New and scared

Hi I am new to the group. I am mom to Mollie. She is 13 and has had chronic renal failure for seven years. She is stage 2. She has been well managed until she started having problems recently. The vet was treating for the renal failure, we did antibiotics and increased fluids and at home sub q fluids. She progressed to increased thirst, increased urinating and vomiting. I took her back in and her numbers were 248 for glucose. They said to bring her in on Monday which was four days later and they would do a 24 hour study on her to see if she had diabetes. Took her back in on Monday and her sugars were 489. The vet said yes she does have diabetes. I know nothing about treating diabetes. I live alone. I work full time and go to school part time. I have struggled with her sub q fluids and started having someone come in once a week to help me give those. That was working OK until this diagnosis. I have been reading up on this site and other sites on feline diabetes and it is pretty overwhelming and frightening the time and money needed to invest into this disease. I work rotating shifts so that is a concern for me as well as the glucose testing when I am gone 8 to 10 hours a day with no lunch breaks at home. I hope I can learn a lot from this site.

 

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.
Because your cat also has CKD, you will want to look for ones with lower phosphorus.
- 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.

 

Hi Julie, welcome to you and Molly. Many people here have kitties with both kidney problems and diabetes and I'm sure they will be able to help you with food choices as well as supplements and medications to help Molly along. I know it seems overwhelming at first, but it does get easier. Once you get started, you will be able to work out a schedule that will work for you and Molly. Ask lots of questions because there is a lot of practical knowledge and money saving tips among the members of this forum, and we will be very happy to share it with you!

 

Mollie now eats k/d dry renal and friskies chicken and salmon shreds. She's pretty finicky about what she eats. I've tried introducing fancy feast pates but she turns her nose up at it but will eat the grilled. She's a little gravy licker. The vet said to keep her eating since she has once had the liver condition where she quit eating and had to be force fed. Ive always left food out for her all day and she's grazed so wonder if that will change.

 

@JulieM, I know it seems very overwhelming but you can do this. I'm a single parent of a 7 year old, work full time (gone 10 hours a day) and have a boatload of pets (cats, dogs and parrots - quite a zoo!) - it's a lot to manage but it is definitely "do-able".

Managing diabetes with a finicky cat is challenging but not impossible. Too bad she's a "gravy licker" - those grilled varieties and most foods with "gravy" in the name are quite high in carbohydrates and will spike her blood glucose. Just a thought - have you ever tried mixing the pates with water? Genghis wouldn't eat the pates very well until I started making a bit of a "slurry" with the food. I mix it until it's about the consistency of a milkshake - using warm water seems to release more smell for her, too. She now just licks everything up. The additional fluids will be good for her CRF as well, I think. Maybe give it a try?