New to forum- cat diagnosed a couple years ago

Hello! I am new to the forum, but our cat (my husband adopted him before we met) was diagnosed around 3 years ago. At the time we switched Bhut (pronounced BOOT) from dry only to free fed dry and wet food meals with his insulin. We took him to the vet for his curves and we didn't really change anything.

Last year, we came home from our wedding night to find him in a hypoglycemic coma and rushed him to the E-Vet. His BG was like 20. Luckily he was revived quickly and he got to stay at the E-Vet for a week, while we went on our honeymoon (his "vacation" cost about as much as ours!)

We started him on a lower dose and he went into our vet for a couple curves and they suggested we start doing the curves at home. It has taken a while for us all to get used to it, but the last time we tested went pretty well. I think it's best when the hubby isn't around! We use the Alpha Trac 2, it's what the vet recommended.

The past couple months we've been trying to get him stabilized on between 1-2 units. His BG seems to be all over the place. We've had some issues- our "merged Brady-bunch" cat family hasn't been getting along and Bhut has had 2 abscesses in his tail in a 5 month period. Now the cats are separated and "my cats" are downstairs and "his cats" are upstairs.

The vet suggested we stop feeding the dry food. I've always seen it as a problem since everyone is free fed and how do you make sure everyone gets enough food? Now that they are separated, we are going to give it a shot. Bhut's "brother from another mother" has a history of urinary crystals, so he really should be on all wet food too. (I know it's best for all cats- the other 2 cats eat mostly wet, and the dry is like a back-up snack. I am going to look into a low carb dry food that I can have for everyone??)

So that's it. I see that people enter their numbers on a spreadsheet. Where is that on the forum? Do I need to know his weight? I could enter his curves for the past few months- we do not test him daily at this point.

Nice to meet everyone! I'll be around in the forums, reading stuff.

Katie

 

Welcome Katie and Bhut!
Glad you decided to do home testing and hope you will start testing, at least, twice a day before insulin shots . Here is the Spreadsheet template link: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/fdmb-spreadsheet-instructions.130337/
Home testing is the best tool in our FD kitty tool belts and has saved many a kitty from Hypo events.

If you could put some basic information in your signature, it will help before you head over to Main Health Forum: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/editing-your-signature-profile-and-preferences.130340/

And it is always good to have this, I hope you don't have to experience another hypo with Bhut: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/how-to-treat-hypos-they-can-kill-print-this-out.15887/

The two more acceptable dry foods for diabetic cats with civvie (non-diabetic) roomies are Young Again Zero / Zero Mature (Purchasable online only, they will send a free sample if you contact them. Awesome customer service) and EVO Cat and Kitten in a purple bag. Adding 1-2 tabelspoons of warm water to wet food can help Bhut's brother. We have a couple kitties with crystal issues and added water has helped them a lot.

Please post any additional questions on the Main Health Forum

 

I second the young again and evo, it's what I leave out because my diabetic is definitely a kibble eater. I do give her wet food twice a day as well. there's one other dry that's ok... I think made by orijen? but I haven't used that one. other than that, only wet food is ok. Even the perscription dry diabetic food is way too high in carbs.

Now that being said, there's no reason you can't leave out extra wet food. I have 6 cats, all of whom are grazers... I just leave out more wet food than the eat in the morning and there's always extra by the time it's time for their dinner.

If you don't have air conditioning and you are afraid it will go bad in the heat you can freeze some of the food and put out the frozen food that will eventually melt and be fine to eat. You could also get timed feeders and put ice in the bottom.

 

I'm ordering the EVO from Chewy now!
I downloaded the Spreadsheet and will put in the numbers I have.
I think I added a signature..

 

Signature is working and SS can open