Hello I’m Caitlin Nashi’s Momma

Hi everyone! Just going to quickly introduce myself, I’m Caitlin.
More importantly for this message board, I’m Nashi’s mom.

My baby, the light of my life, feline love of my life, Nashi is an 11 year old beige house cat. He is definitely king of his castle and knows it all to well. I sometimes think he is not fully cat, but part dog and human. He is pretty much my constant companion, helps me with everything I do in the house on a daily basis and would follow me EVERYWHERE! He is a giant love bug, loves on everyone that he meets and demands lots and lots of pets.

Nashi was just diagnosed with diabetes a few days ago after loosing weight for a few months. I am here to get as much information as I can to be able to provide Nashi with the best care and life that I can.

 

Hi Caitlin and Nashi. Welcome to the forum, a wonderful place full of experience and knowledge. I'm sure that you will find it a fabulous place to be as you start your Feline Diabetes journey. This forum has helped me enormously and continues to do so. I'm sure like most of us were, you are overwhelmed, confused and scared but you have found a group of people that fully understand how you are feeling. I don't want to scare you off but there are a couple of things you need to do in order to get the best out of your experience here.

1) set up your signature that's the grey text that appears under my posts. To do this go to your name at top right and click, you will get a drop down and on the right you will find signature. Click and tell us, cats name (and yours), cats age, weight, sex and date of diagnosis. Type of Insulin and test meter you are using and any other medical issues Nashi might have. What you are feeding Nashi and geographic location. This just helps avoid members having to ask these questions over and over again. You may need to abbreviate things as it has a limited number of characters.

2) set up spreadsheet. There is a template available that we all use and if you follow the instructions it will link to your signature so everyone can see it. It's important for members to see this in order to help you with any dosing questions you may have. You will find the template and instructions on the board "Tech help" If you have any problems just post back and someone will help you.

So that's the housekeeping out of the way, do it when you can absolutely no pressure but it's a once and done situation and really helps.

Are you home testing already?

Again welcome to the forum and I look forward to seeing you around. Nashi is a gorgeous cat.

 

So so handsome. Welcome

 

Welcome Caitlin and Nashi. It's good to have you here so you can learn how to effectively care for Nashi on this new adventure.

Please do create the signature as Deirdre said, so we can see what kind of treatment vet is recommending for Nashi.

Insulin therapy is only one of the three basic components of diabetic care, the other two are a proper low carb diet and testing the blood sugar at home. We can provide information on all three, and add suggestions and input on what worked for us.

You can take a look at the FAQs forum HERE and look through the Index so you can see some of the types of information available to you. Not everything may apply right now, but you will see that the information you are looking for is here on the board, in the FAQs forum or on the other forums.

Going forward you can post concerns and questions in the Main Health forum so more members can see and respond. This Intro forum is only the welcome mat and we want to get you answers asap.

 

Thank you!

I will edit my signature as soon as I have the time to get on my home computer and do so, I think it’ll be easier that way.

I am not testing as of yet, have not had the time to go look at testing strips and meters, we just moved my boyfriend and his son into my place last weekend and with school starting I haven’t gotten much of a moment to stop and figure to much out.

 

We will help Caitlin, it's all new and confusing at first for sure. If you are in the US you can get a ReliOn Prime meter and strips at Walmart for about $20, and a box of 100 26 or 28 gauge lancets for $2 or $3 more.

When you get to your home computer look at this link about home testing:
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/hometesting-links-and-tips.287/

This is also very helpful for both testing and injecting:
Marje and Gracie's Testing and Shooting Tips

Videos, pictures and information that will help you get started, so read through the document. Testing is the best way to help prevent a hypo event (low / very low blood sugar) and will help you see how the insulin is working for Nashi. Testing before injecting a dose of insulin ensures that the blood sugar is high enough to "shoot", shooting blind can be very dangerous.

We know it all seems like a lot to learn at first, and to be honest, it is. But, step by step you will find that it's doable and you have a worldwide support group here.