Spreadsheet? New to this

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Leslie Doctor

Leslie Doctor

Member Since 2015
So many thoughts... My sweet 16 year old was just diagnosed. I switched her to a calorie control prescription dry diet this week and will try to slowly switch her to wet if she goes for it (has always refused it...). We're day day three of lantus one unit twice daily and today I home tested her for the first time 5.5 hours after her morning injection and got a reading of 104. Tonight I tested her again thirty mins before her PM shot and it was 431. :( I'm still learning what all this means.

What I really need is a spread sheet like you guys have. Where do I find one?

Also, we plan to visit my family in Austin over thanksgiving for five days and for five days again over Christmas. We live in Houston and it's a three hour drive. I guess I need to bring the cat with me? I shutter to imagine the cat, dog, baby and husband all together in that car. Poor kitty will be miserable. I could board her, but do places generally board cats that need injections twice daily? I can't imagine how much that costs. It's just now hitting me the implications of this diagnoses. We travel a lot and she's used to spending the weekends alone at home at least one weekend a month sometimes more. Gosh. We have friends who can check on her but none equipped to home test or give injects or stay with her. Also finances are soooo tight since we had a baby and I cut down to part time work. Feeling overwhelmed here!
 
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Here you go.

Spreadsheets: Our spreadsheet instructions are here. If you look at the signatures of the members here, you will see a link to their kitty’s spreadsheets. We keep track of all our tests. This is basically a place to collect data and help you to determine patterns, doses, etc. It also aids those that may be helping you to better understand your kitty.
 
Hi Leslie. Welcome to FDMB. It is overwhelming but there are a lot of knowledgable people who can help you here. It will get easier, really! I don't know how to set up spreadsheets but I will tag @Shiloh & Rhonda. Rhonda has helped other newcomers set up spreadsheets, and it really is helpful.

Congrats on already home testing. That's really important and it will give other people more info when you ask for help since they can look at her spreadsheet for patterns. Hugs and remember to breathe. :)

Shane
 
Excellent! By the way, the only dry foods that are under 10% in carbs are EVO Cat and Kitten and Young Again. I used both with my cat since she was a kibble addict and wouldn't touch wet food. You can find Evo at some pet stores or buy it online. Young Again is only available online. Are you in the US? These foods aren't available in Canada. Also, you can call the 800 number on the Young Again website and ask for samples and they'll send you free samples of their Zero Carb formula. :)
 
You could board her at a vet (preferably your vet) and they will do the shots. Otherwise, there are petsitters who are vet techs who can administer shots also, but they need to understand your shot schedule. Is there a tech at your vet who does petsitting? I would call and ask.
 
Hi Leslie -welcome -- I truly understand the emotions you are feeling - the diagnosis does have profound lifestyle implications that I too am trying to sort out - among the more vexing is what to do about traveling or even going out for a drink after work or out to dinner (depending on your shooting schedule). One idea that I saw a few months ago and intrigued me was to ask the vet if there are any other diabetic kitties close to you, and forming sort of a diabetic kitty coop- where the group of you would help each other out when you are away or can't be home- it's worth thinking about, especially since you live in a big city which increases the chance there may be someone close to you.

We're all trying to work through this together, so you'll get lots of both technical and emotional support here. Just ask for anything you need
 
I love that coop idea! I think for this vacation I will take her with us. She used to live with me at my parents house when I was in grad school and I can hate off the area she'll be in with me to keep her private from their dogs. I think it will be stressful but at least I'll be with her and she won't be alone. For shorter weekend trips the coop idea sounds good! You guys are so much help and so supportive!
 
