Hecate: Newly diagnosed and started on Lantus

Hello all,

My name is Hecate. I'm a 15 year old long-haired tortie, and my mom just found out that I have diabetes. I had a bad UTI which meant she finally took me to the vet, and we discovered my high BG values. I'm on day five of Lantus, and I spent the whole day between 120 and 220 (as measured by AlphaTrak2). She's hoping that the next 24 hours will bring me completely below 200. She took away my dry food, which made me sad, but it means I get to eat lots of tasty tuna wet food.

Anyway, I'm on a low dose right now (0.75 units of Lantus) and we're hoping that with a change to a low-carb diet, I won't have to keep taking insulin for very long, since I haven't been diabetic for very long. My numbers were totally normal less than a year ago (Nov. 2014).

Here's hoping we never have to post any problems here!

 

Welcome to FDMB.

What questions do you have?

Here are some Secondary Monitoring Tools to help your person know how you're doing.

 

Welcome Hecate, you sure are beautiful! It sounds like your mom has things pretty much in hand. Lucky you! Since you had a UTI at diagnosis, it is possible that may account for such high numbers and yes now that you're better from that and getting on the low carb food hopefully you'll be regulated quickly(paws crossed!)

 

Have you had a chance to read this article? www.catinfo.org

Great information in that article and has a list of low carb food that you can choose from. Be sure to only eat fish once a week due to the high mercury content. Holler if you have any questions. Oh, it would be good to set up a spreadsheet. Our spreadsheet instructions are here.

 

Hi Hecate! Your mom or dad could also post any questions on the Lantus forum. The people there have LOTS of advice and knowledge. You're in good hands here.

 

Yes, I have looked extensively at that site. Hecate loves the BFF foods, and she's also been on a beef kick since she started getting sick. So, she mostly gets beef and tuna. I also discovered a supposedly zero carb dry food that I ordered from here: https://www.youngagainpetfood.com/. It's supposed to come tomorrow, and I have high hopes. Does anyone here have any experience with their food?

 

I gave the YA dry food to Marshmallow and she loved it. It didn't raise her BG.

 

Hecate is doing well so early on.

YA is not really zero carb, more like 5%, but still reasonably low. Lower or zero carb foods are not necessarily better. You want something under 10% carb, and a lot of people feed carbs in the 4-5% range. If you read the Catinfo web site, you'll see that low carb wet or raw is better than dry for many reasons.

 

YA has two types of food. One is less than 6% starch, and the other they say is less than 1% starch. The second is the one I bought, and they claim that it can promote remission in newly diagnosed diabetic cats within 5 weeks! I don't expect any miracles, but I do hope for remission.

Hecate LOVES her crunchy dry food, so I wanted to get something that wouldn't spike her blood sugar, but would still give her the pleasure of crunching on something. I plan to leave the dry food out for her, and also give her low carb wet food.

A different question. Hecate has been very itchy, and grooms very aggressively. I've treated her for fleas (which is what the vet claimed was the problem), but it doesn't seem to help much. Do diabetic cats get neuropathy and tingling like humans do?

 

Yes, the YA folks claim it's zero or less than 1% but it's not by the way we calculate things. Some people do feed a little YA and if kitty will not transition to wet or raw food, it is an alternative.

Diabetic cats can get neuropathy, but it usually manifests in problems walking. Go to Youtube and you can see some pictures there of cats with neuropathy. People use methyl B12, in the form of Zobaline for that. Another common problem for itchiness is allergies. As it turns out, beef and fish are two common sources of allergens. Try removing beef for a couple of weeks and see if it makes a difference. If not, then try the fish.

 

We calculate the percentage of calories from carbohydrate; YA comes out to about 5% calories from carbohydrate.
There is some stored carbohydrate in the liver.