Marley here

Hello!

My wife and I are providing special care for our 11 year old male, Marley. His sister, Maddie is presently in good health so we're looking to maintain for her as well as hopefully get him in control.

Having cats in the past with kidney issues, we opted to keep them on an urinary health formula for the majority of their lives. Their diet was Purina Pro Plan Urinary Tract Health dry food and treated them on occasion with canned foods that were heavier on the gravy... they are both gravy lickers rather than wet food eaters. They've always seemed to prefer their kibble ... and yes it was always more convenient for us.

6/10/2019: Marley was diagnosed with Pancreatitis and spent a few nights in the hospital on IV fluids and they recommend we switched to a food that was easier on his digestive process. This is when we switched to Hill's Science Diet Sensitive Stomach & Skin, we also noticed that we had fewer piles of undigested food in random places throughout the house.

8/9/2019: Marley was diagnosed with Diabetes and spent a night at the hospital testing his glucose curve. Looking back, we noticed an uptake of water and wet litter content for about 2 weeks prior to the vet trip. At this point in time the vet said that it was probably easier to tune his insulin intake and keep the same diet as long as he ate very consistently. Was prescribed ProZinc, 2U once daily.

8/19/2019: Marley went back for anther curve. Vet said to continue 2U, once daily because glucose levels had not started to rise after 11 hours. Recommended that we consider switching to DM diet. Researched DM vs Hill's w/d and settled on w/d believing that it would benefit both cats more than DM... Nice marketing on Hill's part.

8/31/2019: Bought an Alpha Trak 2 because he seemed lazy would occasionally wonder around the utility room (litter boxes in here as well as a ton of other stuff) and howl. We watched multiple times, it didn't seem to be related to his litter box habits, just like he was lonely or bored, never shows signs of pain in litter box or accidents etc.

We bought the Alpha Trak 2 because we were concerned of his glucose levels dropping, when in reality they are not. In-fact, it appears that the Hill's w/d was actually causing a higher BG number than the sensitive stomach and skin dry food. We're still testing and trying to come up with some accurate numbers at this point though.

After reading this forum, we are working to switch them over to an all wet food diet ASAP. We want to see the numbers prior to involving the vet again. I know that Marley won't eat as well for them and they won't be able to obtain "everyday" average results. We're also certain that they'd just want to immediately up the dosage which as we've read would cause us more issues when we are working to totally change their diet.

Concerns at this point:
- His curves seem to be significantly higher than others that I've seen on this forum.
- Will a diet of FF Classics cause him issues with Pancreatitis flare-ups? Are they easy for him to digest?
- Any advise is welcomed, we'd love to know if we are doing something wrong to get Marley well ASAP.

Other past history:
- Neutered as a kitten.
- Infected tooth removed more than 1 year ago.

Thank you all for the help!

 

Hi and welcome Marley, and Marley and Maddie's parents. I'm very glad that you are researching feline diabetic treatment and found FDMB.

I am also very glad you are testing Marley's blood sugar at home, as it is the best way to keep him safe and see how the insulin is working for him.

I have a couple of suggestions for you as you begin your journey here. First create a signature so that members can see Marley's information right away each time you post.

Setting up your signature (light grey text under a post). Here's how:
click on your name in the upper right corner of this page
click on "signature" in the menu that drops down
type the following in the box that opens: kitty's name/age/date of diabetes diagnosis/insulin you're using and dosage amount /glucose meter you're using/what he eats/any other meds or health issues he has. You can add your name, and a geographic location (sometimes the country/time zone matters) Be sure to SAVE when you are finished.
You have already set up the spreadsheet and that's going to help a lot.

Another good place to start is to read the Beginner's Guide to Prozinc in the Prozinc forum HERE so you can understand how Prozinc works best and effectively.

I also suggest that after you create the signature, that you copy your post here, go to the Main Health forum HERE, start a new thread there and paste the message. This forum is only the welcome mat, so to speak, and the Main Health forum is more heavily monitored by more members.

One note I will make about your first concern regarding comparing curves, or any blood sugar levels, to other kitties here on the board..ECID: every cat is different. The cats here are on insulin doses two times a day, and you will read about Prozinc dosing in the Beginner's Guide. I think the experienced Prozinc users are going to advise you to dose differently, probably 1 Unit every twelve hours while consistently testing before every shot and then at different times during the 12 hour cycles. All members either already (or are learning to) test consistently every day, always before every injection to be sure the BG is high enough to shoot, then during the 12 hour cycle at different hours after the shot to see the insulin work. Marley's BGs are high right now, but you have changed his diet to low carb and that can significantly lower blood sugar, you need to monitor the BG to be sure he's safe and not dropping too fast, too low.

But, again, this is not the appropriate forum to go into this at greater length and I don't want you to get bogged down here in the Introduction forum.

 

Thank you, I've posted there as well.