Ziggy's Mom - here's your post!

[Sue and Oliver (GA)]

My cat Ziggy just got diagnosed 2 weeks ago. He went in initially to have a cyst looked on his leg. He was not eating and losing weight so I feared it was cancer. The Vet said he had a lesion on one of his smaller front teeth and needed it to be extracted when he gets his dental and cyst removed. She said the good news is that i don't have to do it right now. Bad news is he is diabetic. So now I am learning to give prozinc 2x a day 4units. Is the bad tooth (which I can hardly see) part of the diabetes symtoms?

Hi,

I started a new topic for you - afraid you would get lost at the end of Molly's post. Sometimes bad teeth increase blood glucose levels, but bad teeth are not usually a part of the diabetes in every cat.

Did your vet do a fructosamine test to determine diabetes? It is a blood test that he sends out to get the levels for the past few weeks. Sometimes if the vet says it is diabetes just based on one test in the office, that number can be greatly influenced by vet stress (and in Ziggy's case, tooth pain). That is one of the many reasons we test at home, where the kitty is relaxed, eating his own food, not stressed by white coats and other animals, smells and sounds. We would love to teach you how to test at home; we have helped hundreds of people over the internet.

I am concerned that Ziggy's dose is quite high. We suggest starting low and going slow. We raise the dose based on hometesting. Our theory is that it is easier to increase the dose in small increments as the hometesting guides us. It is impossible to get the insulin out of the cat after it is given if the dose is too high. If he were mine, I would start hometesting today to see how that much insulin is affecting him.

The other part of our protocol is wet, low carb food. When we switched Oliver from dry to wet, he went down 100 points overnight! But we wouldn't suggest your doing that until you are testing. (If we hadn't been testing the next morning and given the usual dose, he would have hypoed.)

Here is a big document on ProZinc that will give you lots of excellent information:

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=32799

This forum is not as busy as the Health forum. If you have an urgent question, be sure to post it there:
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewforum.php?f=28

 

[ziggy]

Thanks for your advise. Ziggy is a 15 lb maine coon on prozinc. He is getting 4 units 2x a day. Maybe that will help you understand his dosage. He is a big cat. Not fat. Just big. I do test him at home but he never gets under 250. I have him eating friskies patte even. He has gained weight and is normal now. He goes in for his 2nd BG curve on Nvember 5th at the vets office. How long do they take before they get stabilized? I wonder why his #'s are not getting better. As far has his teeth, I don't see a real issue here. But the cyst on his paw has not gone away. So I am sure we will get a dental and tooth extraction when he gets that cyst removed. Thanks for the help posting this. I was having issues figuring out how this link worked. cat(2)_steam

 

[Sue and Oliver (GA)]

It is wonderful that you are testing at home! That can help you see what is happening and how he is using the insulin. Can you do a curve at home - testing every 2/3 hours during a 12 hour cycle? That will show you how soon after the shot the insulin starts to work and how low it takes him in the middle of the cycle. You could share the numbers with your vet, and here to get some advice on the dose.

We think curves done at home are much more accurate than ones done at the vet. Stress raises blood glucose levels and most cats are stressed at the vet - strange noises, smells, other animals and people. We worry that numbers gotten there can be artificially inflated by stress, and then doses based on those numbers not accurate.

To reply to this thread, you click on the subject, choose First Unread Post at the top right and read the first new reply. To start a new thread, choose New Topic, write your new post and Submit. Were you able to click on the blue links I posted and go to those threads? To include a new link, I went up to the top bar where the URL is, highlighted and copied it. Then pasted it in the box on your thread. To make it link usable once it is in the thread, I highlighted it and hit the URL button (up above the box in the line with the other buttons like B for Bold and I for Italics) Complicated, I know, but once you get the hang of it, it is fairly easy.

If you would like help maneuvering around the site. Choose the little pm button in the bottom left hand side of my post. That will take you to a box you can use to send me a private message. we could take by phone sometime and together move around the site, you on your computer and me on mine.

We feel diabetes in cats is a disease managed at home, just like people do - testing their blood sugars and adjusting the dose. We can help you do that if you want; you test at home and post your numbers and get ideas about how to adjust.

Let us know how else we can help.