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Discussion in 'Feline Health - (Welcome & Main Forum)' started by Mitzelplik's Mom, Jan 24, 2015.

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  1. Mitzelplik's Mom

    Mitzelplik's Mom Member

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    Jan 24, 2015
    Hi everyone. Wish I'd found you sooner but better late than never. My 19-yr-old girl, Mitzelplik (Mitz for short) was diagnosed last April. It's been quite an adjustment but she's doing pretty well. I started learning to do home monitoring over the summer but couldn't get comfortable with it so I wasn't checking regularly. In November, the vet did a fructosmine test and said it looked pretty good and not to change anything. Mitz's dose at the time was 1.5 units of Prozinc 2x/day. About a month later, I decided to try the Alphatrak again and got a shock - 571 pre- evening shot! As nerve-wracking as it was for my husband & I to do it, we started checking several times a day that weekend and kept getting high numbers. Gradually adjusted her dose as vet advised over the next few weeks and finally started getting good numbers at 2.5 units. Last week, her high numbers were 250 or less, with lows around 100. I'm very happy with that and also happy that I can now check her on my own. She doesn't like it but is good enough to sit still for me just long enough and loves the head scratches I give her after.

    One of the biggest challenges we're having is recurrent urinary tract infections. Took off work 2 days ago when Mitz was distressed and vocalizing more than usual, in and out of her box every few minutes, and had pink urine. She spent a couple hours at the vet and is now on antibiotics and seems to be feeling much better. I however, am trying to recover from the sticker shock once again, and would like to find a way to prevent these repeat infections before I go bankrupt. When I asked a vet tech about it, she just talked about prescription foods, which I'm not interested in. I'm feeding her Wellness canned and Stella & Chewys raw. Started adding a homeopathic tincture for bladder and kidney health since her last UTI a few months ago but it's apparently not working. Hoping someone here might have good advice about other supplements to try. Thanks!
     
  2. phlika29

    phlika29 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 14, 2014
    Hi and welcome to the forum.

    It's great to hear you having success from the prozinc and blood testing.

    Most people here use a human glucometer and so I think it would be worth making a note in your signature that you are using an alphatrak (and prozinc) so people don't assume otherwise.

    I don't have any experience of urinary infections but this website is a great resource for cat food and I know it discusses urinary infections

    http://www.catinfo.org
     
  3. Mitzelplik's Mom

    Mitzelplik's Mom Member

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    Jan 24, 2015
    Phlika29, thanks for the link. I've learned a lot from her site but had not thoroughly read all the urinary tract info. I'll post a question on the health forum too. Thanks too for the tip to add info to my signature.
     
  4. Larry and Kitties

    Larry and Kitties Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Dec 28, 2009
    How long on antibiotics? Sometimes 30-day course is required.
    How were the UTIs diagnosed each time?
    How was it determined that they were "cured" each time?
    Was culture and sensitivity test performed on a urine sample to determine the best antibiotic?
    Did you use the same antibiotic and treatment length each time?
     
  5. Mitzelplik's Mom

    Mitzelplik's Mom Member

    Joined:
    Jan 24, 2015
    Hi Larry,
    Good questions. Upon diabetes diagnosis in April, a 14-day antibiotic injection was given, which seemed to do the trick. Mitz had been missing her box frequently and this problem stopped after that. Of course, she also started insulin at the same time. A few months ago, she was missing her box again and vocalizing right after going and seemed to be going more than usual. That time, the vet was not able to get a urine sample but gave the same antibiotic injection anyway. This time, they could draw any urine at first so kept Mitz for a few hours giving her fluids until they could get a sample for urinalysis. I was not able to speak with the vet when I picked her up but was told they gave her the 14-day antibiotic injection again so I assumed that meant she has an infection. After doing some more research this morning, I'm realizing I need to call the vet back and ask her the questions you're asking. This is frustrating for a number of reasons! There are many things I like about my vet - she supports my home monitoring, I can text her anytime and she usually responds quickly - but so many times I feel like I'm only given information if I specifically ask for it. I've had to be very proactive with all of this and keep realizing I need to be even more so. I don't like the idea of resorting to antibiotics all the time unless they are actually necessary but don't feel like I know enough to argue against it.
    Thanks,
    Joan & Mitz
     
  6. phlika29

    phlika29 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 14, 2014
    Hi Joan

    As you are hometesting can we get you to set up a spreadsheet in google docs and then link it in your signature

    Here is how you do it
    http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/...te-a-ss-and-link-it-in-your-signature.130337/

    The only bit I am not sure about is that you have an alphatrak and the numbers on the sheet are set up for human glucometer. Hopefully someone will advise.

