Vet Visit For Diabetes Info

My cat, Sam, a 14 year old tabby, was diagnosed with diabetes yesterday based on a urinalysis and the fact that he was peeing twice as much as usual. I got the ReliOn glucometer last night and was able to get a reading, although today it was much easier and I didn't stick myself. Sam relaxed once I showed him the things I was using and took my time. I found that the 30 guage needle lancet used with the spring thingy gave him very little pain (he didn't seem to even notice it) and the ReliOn product needed so little blood that his ear didn't even continue to bleed afterwards. His readings were 323 last night, 189 early this morning, 396 mid-morning and 422 mg/dl after his lunch.

Today I went to my vet at the Cat Hospital Of Collin County (with my readings) here in Texas, and she showed me how to use the syringe, measure insulin dosage and tried to assure me that it's not as difficult as it first seems, especially my after reading all the advice and watching so many YouTube videos on diabetes in cats, and to try to relax. Although she did give me a prescription for Lantus, I'm supposed to wait a couple of weeks and see if I can't get Sams levels down with just a change to an all wet food diet. She said his numbers aren't terribly high so it gives me time to try an alternative and also since I just noticed the urine increase last week. He's been on half dry and half wet diet, but all his snacks were also dry and high carb, so maybe leaning toward more dry than wet. He was getting Hills KD because previous bloodwork indicated a borderline change in kidney function and I was hoping to avoid kidney problems down the road. His last bloodwork however showed normal kidney function, but I stayed with the KD. He likes the fancy feast classic, and has also been getting Wellness Core pate so I don't think it will be difficult to transition him off the Hills. I'd gotten a trial size of EVO and he loves it, so I'll use that for treats.

The only other problem he's had is occasional vomiting clear fluid mid-night, early morning. He hasn't had the problem for several months but it started up (suspiciously) the same time as the urine increase last week. Previously giving 1/4 pepcid at night for a couple weeks and then just providing a meal very early in the morning (via his auto food hopper), seemed to work till this last episode. I've been giving him 1/4 pepcid since.

I have my doubts that the diet change can work, but I'm hoping to see changes in his numbers. I'll follow up with the progress.

 

You are doing awesome for only finding out yesterday! Your vet seems like she is familiar with treatment. I think its a good sign that he was less than 200 this morning. It will be interesting to see what a low carb diet will do. You want less than 10% carbs for the wet food. We suggest having the Lantus prescribed as a pen and drawing out the doses into a syringe. These are my favorite syringes to use. They have half unit markings which is important. https://www.adwdiabetes.com/product...100-syringes-30g-3-10cc-5-16in-100ct-1-2-unit

I used to live in Frisco, but 6 years ago I'm sure the area has exploded. We still had country roads and farm land nearby.

 

Welcome. Does he have access to food overnight?

 

If it's in his dish he'll just eat it immediately, so I have a hopper set to drop a few pieces of his usual dry food at about 4 a.m. till we get up and I'll give him wet food. My vet said to transition slowly so I'm still able to give him the dry for a few more days. I'll have to work out something else once he's not getting the dry anymore. I have another automatic feeder and maybe I'll use that to keep his wet food covered till early morning too. Did you have a suggestion? I asked at the young again web site if they could send me a sample of their food too.

 

Thanks for the suggestion about the pen. So you get it as a pen and then use a syringe to remove a specific amount? I'll have to look that up since I don't understand how that works differently than drawing up the amount directly from the bottle.

 

Unregulated diabetic cats need more food because their bodies can't utilize the nutrients properly. I would recommend getting a timed feeder for a wet meal around 1am. The puking was probably from having too empty of a belly. You also want to make sure not to feed at least two hours prior to the preshot test.

 

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll set some up tonight. I'm not giving injections yet so I don't need to worry about the time he eats. He always nibbled on the dry food when the hopper opened early and sometimes didn't finish all at once. I wondered how I was going to work that preshot test out when he eats like that. I also worry about feeding him too much because he weighs almost 19 pounds.

 

It's the same as pulling from a vial, except you don't push air into the pen to equalize the pressure since the pens have their own vacuum.

The pens are just like having a "mini-vial" that only holds 3ml instead of 10ml in a vial, so you're much more able to be using every drop instead of throwing half a vial away when the insulin starts to lose it's efficacy.

You might want to consider getting your Lantus from Canada.....it's about half to 1/3rd the price compared to here in the US. Here's Information on buying insulin from Canada. If it weren't for Marks, a lot of us might not be able to afford it! They're wonderful!!

 

You might want to get one of the Petsafe5 auto-feeders. You can program it to open up anytime you want them to have a meal, and then program it to move to an empty space 2 hours before shot times so there's no food available

 

Thanks so much for all the information! I'm going to check it out.

 

Great idea, I have one of those but didn't think of using it like that!

 

We know lots of little tricks to make this disease more manageable!

 

And they're really appreciated!