New and overwhelmed

My Salvatore is 12 years old. Was diagnosed mid October 2015 with CKD only two weeks after my having to assist his 15 year old "brother" Tanto cross the Rainbow Bridge due to pancreatic disease/cancer. As of today, 12/19/15 Salvatore was diagnosed with diabetes as well. I'm literally new and have only a little knowledge of either health problem. I will be receiving and learning about his results on Monday evening. Please bear with me as I struggle to learn and understand. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of this forum/site.

 

Welcome to the best place you never wanted to be and congrats on finding the site so quickly it is very overwhelming to get a diabetes diagnosis and you will no doubt find it pretty rough going to start with but it is manageable and you and Salvatore will both be okay. We will be here to help you every step of the way and answer all of the questions that you will have - you are not alone.

The best thing you can do right now is start preparing Salvatore for home testing. It can be done on the paw but is most commonly done on the ear. You can start getting him used to having his ears messed with straight away by rubbing the edges several times a day whenever you think of it and telling him what a good boy he is when he lets you. When he's happy with that you can also introduce clicking a pen near his ear after the rubbing to get him used to the noise the lancet will make.

I'll leave it to your fellow Americans to recommend an appropriate meter but I will say that the alpha track pet meter is unnecessary and expensive. Strips cost twice as much as they do for a human meter and a human meter is what nearly everybody here uses.

And here are some hugs because you have been having a pretty rough time of it.

 

Welcome to the FDMB, George and I haven't been here long, but one thing we know for sure is that if you have a diabetic kitty, this is the place to be, you will get tons of support and advice which will be invaluable.

From what you are saying it seems as though you haven't started treating yet. Going to start by offering some advice on literature you can read, and things you can do before starting treatment. Please don't get overwhelmed we have all been there

What are you feeding Salvatore?? If it's dry you need to think about changing to wet (that is the first thing I did with George), here is a link to Dr Piersons site, it is where I started, I strongly suggest you start here, has tons of useful info on feline diabetes and feline health in general, I seem to remember seeing some info on CKD too, sit down with a cup of coffee and read through it all, it will help you understand Salvatores condition better. Changing to Wet can be easy for some and take time for others, George was easy, I removed his dry, gave him his new high protein low carb wet food and away we went, others have needed to transition more slowly, again a lot of folk in the US feed Fancy Feast in jelly( not the gravy ones they are too high in carbohydrates), in Dr Pierson's site you will find links to food charts and she explains how to interpret the food contents label to help you make an informed choice of what to feed your cat. She talks about feed a cat with CKD too, well worth a read.

Everyone here Home Tests, we monitor our kitties blood glucose levels regularly, that way we can see how well the insulin is working for our babies, and we can keep them safe, shooting with insulin blind doesn't make sense, some of us here have vets who support home testing others have found that their vets won't support home testing, you need to stand your ground with home testing, no human diabetic would shoot insulin blind, it would be foolish and dangerous, why would we shoot blind with our furballs?? Most of us here use Human meters as the test strips are cheaper, bearing in mind that we test regularly this really is a factor, in the US a lot of folk use the Relion meter and test strips available from walmart.

When you can try and set up a spreadsheet, you can click on GeorgesSS on my signature and you can see what it looks like. I test a lot, don't let that put you off, I am able to and feel I want to but many test much less, when you test kind of depends on the insulin you are using. Getting a spread sheet set up to record Salvatores blood glucose(BG) is the best way to track his progress, it also allows the experienced folk here at FDMB to help you with dosing advice as they need to be able to see how his BG are doing to be able to make an informed comment and try to help. There are folk here managing diabetic cats with CKD, so you are not alone they will pitch in to help with advice. Here is a link on how to set up the Spread Sheet ss, I recommend you do that ASAP, even if you have nothing to put in it yet, but at least you will be up and running by Monday, when presumably you may be starting treatment.

It also helps if in your signature you can tell us a bit more about Salvatore, kind of a summary, when he was diagnosed, age, other health issues, what insulin, what meter etc, you can always update with more info as you go along.

Get some Keto sticks to test for ketones in the urine. We also routinely test for ketones, weekly usually, more regularly if BG is high or Kitty is prone to Ketones.

