Hello - Pudding in London Here

Hello, my cat is called Pudding he's aged 11 and he lives in London. He's been quite poorly recently but is hopefully on the way to recovery, especially as I've now found this site.
Pudding was diagnosed with diabetes about 3 weeks ago. However, after about three days on insulin he went completely off his food and he was taken in as an emergency. At this point he was diagnosed with an AV block. Fortunately he was referred to the Royal Veterinary College Hospital and 11 days ago he was fitted with a pace-maker. His heart is now doing well, he was discharged just over a week ago and he is recovering well after his op.
But, he still has a problem with his diabetes which was initially poorly controlled even whilst in hospital. He's at the vet today having a glucose curve taken. It was very high when tested there - 36 mmol/l.
Currently he is on the Hills diabetic food - about which I have read nothing positive - and I am keen to do something about his diet - eg something like Lily's Kitchen looks good. Obviously I have to learn to test him at home first. The vet showed me how to do it today and I'm keen to learn. I wonder if anyone in the UK could recommend a good glucose meter. I've found one online for pets called the g-Pet made by a company called Woodley but it looks as if they may not be easily available as Amazon say they are out of stock. Any suggestions would be warmly welcomed.

 

Hello and welcome. Does Pudding have any other health issues and what insulin is he on? A low carb wet food is best, you don't need a specialist food @Elizabeth and Bertie has a UK specific wet food list and would be able to advise you further on that. I am using Purina DM canned but that is because Cappuccino has some other health issues. If you want to go with a specialist diabetic food this is the best to go with. Just a thought - but RVS run a specialist diabetic remission clinic and were recruiting for a trial a couple of months ago - they offer free food and insulin for a year, not sure if they are still recruiting though.

I use the AlphaTrak2 pet meter which is not cheap, nor are the strips, but I have found freestyle lite strips work fine with it. I found it to be the cheapest at Animed UK. Most people on the board use a human meter and a google drive spreadsheet to monitor readings. If you look in the Tech forum all the instructions are there. Your biggest cost will be the strips. Look for a human meter which takes a small amount of blood if you want to try a human meter - but be aware the readings do not correlate with the lab readings at the vet. Most of the guidance on the site is based around reading using a human meter.

You will also need some urinary ketone testing strips, Keto-diastix are what I use.

Any questions - ask away!

 

One more thing - glucose readings are often higher at the vet and a change to wet food will also bring them down so you must be home testing before you change his food to avoid running into problems.

 

Hello there. Thank you for your reply - very helpful. Apart from the heart - which in addition to the pacemaker requires daily doses of furosemide and pimobendan to stop fluid build up on his lungs - he has no other health issues. He was always on dry food before and is still on mostly the dry diabetic food but am trying to get him onto wet food. I know I need to test at home before making significant diet changes which is why I'm trying to get a good home kit asap. I saw the RVC trial mentioned on here but it wasn't mentioned when I was there. He is back for a check-up in a couple of weeks so I could ask then.

Do you find the AlphaTrak2 works well? Does it use small blood amounts?

 

Oh, I forgot to say that Pudding is on the ProZinc insulin

 

Lot of Prozinc users on here so you are in good company. The AlphaTrak2 does use a small blood drop and is identical to the Freestyle lite meter as far as I can tell. Information on the trial here https://www.facebook.com/RVC.Diabetic.Remission.Clinic/?fref=ts you will have to scroll down to a May posting to read about the trial.

 

Hi Pudding and parent (what is your name?)
I've used ProZinc for a while, my kitty Baco is now otj so havent had to use it for over a month now but I can tell you a little bit about it, just like @Rachel @Sue and Oliver (GA) and a lot of other people!

@Marlena also lives in the UK so she can maybe help you with a glucose meter!
I use the accu check aviva (it's a human meter)
But you also got pet meters, Marlena is using one.

Are you going to set up a spreadsheet when you've got a glucose meter? This way, if you like, people can help you with dosing advise for Pudding!

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate. We almost live in the same timezone so I'm a lot around if you need help!

 

Hello Ruby & Baco, thanks for the message. My name is Stuart.

I've ordered a meter now and will aim to set up a spreadsheet - need to get to learn how to use the meter first though.

 

I understand! Baby steps! It's a lot of information you are getting all at once!

 

Back from glucose curve. Really high - nothing below 20. Increased dose of insulin from 1.5 to 1.75 units. Back tomorrow morning for a check to make sure not too low. Advised not to try changing food yet - think that makes sense as should not change more than one variable at once - but really want to get on better stuff asap. Testing kit ordered so as soon as it arrives I can start trying home testing and maybe get things under control.

 

Hi Stuart,

I would not pin point on the glucose curve at the vets. This because visiting a vet makes a kitty nervous and stressed, so the BG always goes up because of it.
But the step between 1.5 and 1.75 isn't that big so I would say it can't harm a little increase.
When will you receive your kit?

you can! don't doubt yourself if everyone here can do it, so can you !

