New mommy... scared to death

Hi all,

Glad I found your board. My 15-year-old, 23-lb Maine Coon JAKE was acting "strange" Saturday night. I slept on the floor with him after he urinated on the kitchen floor (never done before), then took him to the emergency vet clinic on Sunday. I've spent all day yesterday and most of today browsing through the websites and trying to learn as much as possible. Honestly, it's overwhelming, as you know.

His blood sugar was 599, and he stayed with ER vets overnight, going to our normal vet this morning for the day. The ER vet said he'd responded well to the insulin, with levels going all the way down to 115 before bouncing back up to 250. I've not had a chance to see Jake again today or talk to the regular vet yet, but she called to say we had to go purchase insulin since they didn't keep it in stock at the vets (which seemed odd). The assistant had said Walmart was the best place to buy that it was a lot cheaper, maybe like $25.00. But when we went to pick it up it was $300 for the vial!!

I spent Sunday doing research on diet. I have 3 indoor cats, all of whom will be getting a diet change. They have all been Purina Cat Chow grazers, and have split 1 can of Fancy Feast pates daily (more of a treat than anything, either Ocean Whitefish/Salmon/or Seafood Feast). So they are already on board with the wet, I'm not sure they will be happy giving up the dry.

I plan to go hunt down some EVO and try and wean them off dry food totally. I'd like to continue with the FF pates since they seem to be acceptably low in carbs, and to eventually go completely canned food.

I would very much like to try to get him regulated to where he doesn't need insulin. I'm going to be out of the country for a month in June, and I'm not totally sure how on board the hubby is going to be with 2x shots per day. What are the chances that I can make with work without insulin, and if we want to head in that direction, am I on the right track with diet or is there something else we should look at? Are there pills that might work? Hubby can give a pill pocket I think.

Thank you for any thoughts!
srhfoster

 

Welcome! We all remember how frightening and overwhelming this is at the start. There's lots of help and support here. Please repost your message on the main health forum where more people will see it.

 

If I were you I would not stop insulin, not with a reading of 599. Your cat is definitely diabetic. My boy has been diabetic going on four years and still is not regulated. He also eats Fancy Feast Patae. No treats or dry food. You must keep a check on his blood sugar. You need a meter. There is one called Relion.
I have one but ended up getting a feline meter from my vet. I get strips on line as they are alot cheaper. His insulin I get from Canada which costs me $125.00 for a vial. They also sell pens. The vials can last for six months as long as you treat them right. Keep refrigerated. Do Not take insulin out of vial and then push it back in as that will ruin insulin. As long as insulin is not cloudy or have specs in it, it will be fine. I use mine to the end of the vial, with no problems. Diet alone will not control his diabetes.

 

Welcome!

There's no good pill option for cats, unfortunately.

What kind of insulin are you using? From the cost, sounds like you might have been prescribed Lantus. Pro: it has a great track record of getting cats into remission. Con: the cost (at least in the US). We have ways of saving on buying the Lantus, by buying smaller quantities (pens, not vials) and ordering from Canada (you need a prescription to do this).

There are no guarantees when it comes to cats and diabetes-- some cats will go into remission fairly quickly, others never will. The two best things you can do to give your cat the best chance of remission is to change over to a wet low-carb diet (which you are already doing), and to learn to home-test blood glucose to better manage dosing. It's kind of a steep learning curve to do it, but if you post questions in the main forum (Feline Health), we'd be happy to get you started on that!