There are different types of insulin I am using Lantus, it is a slow acting human insulin which has given good results treating diabetic cats, with significant numbers able to gain good regulation or even remission. But there are other insulin's available, do you know what your vet is intending to prescribe? Lantus is widly used here, but it is a little more expensive, than some of the others, so you may want to research costs if that is a factor for you (those buying lantus will buy a pack of 5 5ml pens though it seems more expensive, the 10ml vials will tend to go off before you can use them all so in the end they work out more costly).

Breath, Do some more reading, and tell us a bit more about what treatment you are considering for Salvatore, on the forums for the insulin the stickies at the top will tell you a bit about how they work might help you decide which one you are going to use. You have come to the right place

Bear in mind that we are coming up to the holidays and with travelling and family commitments there are less peeps about than usual. So don't get disheartened if you don't hear from many initially.

Hope all goes well on Monday.

Post up if you have further questions, Dr Piersons site is excellent it will help you put things into perspective, and you may have more questions once you have read through it don't be afraid to post up with more questions

I will add more hugs to Serryns



.

 

Because of the CKD, you'll want to avoid Fancy Feast because of the high phosphorus. You do want canned food because CKD kitties need the moisture to help the kidneys work.
There are low carb, low phosphorus canned, over the counter foods available, it just takes a spot of searching. Someone here has a list that gets bumped up to the top of the forum periodically. I'll see if I can find it when I'm on my computer and not my phone.

 

Thank you for the suggestions and support. He is already quite used to me messing with his ears. Have always made sure every cat I have is used to what kids may do to them. Pulling fur, tail, ears etc. better to be prepared for kids than face the drama that would ensue. I appreciate any advice given as I'm extremely new to all that he's diagnosed with. Thank you

 

Wow! thank you so much for all the tips and suggestions. It's a lot to take in. I will be using your tips. It helps so much to have someone else who can keep me calm and not let me become fried. Your charts and reading suggestions will be utilized today. Better to start early, as you said, so as not to be overwhelmed. So I truly thank you and appreciate all and any support you have. Thank you again.

 

Thank you for the heads up on food contents. I'm still trying to learn about CKD too. So much at once. My furbaby loves his canned ProPlan Vet Rx N/F. Prefers it actually! If you do happen to find that list I would be greatly appreciative if you would send it my way!! I have always avoided "trendy" canned foods. I hope I don't sound snooty by saying that. I've always given my cats Nutro, Science Diet and Iams. Mixed. No Science Diet within the last 3-4 years. Wasn't helping my Tanto (RIP 10/01/15) with his pancreatic disease/cancer. Any and all help, suggestions and support are truly appreciated. The more I know, the better my Salvatore's quality of life will be. So, once again, thank you.

 

Check this page at Feline CRF for their food list. I believe they've added carbohydrate content to it.

Also see my signature link Secondary Monitoring Tools for additional assessments you may find helpful in evaluating your cat.

 

Hi and Welcome to the FDMB. You have all ready been given lot of good advice. I wanted to say hello and say how cute Salvatore is and what an awesome photo! Here are a couple of links with good videos to show you how to home test. We can't stress enough how important that is. There were times when if I had not been home testing, I would not have known how low Bubba was and I could have sent him into a very dangerous hypo event. Here is a link that you should print off and have somewhere convenient, like on your refrigerator to resort to in the event Salvatore was to go too low.
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/how-to-treat-hypos-they-can-kill-print-this-out.15887/

And here are the video links for home testing.

http://s106.photobucket.com/user/chupie_2006/media/testingear/sweetspot.jpg.html

http://www.felinediabetes.com/bg-home-test.htm

There are many meters. There is a pet meter called the Alpha Trak2 and human meters. Some use the pet meter because it is what the vets use so the numbers will match up. The meter and strips are expensive though. Most use human meters that can be purchased at any pharmacy. It typically reads a little lower than the pet meter but we have ways of compensating it. Many use Walmart's brand, Relion Micro or Relion Prime, because it only needs a tiny drop of blood. The Prime testing strips are ½ the price of the Micro.

Lancets: These are used to poke the ear to get blood. There are many different sizes (gauges). It is recommended when you are first starting out to use a 26-28 gauge. Also, it would be a good idea to pick up Neosporin WITH pain reliever to apply on the edge of the ears and don't forget to alternate ears.

Gosh, I did more that say hello.

 

Hi and again welcome!

My friends here have given you some great links and tips to start with so I won't overwhelm you with any more.

Just read as many stickies as you can, when you get started on insulin come join the appropriate insulin group.

It gets easier, I promise.