SpecklesandMe said:
You could board her at a vet (preferably your vet) and they will do the shots. Otherwise, there are petsitters who are vet techs who can administer shots also, but they need to understand your shot schedule. Is there a tech at your vet who does petsitting? I would call and ask.
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granadilla said:
Excellent! By the way, the only dry foods that are under 10% in carbs are EVO Cat and Kitten and Young Again. I used both with my cat since she was a kibble addict and wouldn't touch wet food. You can find Evo at some pet stores or buy it online. Young Again is only available online. Are you in the US? These foods aren't available in Canada. Also, you can call the 800 number on the Young Again website and ask for samples and they'll send you free samples of their Zero Carb formula. :)
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will definitely work on a better food option so thank you. For now I just want to take things slow and ease our way into it.
 
This has some great advice for transitioning dry food addicts to canned food: http://catinfo.org/docs/TipsForTransitioning1-14-11.pdf

It's always tough dealing with diabetics when you need to travel for the holidays! Do you have any friends or family staying in your town that you trust enough to teach how to test and shoot? I've found it's a lot easier to teach someone to do the insulin shots than the tests, so at worst if you can find someone to come do the shots but not test, you could have them give .5u twice a day instead of the 1u while you're gone and not testing for the few days. I'm not sure where you live, but if it's a college town like Ithaca or Austin, it can be relatively easy to poke around and find a student staying for the break to pay to do the shots, or even house/cat-sit while you're gone. You would just have to meet them ahead of time and feel comfortable trusting them with measuring the dose. I am fortunate to have a lot of cat-loving friends who have been willing to learn to test and shoot and help me out when I'm out of town, and I'll leave syringes filled with orange juice or gatorade so that they can look and know exactly how much insulin they're supposed to give to help prevent accidental overdoses.
 
Julia & Bandit said:
This has some great advice for transitioning dry food addicts to canned food: http://catinfo.org/docs/TipsForTransitioning1-14-11.pdf

It's always tough dealing with diabetics when you need to travel for the holidays! Do you have any friends or family staying in your town that you trust enough to teach how to test and shoot? I've found it's a lot easier to teach someone to do the insulin shots than the tests, so at worst if you can find someone to come do the shots but not test, you could have them give .5u twice a day instead of the 1u while you're gone and not testing for the few days. I'm not sure where you live, but if it's a college town like Ithaca or Austin, it can be relatively easy to poke around and find a student staying for the break to pay to do the shots, or even house/cat-sit while you're gone. You would just have to meet them ahead of time and feel comfortable trusting them with measuring the dose. I am fortunate to have a lot of cat-loving friends who have been willing to learn to test and shoot and help me out when I'm out of town, and I'll leave syringes filled with orange juice or gatorade so that they can look and know exactly how much insulin they're supposed to give to help prevent accidental overdoses.
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Hi Julia - I haven't been able to find a pet sitter that will test - why do you think it's difficult to teach someone how to do that?
 
Carol C said:
Hi Julia - I haven't been able to find a pet sitter that will test - why do you think it's difficult to teach someone how to do that?
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I don't think it's difficult at all to teach someone to test. I've taught probably about 6 or 7 people how to test Bandit over the years, and a few diabetic cat owners in my area whose vets hadn't taught them in the office how to home test their cats (which is how I learned, and I didn't realize how uncommon that actually was until I came to FDMB). Sometimes it can be difficult to find someone willing to learn to test, because it seems scary to them. I was much better at convincing people to learn once I was really confident in doing it--in the beginning, Bandit fought me alot and was not the easiest cat to test. Now he comes over when he hears the meter beep on and sits patiently for whoever is testing him, so when I show people that they are definitely more willing to learn than when I had to burrito him in a basket when I first started out.

Shots were always far easier to ask people to do--I gave them while Bandit was eating so he didn't even notice he was getting them. I also realize I'm fortunate that there's a lot of vet students in my town, so they were less squeamish to teach than most on the occasions one of my friends couldn't do it.
 
Thank you so much Julia. I've decided to bring her with me since it will be several days and I know she's be better off with me. A friend showed me how to test and I'm so grateful. I think I will also feel more comfortable asking a friend to help if it was a shorter time frame such as just a day or two.
 
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