SPAZorro

[Raven]

Hi All, My cat Spaz has been with me 15 years now and Im trying my best to keep him as long as comfortlably possible. What worries me, is that his results before insulin injections were the best results recorded. With every dosage increase, his BG levels increased as well. I have taken him off the BG Gold drops (herbal) and have put him on full diebetic perscription food durring these trials, but that does not appear to have helped. My last suggestion to the vet (since I felt I was slowing killing my fur baby) was to take him off the insulin and put him on Glyburide pill in hopes that it would stimulate his pancrease so that his body would start abosrbing the insulin. My plan is to go back to the insuline in a week (now) to see if his results are better. I guess my question here is ... Is it normal for the BG levels to go up with insulin before leveling out ? and How much is too much insulin? (I stopped increasing at 2.5 twice a day and changed to pills when my vet suggested we increase it to 3 units twice a day). Im also aware that these results may indicate something much worse that diebties ..or that this was caught too late and the damage is already done...but I havent given up on my little man yet

 

[BJM]

What insulin? The ones which last about 12 hours in the cat are Prozinc, BCP PZI, Levemir, and Lantus. Any other insulins generally don't last as long, so the pre-shot tests will be quite high. Dose adjustments, however, are based on the nadir, the lowest glucose post-shot.

What food? Low carb canned or raw food is recommended per the advice of Dr Pierson at Cat Info. I feed all of mine Friskies pates, which are low carb.

 

[Elizabeth and Bertie]

Hi Raven, and welcome to FDMB,

Bless you for 'not giving up on your little man'...

Do please tell us what insulin you've been using.
And do know that there are some 'higher dose' cats here on the forum: Some have specific high-dose conditions, and some just need more insulin than is 'typical'. But, as we say around here, 'the cat needs what the cat needs'. As long as the dose of insulin fits the cat's needs that's just fine.

Reassuring hug to you,

Eliz

 

[Raven]

Hi - thanks for your reply. He is stickly on the Vet Purina Diebetic medicine (Purina DM) canned wet food (cause my vet was try to say he was not responding cause I was feeding wet fancy feast pate) So .. we are doing it by the book until I can get him regulated. His insuline is Prozinc. Ive been reading the boards and have read that I can use a human glucometer to test (his pet test stips are 80.00 for 50) , so I will be testing him with both my human and his pet glucometer tonight for comparison.

 

[Alix]

Hi Raven,

You would probably get better answers for your question in the feline health forum but you are definitely in the right place!! there are so many members on this board that will help as we have all gone through the diagnosis of diabetes with our fur babies.

I am unsure of your treatment for the diabetes with drops, etc. but I will tell that in my opinion the Purina D/M is NOT a good food for a diabetic- you are better off with the fancy feast pate (chicken or beef) as it is better quality and a better choice. There is more food choices at www.catinfo.org which will provide you with lists of foods and their carbohydrate component (it is based on American products but I know that the Canadian fancy feast pate is the same as the classics)

There is no need to consider giving up on Spaz - diabetes is a controllable disease and all it takes is perseverance and persistence and patience. Your Spaz is not feeling good right now but that will change once he gets better regulated and he knows you love him just remember to breathe and give him some good scratches.

Alix and Scamp

 

[BJM]

See my signature link Glucometer Notes for info on how meters measure and feline reference ranges for various monitor types and readings.

 

[Chris & China (GA)]

From PM

We use a human glucometer, test strips and lancets - which are all very readily available and easy to use."
Ive been using a pet glucometer and the test stips are now 80.00 for 50 !!! I do have my own human testing kit at home (which I use) its a Bayer Contour. Do cats code the same as humans? (I heard they had less red blood cells in their blood which is why a pet glucometer should be used) . I think my next test will be with both the pet and human glucometer this evening to compare results

You just have to re-learn the numbers you're shooting for....The AlphaTrak runs about 1.35X higher than the human ones.

Instead of earning a reduction at 68 (AT), using a human meter means reductions when they drop below 50 (50 x 1.35 =68)

We hear that stuff about red blood cells all the time and the vast majority of us still use human meters because of the cost of the strips...with hundreds of us using them and our cats doing great, I think that tells the whole story of "which meter is better"

Where do you live?

Just took a look at your spreadsheet....Are you using the Glyburide pill now instead of insulin?

We do not like those pills because they force the pancreas to work harder to produce insulin....if you use insulin, that gives the pancreas a chance to rest and cats have the unique ability to "Heal" their pancreas so it can start working again (not always, but sometimes!) so it's important that it's not forced to work harder

Please post any other questions on the message board. The creator of the message board doesn't want us giving "advice" in Private messages since that defeats the "safety net" of being peer reviewed. If one person might give you bad advice, others have a chance to let you know why it's bad and correct it.

 

[Chris & China (GA)]

I understand you're in Canada....It's great that the spreadsheet converts the numbers from the World to US for those of us in the states that never learned the metric system....LOL

For you, you just multiply your number by 18 and you get "our" number (or you can look at the US part of your spreadsheet to see what number was already converted)