New Diagnosis - starting Caninsulin

No fructosamine- the original vet said he would do that 3 weeks after my cat was injected x2 per day with 1 unit, to see how his body responds

The original number was 23.02

However it took me 30 minutes to walk to the vet with him, down a busy road ... and then they wouldn't let me inside due to Covid - so we waited another 10 minutes outside

Then the vet took him in without me, shaved his neck, gave him an anal urine test for glucose and a blood test

My cat is very shy of others, so after this much of an ordeal, I'm wondering if that's why his blood glucose went high

Yesterday after he had a 3.8 reading, I mistakenly dropped a metal lid on the floor and my cat awoke from his slumber and shot downstairs ... the reading an hour after that, was a bit higher than I was expecting, 5.6 ... so I think I can imagine, that my cat was petrified by the time the vet did the tests

 

I am trying to ring around different vets to see if they can help with with home testing, and so they can administer any further blood tests and insulin (hope not) that I may need

So far I trust this forum, as you have so much experience, but it's quite scary also, as it leaves me with no vet as I can't follow their advice

I appreciate you reading, I feel very alone ... as people get mad if you don't follow their advice, but it's so conflicting up to now ... I'm just trying to do what feels right, but yes i'm scared a bit

 

I won't b be mad if you don't follow my advice, buy I just want your cat to be safe. If you did 0.25 he would be fine, but when he was 7.9 and you did 0.75 he was just at the lower limit before we call it a hypo. If you had done 1 he would have been too low, no doubt. Now today he's even lower than that at 7.1, and that's WITH a food influence. What that tells me is that if you had even done the 0.75 this morning your cat would most likely hypo. Insulin is not a set it and forget it thing. Let me tag some others so it's not just my opinion and you hear from several.


@Deb & Wink , @JeffJ , @Chris & China (GA) , @Kris & Teasel , @Marje and Gracie , @Sharon14 , @Olive & Paula , @Nan & Amber (GA) , @Noah & me (GA) , @Bron and Sheba (GA) , @Wendy&Neko

Maybe some of you can weigh in with your thoughts

 

Emma, all of the numbers you've recorded on your SS are in normal range on the Alphatrak meter.... These numbers (especially given that they are Alphatrak numbers) are way too low to give insulin at... If you give insulin at these kinds of numbers (and with a very limited number of hometests) your kitty will be at serious risk of hypoglycemia, and hypo can kill....
It may be that your kitty no longer needs insulin...

For newcomers to Caninsulin, and those who don't have much test data, the general advice here is not to give insulin below about 11 as measured on a human glucose meter. On an Alphatrak you'd probably want to increase that number by a mmol or two because the Alphatrak usually reads a tad higher than human meters.

Many vets don't have a whole lot of actual experience of feline diabetes. They are usually generalists working with multiple species and multiple conditions. They can't be experts at everything... On this forum however there is at least a couple of decades' worth of people's combined experience of dealing with feline diabetes. This is quite probably the best resource on the planet for feline diabetes information...
I'm on my second diabetic kitty now. My current vet only treats cats, and has greater than average veterinary experience of feline diabetes. Even so, she trusts me to decide what insulin dose to give my cat; and when my kitty started needing less and less insulin she said she "honestly wouldn't know what to give her" because determining insulin dosage can be pretty tricky without good data and also an understanding of how the insulin dose is actually working in the kitty's body on a day to day basis. ...This is why hometesting of blood glucose is so important. This enables us to 'see' how the insulin is working in the cat's body, so that we can amend the dosage, or can stop it completely if it looks like the kitty no longer needs it...

Eliz

 

I agree with Janet and Elizabeth. The numbers you are seeing are within the normal range, be happy about that! The diet change to an all low carb, wet food has helped. You need to keep testing though and posting here so if his numbers start trending up we can help you get a jump on it.

 

Hi Emma - I can see that you are a caring cat owner and you want to do the right thing. Many people on this forum, including the ones on this thread - are very experienced with insulin and cat diabetes. For years. Basically feline diabetic experts - because of the years of focus on that one issue.

You are getting good advice from the others. I used Alphatrak for our Leoberry. It is a good tester.

Hypoglycemia is very dangerous. Insulin is a powerful hormone, and we should be careful to not give too much. It is possible your cat will get regulated through lower carb food. If you continue giving insulin, I urge you to read up about hypoglycemia, so you can be ready if that occurs.
Hypoglycemia: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/dont-panic-or-how-to-handle-low-numbers.210109/

 

Just popping in and saying that I understand your dilemma about taking vet advice vs that of peeps here... many, many of us have been in that situation and we know how difficult it is to reconcile conflicting advice. All I would say is continue to ring around vets in your area and ask for their opinions on home testing - some vets may try to dissuade you but that’s usually because they don’t trust owners to do the right thing, ie use bg data wisely and dose appropriately (or not at all). A vet who knows his/her stuff should fully support you in home testing - as I think I’ve said before, a good vet will want to work with you in your treatment of FD, so it really is worthwhile going all out to find one that you can feel confident in. I used to live near you but that was a long time ago and I’m out of touch with vet practices in the area - keep looking and ringing round, sooner or later you’ll find one you feel you can trust and that, combined with the info you get here, will make you feel a whole lot better.

Good luck!

 

Thank you so much for your replies. I trust this forum very much and this has reassured me

 

Would you still advise to keep meals 12 hours apart?
Test pre-shot times ?
For how long do you think, before we can be clearer about remission ?

XxX
So much love to you all

 

We call it an official remission if the cat is within normal range for 14 days with no insulin.

Feed at shot time AFTER the preshot test. (Test, feed, shoot if high enough). You can give mid day /evening snacks but no food at least 2 hours prior to the preshot test so the number is not food influenced.

 

Thank you XxX

 

Pre-shot test, no food = 8.1

 

It's still in normal. If you want you could try 0.25.... Just a few drops... As long as you could test tonight. Or you could skip.

 

Thank you - I am going to skip ... I will feed him as normal and keep monitoring him

I'm deeply appreciating your help, you might actually have saved his life, as thinking of it, if I kept injecting him with 1 unit, he would eventually have a hypo attack - especially as you say with newbies canininsulin you should keep the reading above 5 on a human meter ... he was way below this.

What you have done building this website is truly astonishing. Thank you all so much from mine and Cheemas hearts XxX

 

It’s always safer to skip a dose when you’re new to this and you don’t have data to take a best guess at how things might go. I think by now you probably know more about FD than your vet - that’s not being disrespectful of the vet, just pointing out that you have most likely read more (here) and understood more (through other people’s experiences) than most general practitioner vets. Sadly, FD isn’t given a lot of teaching time at vet college, presumably because it’s seen as something to be treated/managed by some kind of simple formula... what that doesn’t take into account is that ECID (every cat is different) and might metabolise insulin in various ways.

Carry on reading and informing yourself - knowledge is power.

 

I think the fact that every cat is different escapes a lot of vets. The insulin doesn't effect every cat in the same way which is why it's so important to be careful. Vets, even if they know quite a bit about FD, don't necessarily know YOUR CAT with fd. YOU know your cat more than they do.