18 year old newbie (the cat, not I)!

Hi all! My cat Devo is 18 years old and was diagnosed mid-September 2012. The diabetes came on quickly, because less than a year prior, he had a full work up (blood/urine tests) at the vet and was totally normal for a senior kitty.

Since being diagnosed, I have been lurking on this board and learning ALOT. Devo is maintainig his weight at 10 lbs, is on Lantus 1.5 units twice a day, eats approx. 1 can of Purina DM per day (pate or slices), gets Metamucil for constipation (it works, yay!), gets Zobaline 9 mg/day (only been on it for 1 month...not much change seen yet), and has access at night to dry Purina DM (long story, but we also have another cat who will wake up the entire household if he doesn't get food at night...so Devo has access to that cat's dry food).

Devo is well-regulated right now (numbers range in from 140-190), is eating/drinking/peeing normally, and I am seeing small improvements with his neuropathy. I do BG curves every month and spot checks every couple weeks, hoping to see signs of remission. No such luck. But, no huge spikes in either direction either. He has a pretty typical (Lantus) flat-ish curve.

My vet is tolerating my monitoring of Devo. I had him stay overnight at the vet's early on for his first BG curve, and it was a complete disaster. Didn't eat/pee/poop, they couldn't give his PM insulin, so no curve was done. Very stressful for the old kitty. I vowed then to just go ahead and monitor on my own. The vet called about 1 month post diagnosis for an update, seemed OK with my ability to describe how Devo was doing, and I haven't heard from her since. She implied she'd like to do a fructosamine test at 6 months, but unless she wants to make a house call, it isn't going to happen!

I had to make MAJOR lifestyle changes in order to be home to inject every 12 hours. I travel alot, and my regular cat sitter won't come to the house after dark, so she is only available for the AM shot. I have had to hire a second sitter for the PM shot when I am out of town. At this point, aside from the significant amount of money spent on pet sitters (hey...I'm officially a "job creator!"), we have a good system going with good communication between the sitters. Bottom line, I can maintain somewhat of a normal existance. Devo can live out his remaining time with us happy and healthy. So far so good.

Thank you to all you incredibly helpful people on this board! Devo's (and my) quality of life is huge because of you all!

 

hi Devo's Mom and welcome to the forum!

Glad to hear Devo is doing well and you're getting some tests in!

A couple of things stand out:
first, the food - you've probably read on the posts that most don't use the DM products. The wet is ok, I think, but expensive and the regular low-carb canned foods are just as good and some better for less money. The dry is a problem - too high in carbs. I know there are a couple of posters who do have their cats on dry food (most don't due to the dehydration issue) but I think the ones they use have very low carb - I'll try to look them up.

second, testing - do you or your pet sitters test before each shot? Very important to make sure its safe to shoot. If they don't, could you teach them?
Spot tests and curves would help you adjust the insulin and maybe move towards remission or lower numbers..but obviously difficult in your situation.

Best,
Denise

 

Hi Denise,
Thanks for your reply, and in answer to your comments: Devo really doesn't get much dry food, if any. He eats primarily wet, and at this point in his life, I'm OK with a couple kibbles per day of dry. I use DM because both cats actually like it, as opposed to the over the counter stuff. I've tried it all. The el cheapo stuff that looks and smells like excrement, all the way to the gourmet stuff that looks nice enough to feed it to your own kids! When I happened upon a single type of food that both cats liked, I stuck with it! So, I really don't care it it's on the pricey side. They go through less than 2 cans per day, so bfd about the price as far as I'm concerned! Quality of life issue here.

As for pre-shot testing: I do occasionally test pre-shot, and he's never been below 100, so I feel comfortable not testing each and every pre-shot to see if he's safe. I have recently increased the insulin by .25 units per dose based on observing his behavior, followed by several curves in a week (that was some good fun). This is the second time in 3 months that I have increased his dose by .25 units. I consider that pretty conservative, and given his age, remission is less likely than with a younger cat, so I think my expectations are realistic for him in that he is controlled. Being aggressive with dosage and risking hypoglycemia is not appropriate given his age and my lack of ability to be around consistently to monitor. So I think I've found a happy medium.

Have a good one!

 

Things can go 'oops' quickly with older cats, such as dental infections (very common).

Infection + not quite enough insulin + drop in appetite = fat breakdown for calories with ketone production which may lead to diabetic ketoacidosis. Since DKA can be fatal, you want to be alert for signs of it.

Take a look at my signature link on Secondary Monitoring Tools which provides info on urine ketone testing, among other options for monitoring.

 

Hi BJM, and thanks for the reminder about urine testing. Devo's in a good place right now; normal eating/drinking/peeing, so I am not concerned about ketoacidosis at the moment. I do realize it is a significant problem to be aware of, in case he does start to go downhill.
Good idea to know the signs and have some strips on hand, I suppose. Thanks.

