Leo's been newly diagnosed and I'm completely confused!

Hello everyone! I'm so glad I found this forum and am very impressed by all the insightful and helpful posts. About a month ago, I noticed that my Leo (9 yo) was losing weight and looking a bit "raggedy". Took him to my vet (Dec. 29) and his glucose came back at 400+. I asked about changing diet before we went to injections, and was given Hills w/d dry & canned. When I took him back two weeks later, the glucose was 320 - so the tech came in with a bottle of Vetsulin & syringes, and showed me how to tent the skin above his shoulder blades, & inject the insulin. They instructed me to start with 2 units every 12 hours and to continue him on the w/d formula or the m/d formula. A week later he was at 260 so they told me to increase the Vetsulin to 3 units every 12 hours. The following week? 61! So back to 2 units & keep giving him Hills w/d, m/d or Purina DM. Well, this past weekend his number was 200 and they want me to bump him back to 3 units and add a "snack" mid-day! I realize trying to regulate his sugar is a "process" and can take a while, but I'll admit that I'm scared to go back to 3 units. He gets his shots at 7:15 am & 7:15 pm, but I leave the house as soon as I give him his morning shot and I'm nervous that if he drops low again it'll be a dangerous situation.

So I guess my questions are: 1) Has anyone else had these up & downs with their vet regulating the dosage & blood sugar? 2) They told me not to home test but I'm thinking maybe I should, just to get a better idea of what I'm dealing with. Is it hard to do? 3) Has anyone had luck with the prescription diets? Or should I just put him on Fancy Feast (which he loves) or another regular food and go with the 3 units? I read that the insulin + script diet can result in the sugar going to low... is this true?

Thanks in advance for any & all suggestions! Sorry this is so long but I'm pretty confused by this whole process & I really need to do what's right for my baby Leo and fast. I'm afraid all this up & down is making things worse!

 

A few quick answers. Please repost on the main health forum and we can go into more detail.

Very common problem. Vets seem to want to increase by too much and too quickly. That can send the kitty off into a series of spikes and dives.

Nonsense! Home testing is a lot easier than you might think and is the single best thing you can do to keep your kitty safe.

We recommend wet food only. There are low carb prescription foods but they're too expensive. Friskies or Fancy Feast pate versions from the grocery store are what many people feed.

Yes, it's true. I'll clarify though: the dose of 3 units twice a day might be OK but without testing at home you won't know how he's responding, short of seeing hypo symptoms. If you feed dry food (prescription or not - all too high in carbs) and then switch to a low carb wet food diet the insulin dose that was OK with higher carb food might be too high for low carb food leading to a hypo episode.

 

Everything she said...
And, welcome!

 

Thank you everyone for your quick responses! I'm going to move my original post to the Health section per your suggestions. I appreciate all the input and I'm sure I'll be posting more questions soon!