Mackie, diagnosed Dec. 8

Hi, our cat Mackie was diagnosed with feline diabetes last week. We were instructed to give him 2 units of insulin twice a day. He is a chubby cat, currently weighs 16.5 lbs, but he is a good patient, purrs even when getting his sugar checked via he ear prick.

 

Welcome to the message board, the best place you never wanted to be.

There are 4 things you'll need to manage your kitty's diabetes:
- You - without your commitment, the following won't work.
- Home blood glucose monitoring with an inexpensive human glucometer such as the WalMart Relion Confirm or Target Up and Up (the pet ones will break your budget!). This saves you the cost of going to the vet for curves and done regularly, removes the need for a fructosamine test. All of our insulin guidelines use human glucometer numbers for reference.
- Low carb over the counter canned or raw diet, such as many Friskies pates. See Cat Info for more info. If already on insulin, you must be home testing before changing the diet. Food changes should be gradual to avoid GI upsets - 20-25% different food each day until switched. There are 2 low carb, dry, over the counter foods in the US - Evo Cat and Kitten dry found at pet specialty stores and Young Again 0 Carb found online.
- A long-lasting insulin such as ProZinc, Lantus, BCP PZI, or Levemir. No insulin lasts 24 hours in the cat, so giving it every 12 hours is optimal for control.

 

Welcome! Congratulations on testing right away. What insulin are you using?

 

We are using Novolin N.

 

Hmmmm not generally the best insulin for kitties but ECID (each cat is different) It would be great if you could set up a spreadsheet for him so we can take a look at his numbers. It also makes a great record for you and you can give your vet access too, the instructions are here http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/fdmb-spreadsheet-instructions.130337/