Anxious cat mom

Hi everyBody

Thanks Chris and Teasel for the direction.

Hi all

My 14 (+/-) year old ginger girl was diagnosed with diabetes just over 2 weeks ago. She was also diagnosed as a 'sick' diabetic and has spent a lot of time at the vet. She initially had some kind of infection which seems to have cleared after 2 doses of antibiotics and 4 sessions with an energy healer.

She is currently on 1 unit of Lantus every 12 hours or so - we're adjusting to the schedule and I'm working round mine.

I have just invested in a glucometer as the vet advised me to check her blood sugar before her shots - luckily - because her sugar was really low tonight. I have a Bayer Contour TS and we work in mmol/L - I've found a converter.

I am not to give her a shot unless her mmol/L is over 15. (270 mg/dl). Tonight it was 5.4.

She is eating so little, and is just skin and bone. ANY suggestions of tempting food are welcome - she has her regular pellets available, plus human tuna, cat tuna, really expensive tiny cans of food, home-made chicken stock, fresh spring water and the skanky water that she favours - a pot plant container with old sand at the bottom..

Her pellets are Hills j/d mobility.
The human tuna is a local supermarket brand - in brine. White meat tuna. The vet said anything that she will eat is good.
The cat tuna is also a local supermarket brand in brine - red meat tuna.
The current wet food is Friskies - Tuna and Salmon and Chicken and Seafood. Also Fancy Feast Gravy Lovers (Salmon). She's a fish girl.
I have also made Chicken stock and boiled chicken...
I've just defrosted Chicken livers ....

All input most welcome. I don't believe that she's ready to give up, but I'm not sure how more to help her.

I will speak to the vet again tomorrow about her eating. They were giving her anti-nausea shots and appetite stimulants.

I have given her some spring water and chicken stock by syringe and given her some Fancy Feast by hand - like I would feed her a pill... :-(

Looking forward to your help.

PS: I live in Africa, so your local remedies may not be available!

 

Hi Jenny. Sounds like you are off to a pretty good start. Lantus is a good insulin for cats, and you are home testing. About diet - any of the pate foods like Fancy Feast or Friskies or Whiskas (if you have it) are good. The gravy foods are too high in carbs for a diabetic cat. Dry food generally is also not recommended due to high carbs and lack of moisture. All that aside, she must eat so whatever she wants is what she should have in the short term.

A few thoughts on encouraging her to eat - sometimes warming the wet food a bit releases the 'fine aromas' and kitties will eat. We use freeze-dried chicken dust from the bottom of the bag and that often gets them eating. Do you have Fortiflora? Sprinkling a bit on the food sometimes works too.

Does she look at the food and then look away, or even lick her lips? This is often the sign of nausea. An anti-nausea shot may help, but sometimes a quarter of a Pepcid about 20 minutes before feeding will also help. Check with your vet to see if this is an option for her. My cat had chronic pancreatitis and I gave him a quarter of a Pepcid twice a day for several years.

Cats feel awful while their bg is bouncing up and down. Your 5.4 bg is in the normal range, but you still need to keep testing. If you can get mid-cycle (a cycle is 12 hours) tests, it will really help you to know how the insulin is affecting her.

 

Hi Jenny - you are getting good advice already. That is great that you are testing before dosing, really great. There are a lot of good resources on this forum, especially in the FAQ section at the start of each subforum (ie. the Lantus subforum). Lantus is a good insulin for cats.

When cats are first diagnosed (dx'ed) they have often lost a lot of weight because of the lack of insulin. Once you start dosing, that should help her start to have extra calories to put some weight back on.

 

Thank you both so much. Will chat to the vet this morning and ask about Fortiflora and Pepcid. And follow up on the Lantus forum.

She does look at food, and even smells it, but then turns away, not much lip-licking. I have been popping small pieces of wet food into her like pills, but I don't like it, and I'm sure she doesn't like it much either.

 

What did the energy healer do for Kitkat?

 

Hi - She spiked a fever while at the vet after her diagnosis and improved after a dose of antibiotics, but then got worse again. The energy healer told me that she still had some kind of infection and worked on clearing that and boosting her immune system. I also asked for another dose of antibiotics and she's SO much more alert than she was, just still not that keen on eating.

I have been adding warm water to her food since her diagnosis to entice her to eat, but when she's not eating it doesn't work.

I checked out the remedies suggested above - Pepcid is not available in this country, and the vet didn't seem to think that something similar or Fortiflora would help (And I nearly fainted when I saw the price of Fortiflora... R1 106 before delivery (that's +/- $85 - is that what you pay?))...

I gave her an anti-nausea shot today (but she pulled away so she didn't get a full dose), and half an appetite stimulant - Cipla-Actin. I'll give her the other half of the pill in a couple of hours, but she has eaten more today than she has for days - a little Fancy Feast, a little licking of chicken stock and two small portions of cat tuna.

 

Pepcid is just the trade name for one brand of Famotidine. Is Famotidine available in your country?

 

I never bought FortiFlora. But I looked it up. In the U.S. it is $26 pre-shipping for 30 packets. So ~$1.00 per packet.

 

What I meant was, is the Energy Healer a Holistic type of medicine? We've probably all seen the light go out of a cat or dogs eyes and there's no scientific explanation for that!

 

To my understanding, an Energy Healer is a person which can also be known as doing a form of Reiki. I knew someone who did Energy work on fur babies.

 

Just Google Reiki? I do this massage thing with Noah when it's dark and very quiet, just us, and he melts. Have to be very careful though, he's old. Maybe it's just some more love he's feeling. The funniest thing is when he won't eat I pull on his tail (gently) and then he eats. Is there a name for that?

 

Maybe the gentle tug on his tail relieves pressure for him to be comfy enough to eat?

 

I'll definitely check up on Pepcid - thanks Larry and Kitties.

 

Thanks for the Reiki mention - I do Kahuna massage, so have been giving her little Kahuna sessions and will add to that - and I know that brushing her made a BIG shift when she got back from the vet the second time, so I do that after I do her BG check and give her her shot. I'll check out the Reiki - and pull her tail gently .

I also re-read the Fortiflora mention above and found another thread about it - so will chat to the vet again today - if I can just get one sachet to try I'll definitely do it and
I'm going to make her the Liver Shake today - and see how that goes - she drinks far more easily than she eats at the moment.

So grateful to have found you all! This is a real roller-coaster!

 

Always a surprise where cats do and do not like to be touched. Whatever helps. We have a fearless tiny cat, Daniel, that can be held upside down and he thinks it's a riot. It looks like you've got him by the back legs but obviously you have him by the back ribs and shoulder blades. It's not for everyone but I have a great chiropractor who has an associate that works on horses. My advice is to stay away from chiropractors practicing out of a creepy old house where something smells bad. One bad experience and people NEVER go back. They have to keep up with their education like any other doctor. The "crack" has been illegal here for 15 years.