    Still can't help on the urinary tract issues except to suggest watering down the wet a little food to get more water into mitz

    Love her photo :)
     
  7. Larry and Kitties

    Larry and Kitties Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Dec 28, 2009
    Mitz received Convenia. Convenia (manufactured by Zoetis) is an injectable long-acting antibiotic that is labeled for the treatment of skin infections in cats and dogs. It may not be the best or even a satisfactory antibiotic for Mitz's infection if she had an infection. Some cat have what is call idiopathic cystitis. That means inflammation of the bladder with cause unknown. Thus, a urine analysis is necessary and sometime a culture and sensitivity too. See:
    http://www.catinfo.org/?link=convenia
    and
    http://www.catinfo.org/?link=urinarytracthealth
     
  8. ramonaghan

    ramonaghan Member

    Joined:
    Dec 3, 2014
    Hi Joan! Just wanted to say welcome and respond to the AlphaTrak spreadsheet point @phlika29 mentioned. I use an AlphaTrak as well, and while I do think there's an AlphaTrak spreadsheet template floating around here somewhere, you can use the one @phlika29 linked to just fine. The main difference is that you'll often see the range for normal blood glucose numbers referenced on this board as 50-120, and that's for a human meter. For an AlphaTrak, normal is more like 68-150 or so. So while the green color coding on the generic spreadsheet only goes up to 99, just make a mental note that on an AlphaTrak "green" is really up to about 134. Likewise, blue is up to about 234. You can check out Henry's spreadsheet in my signature to see what I mean; I actually created a second tab where I manually color-coded for the AlphaTrak just so I could better gauge his progress visually. Hope that makes sense! You also want to always mention you're an AlphaTrak user if you're looking for dosing advice or concerned Mitz's BG might be going too low.
     
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  9. Mitzelplik's Mom

    Mitzelplik's Mom Member

    Joined:
    Jan 24, 2015
    Hi Rachel,
    Thanks. I was able to add the spread sheet to my signature but now I can't figure out how to add my data. Any suggestions?
     
  10. phlika29

    phlika29 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Sep 14, 2014
    You seem to have done it okay now. I see your numbers just fine

    Have you spotted that we have a prozinc forum. You might like to say hi over there
    http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/forums/prozinc-pzi.24/

    You might also like to ask questions on the main health forum as more people tend to look on there.
     
  11. Mitzelplik's Mom

    Mitzelplik's Mom Member

    Joined:
    Jan 24, 2015
    Yes, it took me a while but I figured it out. :cat: I have poked around on the prozinc forum and I'll definitely post a question on the health forum too.
    Thanks everyone!
     
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  12. Mitzelplik's Mom

    Mitzelplik's Mom Member

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    Jan 24, 2015
    Thanks for the info! I'll ask my vet about cyctitis.
     
  13. ramonaghan

    ramonaghan Member

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    Dec 3, 2014
    Sorry, I'm just now seeing this. Glad you're up and running now!
     
  14. Deb & Wink

    Deb & Wink Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 31, 2013
    I saw that your kitty Mitz gets frequent UTI's. My Wink used to also. What really seemed to help him were three things.
    1. Switching from low water content dry food diet to a high water content canned food diet.
    2. Adding more water to his canned food. Think applesauce consistency
    3. Getting his BG (blood glucose) levels under renal threshold (180-250 depending on your source).
    With all that extra sugar in his urinary tract system, it provides a perfect breeding ground for bacteria to grow. Less extra glucose. less for the bacteria to feed on.
     
  15. Meya14

    Meya14 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jan 2, 2015
    Did they rule out bladder stones? Can cause a lot of discomfort and inflammation as well.
     
  16. Mitzelplik's Mom

    Mitzelplik's Mom Member

    Joined:
    Jan 24, 2015
    Hi Deb,
    Thanks for responding. Mitz has been on only wet food since May (mix of canned and raw w/ a little extra water added) and her BG numbers have been getting better the last couple of weeks so I wasn't expecting another infection. I do need to talk to the vet to get more specifics though. They didn't actually tell me the results of the urinalysis.

    Joan & Mitz
     
  17. Mitzelplik's Mom

    Mitzelplik's Mom Member

    Joined:
    Jan 24, 2015
    I'll ask my vet about that. Thanks.
     
  18. BJM

    BJM Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Oct 6, 2010
    And bladder stones have nooks and cranneys where bacteria can hide out.
     
  19. Mitzelplik's Mom

    Mitzelplik's Mom Member

    Joined:
    Jan 24, 2015
    Good to know. She does seem to be feeling much better so I guess the antibiotic is helping but I'd feel better if I really knew what was going on.
    Thanks,
    Joan & Mitz
     
  20. Mitzelplik's Mom

    Mitzelplik's Mom Member

    Joined:
    Jan 24, 2015
    Rachel, how did you add the new tab? I can't figure out how to do that. Spreadsheets are not one my talents :p
     
  21. ramonaghan

    ramonaghan Member

    Joined:
    Dec 3, 2014
    I understand! I was a Literature major, so as you can imagine numbers and I go together like oil and water! :D Do you see a tab at the bottom of your spreadsheet? (It might be named Sheet1 or Numbers.) Right-click on that tab and select Duplicate. That will create a new tab with the duplicated sheet, named something like "Copy of Sheet1"; you can right-click on that tab to rename it "AlphaTrak Color Coding" if you want. Once you've done that, you should see an exact copy of your original sheet. Then you can change the coloring like so: 1) click the cell you want to change (say it's that blue 101 Mitz had on 2/7 and you want to make it green), 2) go up to the menu at the top of the sheet and select Format, 3) select Clear Formatting (which will clear the blue coloring and right-align the number in the cell), 4) click the little "Fill color" icon that looks like a pitcher and choose the correct green. VoilĂ ! (If you're OCD like me, you'll want to center the number in the cell, which you can do with the "Horizontal align" icon, three over from the "Fill color" pitcher.) There's probably a way to automate this, but again, I'm not a spreadsheet guru and this works well enough for me! Let me know if you get stuck.
     
  22. Mitzelplik's Mom

    Mitzelplik's Mom Member

    Joined:
    Jan 24, 2015
    Thanks so much! (I was an art major :)). I work on it this weekend.
     
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