 

Hi and welcome! You have some mad lurking skillz as you've obviously learned quite a lot already! :thumbup

It does indeed look like you've found a fairly happy medium. It's good that Devo has some nice numbers so far on the insulin but I do have a couple of suggestions that might help since we'd all rather see you having to reduce his dose instead of increase it. :lol:

Even though he's older, I still wouldn't completely rule out the potential for him to go into remission (or the opposite, as BJM mentioned nailbite_smile ). Cats like to surprise us all the time, so I hope Devo gives you a pleasant surprise! I agree with Denise & Honey about trying to get rid of the dry, if possible, as this will improve his chances of remission. One thing you might consider is that you can leave wet food out overnight for your other kitty as well. Just add extra water to it and it should be fine overnight. There's also the option of timed feeders and/or freezing it to allow it to defrost in time for when they have their midnight munchie attack. ;-)

I also have a recently diagnosed cat and I also have to travel for work (not as much as I used to, luckily). This last trip was the first time I was away from my cat since his diagnosis. At the very least, I'm sympathetic to your plight because I know how hard it was for me even though I was only gone for 3 days! My cat sitter happens to be my brother (who is living with me as my "indentured servant" while he's going to school), but I also trained a couple of friends on how to test and shoot Michelangelo as a backup. It was a good thing, too, because my brother's sometimes-boss ended up in the hospital with a heart attack while I was gone and my brother had to pick up all his jobs for him, so he couldn't take care of Mikey. Whereabouts do you live? If you're near a college or university (or perhaps even a high school), you might want to see if you could find someone to help you out full-time instead of having to hire two people for it, if that ends up becoming a problem.

One of the best ways to make sure your kitty is doing all right is by simply knowing your kitty's behaviors and patterns and it sounds like you have a fairly good handle on things so far. Other than that, everyone here is very friendly and there is always someone willing to answer any question you may have.

 

Hi KPassa,
Mad Lurking Skillz. I like it! I must say, while lurking, I have been impressed with the quality of helpful comments on this board, and the extent to which people have educated themselves about their furry little companions.

As for your thoughts on eliminating the dry food altogether, it is happening slowly. In my first post, I said there's a long story behind why we even offer dry food to begin with. There's another kitty in our home who knows that Devo is ill. He'll beat up on Devo by full-on body-slamming him or sitting on Devo's chest to cause him to start coughing and crying. Devo is a lover, not a fighter, so things get pretty bad because he doesn't defend himself. It's an amazing exhibition of culling the herd (young, healthy cat beating the sh-- out of the old ill cat).

BTW, this occurs only between the hours of midnight and 6 am. Every 2 hours. Every night. It is impossible to sleep through the commotion and inhumane to ignore it.

One way we distract our younger cat is to give him something to play with instead of antagonizing Devo. We purchased a ball with holes that you put kibble in, the cat biffs it around, and a piece of kibble pops out. A brilliant effing invention. It has allowed us humans to sleep about 5 hours straight each night. It has some other nice side effects too: the cat gets a little exercise, some cognitive stimulation, and most of all distraction from trying to kill Devo! There is only one minor negative side effect: Devo likes it too! He'll occasionally biff the toy and enjoy a little crunchy DM. The amount of dry Devo eats (and my other cat, for that matter) is negligible. We're talking less than 1 cup per week. A small price to pay for less trauma for all of us in the wee hours of the morning!

 

Hi Devo's Mom

Did you know that you can get catnip pellets that also work in those little balls with the holes? We have a civie here that is overweight and on a diet but is a couch potato so we also have one of those balls to make him get some exercise but we also have 2 sugarcats 1 of which is in remission. So to eliminate the chance of anyone getting into high carb food like Kibble as Autumn (my insulin dependent girl) is very carb sensitive and even a couple of pieces will shoot her BGs through the roof, we just got the catnip pellets and use those in place of the kibble.

Also there are some low carb freeze dried treats that are fine for Diabetics that will also work with those balls. Dr. Fosters online carry both the catnip pellets and the freeze dried treats.

Mel, Maxwell, Autumn & The Fur Gang

 

Ah! This explains much. Naughty youngster causing trouble while his Mom is sleeping. :lol:

And that is a lot less dry food than I was thinking you were feeding them from your initial post (I thought you were leaving dry food out for them to graze on at night). If you wanted, you could always test out Devo's carb-sensitivity by switching out the kibble with the freeze-dried treats or catnip pellets as MommaofMuse suggested, and seeing if that helps his numbers go down at all. Depending on how carb-sensitive your boy is, I'd consider this more along the lines of a "treat" and not a "feeding." ;-)

 

MommaOfMuse and KPassa,
I had read about the freeze dried treats, but the catnip pellets were a new one for me! Very cool.