Hi,
As BJ said, 'You do the best you can'.
Most people on this planet with diabetic cats
do not hometest. Not everyone has heard of hometesting. And not everyone who hears about it actually tries doing it. Those of us who
do hometest have an enormous advantage in managing feline diabetes.
I was a very reluctant hometester. I was totally convinced my cat would be
impossible to test. He didn't like being handled at all, and he weighed nearly 7 kilos and had very sharp teeth and claws...and...was a bit of a 'stinker'... However, he did have a weakness for freeze-dried chicken treats...and I exploited that... But our involvement with testing didn't happen overnight...
I'd get the test kit out, let him look at that, and give him a treat. I'd click the lancet pen close to his ear, and give him a treat. I'd rattle the test strip vial, and give him a treat. I'd massage his ear for a few seconds, and give him a treat. When I actually came to trying that first test for real it wasn't impossible
at all. (Which is just as well because Bert has turned out to be a particularly difficult diabetic). Now, I rattle the test strip vial and he jumps on my desk. Then I put down a couple of crushed chicken treats and test his ear while he's eating those. I don't have to hold or restrain him at all. I can even test him now when he's dozing in his basket; something I wouldn't have thought possible in a million years!
When I first asked my current vet about diabetic cats in his care and what their prognosis was he said that they usually lived for maybe up to two years after diagnosis. So far Bert has lived for six and a half years. My vet is
amazed!
Bert is the only cat in his care that is hometested. Those that aren't hometested go to the vet's clinic periodically for fructosamine tests and 'curves' (ie, they stay at the vets for a day and blood glucose tests are taken periodically to test out an insulin dose).
The truth is that hometesting has helped me manage Bert's diabetes in a way that never would have been possible otherwise, and it has also saved his life more than once.
Not everyone who hears about hometesting can actually manage to hometest. Some folks have really feral cats for example that cannot be handled at all. But it seems to me that those of us who even
might be able to hometest owe it to ourselves (and our kitties) to have go... After all, what is there to lose by trying...? If we try and don't succeed then we did the best we could and are just back where we were before. If we try and succeed then we have probably found the single most valuable tool there is (apart from insulin) to help us manage our cat's diabetes...
Eliz
