen people stitch themselves up when they don't have the money but I cannot imagine being left on your own understanding and treating an organ failure and then figuring out the correct dose yourself after some "experimentation." And this is after you've decided what testing equipment to buy. We tell newbies to take a deep breath but that hardly seems to cover it. Newbies must have two choices; run back to their vet wondering who these people are or putting their cat's lives in our hands. And finding out there is no veterinarian here to supervise and/or correct us must be like going to a hospital and having another patient with roughly the same condition give you advice. And this is all free? My last donation matched the cost of a very cheap pair of shoes, or maybe just one shoe. Time to buy a calendar, maybe two! And then it's time again to bake for my vet and her techs without whom my life, Nigel(GA) and Noah's would be a lot different.