VERY Senior Cat and Diabetes Diagnosis

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Spencercat

Member Since 2016
Hello! I am hoping I could get some honest feedback from anyone who has dealt with a very senior cat and diabetes. My cat Spencer is 17 or 18 years old (I adopted him from a friend who can't remember if he was born in 1998 or 1999, I also realized I missed up his ages in my intro, argh!) He is an Abyssinian. We have had the most amazing relationship in the ten years I have been his guardian. He is a lovebug and wants to be around humans all the time. We noticed that he was drinking a lot of water and peeing a lot on Friday, took him to the Vet first thing on Saturday morning. His tests came back showing that he had a UTI, diabetes and elevated kidney levels (I forget the technical term used). We left with antibiotics for the UTI and instructions to get high protein food. We are going back in 3 weeks for a check up.

I am weary of the cost and maintenance BUT I am mostly concerned about torturing my good friend and buddy when he has up to this point had a lovely life. He HATES anyone touching his ears, so home testing will be a nightmare...I just don't want him to live in misery and hate me for giving him shots when he is so old....Any thoughts? I am stuck on what to do. Am I treating him for my sake or his? What is best for him? How can I know what to do?
 
Hi Spensercat,
I replied to your post in the Intro forum, but just wanted to add a couple things here.
First, as far as being "senior," my vet has a patient who is 23 and has been successfully managing diabetes for years!

Diabetes does not have to be too expensive. You can use commercial food that is just as good or better than prescription diets. Depending what insulin you end up on, there are places where you can order it cheaper, and if you take good care of it, it can last a long time.

Most cats get used to the ear testing, even the ones that don't like it at first. But if that doesn't work for you, there are people who also test with the pads on the paws.

Others can give you a lot more info on these things than I can, since I'm pretty new to all this, but I just wanted to give you encouragement -- there will be challenges, but you WILL overcome them.
 
Hi Spenser's Person and welcome to you both.

Did your vet run a fructosamine test as part of the diabetes diagnostics?


Mogs
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Welcome. Getting the fructosamine test will tell you if the glucose number has been elevated for a while, or if it was just temporarily elevated because of vet stress or possibly the UTI. I've never had one done on any of the cats I've treated, but if you are wavering on treating it might help you know for sure if diabetes is present.

Treating diabetes is not torture. We are now on our 6th diabetic cat for treatment. Yes, there is a week or so of the cat and you getting used to things, but if you ask anyone who has done this long term you will find out that you adjust, the cat adjusts, and the bond between you and the cat becomes much much stronger. What will be torture is to leave an diabetic untreated. Their bodies cannot process food correctly and they will literally starve to death while being ravenously hungry. He can continue to have a lovely life with diabetes untreated. It will take a little commitment on your part for giving him the meds and right food, but he can be quite happy with diabetes. There is even the possibility with the UTI cleared up and some treatment of the diabetes that it goes into remission and all you'd need to do is maintain proper diet.

My eldest is 18 going on 19. If she were to be diagnosed as a diabetic I probably wouldn't test her as aggressively as I do the fosters because she puts the 'tude in torti-tude. But I'd treat her to make sure she stays feeling good and test her enough to keep her safe.

It is always a balance in our seniors.
 
The elevated kidney values were probably BUN and Creatinine. They could be elevated due to the diabetes and/or the UTI and may fall once both issues are addressed.

This foods list is one of the best ones as it covers the values of many ingredients of concern particularly phosphorus which is something you may want to watch until it is determined whether or not Spencer is in Renal Failure. So you may want to consider a food that is not only low in carbs, high in protein but also lower in phosphorus (1% or less). http://www.felinecrf.org/canned_food_usa.htm#canned_usa
 
Outcast said:
Is fructosamine level around 600+ bad thing? just curious...
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You'd need to know what the intervals are in order to interpret the test result (different ranges have different significance). Saoirse had one done recently and it was around 370 which was only 10 points off being classed as diabetic according to the information our vet provided and the reference range of the lab equipment used.


Mogs
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I'm a paw pad tester, works great. Cats have little feeling in the pads and they bleed quite easily. The hole seal very quickly, making infection from the the litter box nearly impossible. In fact, usually if need to retest, I almost always have to re-poke.
 
My baby is a senior, he's 17 and was diagnosed about 7 months ago. He doesn't even acknowledge the shots, I don't think they hurt much (tiny, thin little needles). He's not crazy about me testing his ears but he lets me do it. Yes, when we first started, I thought he felt betrayed by me and didn't want to be around me-honestly, sometimes I think WE feel guilty and incorrectly interpret reactions in our kitties as a result-but that quickly turned around and now we have an even closer relationship than we did before (and we've always been very close, he was born and raised here with me). He has a little bit of kidney trouble, too, but basically is a very happy, reasonably healthy kitty!
 
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