 

Baco,

Thanks. Kit should be here in a couple of days. When I picked Pudding up from the vets I got his full discharge notes from the RVC hospital -- this had some figures which were not in the notes they gave me. On arrival in hospital he was at 31.2. He was initially given 2 units a day which brought it down to between 10 and 20. However, on 22 June it dropped to 5.2 and they they thought this a bit low so reduced it to 1.5 units. This resulted in levels between 12 and 17. On arrival at the vet today it was 38.6!. This was at 10.00am. This had fallen after an hour to 27.9. Lowest was 20.1 at 5.00pm. I've read about the white-coat effect on glucose so maybe some is that. Pudding is a big cat - 6.25 kg - so I'm hoping the small increase will not be too much.

 

Baco is my kitties name my name is Ruby! No worries, but now you know!
Well the numbers sound good to me, the reason why a cat drops low is because of the insulin ofcourse, but it can also be that Pudding is 'bouncing' as how they call it.
Let me explain: Pudding received 2U and went down to 5.2 (5,2 isn't that low, a non diabetic cat is between 2,7 and 6.6mmol, so 5,2 is good) but what might have happend is that Pudding went from 31.2mmol to 5.2 in a couple of days he went from extreme high numbers to lower numbers... The body needs to work with the insulin and has to adjust to it. If a cat is 'used' to the higher numbers for a longer periode of time it's hard for the body to get used to the lower ones, so the body goes in some kind of 'panic' attack and will bring up the numbers again to feel 'save'. You will probably when you will home test experience this a couple of times.
But like you said, wait untill you've received the kit and then you can start monitoring and you have a more accurate seeing on how Pudding is doing and how you can help Pudding by things like, when he drops too low, you can stir him up with some food. And if he's too high you can increase the dose the next cycle and stuff like that.

Did Pudding ever received steroid shots?
Well Baco WISHES she did weigh 6,25KG! hahaha that's skinny to her. She weight 7.10KG now, and she is of the juice but still is hating me for the fact that i'm counting her calories intake everyday.. So miss piggy needs to weigh 5.5KG so she has a long way to go! She really doesn't like me, since yesterday I started counting calories because just giving her a amount of grams each day wasn't doing it for her.

 

Hello Ruby,

Thanks again.
No, Pudding never had any steroid shots. When we got him he was aged 4 and he weighed 9 kg! - that's why he was called Pudding. We managed to get his weight down to 6.5 kg in a year. We were very strict, weighing his food and only feeding morning and evening. If we'd used wet food maybe he'd be OK now, but we only gave him dry except for the odd treat like some fresh cooked fish. But anyway he never seemed to mind too much - just was very demanding when meal times came round.

 

Okay!
Wow 9 kilos that a lot! Great job getting Pudding to lose weight, that's an achievement itself.
Hahaha, Baco is also not having a problem with it, she gets 4 meals a day (but she gets 248 calories max a day so thats not much) but when it's dinner time.... Boy oh boy, she is demanding it, and if she wants it she wants it hahaha

 

Welcome to FDMB.
Check my signature links for some useful info.

 

My Alpha Trak arrived yesterday. Did my first test this morning. Pudding was very brave, especially as I lost the first drop and we had to go again. 25.1 three hours after eating - not very hungry this morning either. Vet was reluctant to let me change his food the the Lily's kitchen which seems very low carb, but as it's still quite high even after increasing to 1.75 units I think I'll give it a go. Hoping to do a curve tomorrow (is due one at the vets but will try to do at home instead)

 

I'd like to start a spread sheet - is there a template available here anywhere?

 

Great that you've started home testing! When you're able to switch to the low carb food, your numbers may come down significantly so keep a close eye. Here are the instructions for setting up the Spreadsheet. If you need help, just ask.
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/fdmb-spreadsheet-instructions.130337/

 

How great that you've received your kit! I'm glad Pudding was so brave for his testing, that makes it a little easier for you!
I'm curious to see his numbers when you've set up the spreadsheet

 

Ha!
Sorry, maybe my brain is not working very well at the moment as I did not even realise that Ruby tagged me so hello Ruby and hello Stuart!
Forgive me my incoherence with regards to Stuart's postings as I'm a bit stressed and tired (did not sleep very well) because Rocky is at the vet's having his dental and other tests performed, I'm reduced to jelly worrying about my poor baby.
I'll speak with you later.

 

Hi Stuart, how are you and Pudding doing? How is the blood testing going? Did you already try to get the sheet up and running for the numbers you get with the BG testing?

 

Hello Ruby. I've started a new thread in the main board as I feel as if I'm not new anymore - even though it's only been a few days! Also, was having worries because my meter and the vet's were showing different figures - it's all explained in that thread.

Spreadsheet will be a few days - waiting for my techy flat mate to get back from working in India this weekend as I'm not sure about wanting to set up a Google account.

Things seem to be going in the right direction. Was 19.3 before food this morning and 16 mid afternoon, and this was with a tiny reduction in the insulin. (I've ordered some U-100 syringes to make it easier to make fine adjustments). Eating is getting better. Also, I had a great idea for occasional food, especially when he won't eat. We always used occasionally to feed him a piece of cooked frozen fish or a tin of sardines canned in water. He loves both. I realised that as it's human food it will have full nutritional information. A can of sardines is only 0.6% carbs and has as much calories as a 100g serving of the wet food. I have to be at work next two days so agreed with the vet that will reduce dose to 1.5 units in case he gets really low in the afternoon, but will need to see what his figure is like in the morning too.

 

Stuart, rest assure that having a Google account should not give any problems, we all have it, it is safe.