New here; getting started

Hello,

Our 7.5 year old male cat "Plum" was diagnosed about 2 weeks ago, started on 1 unit of Lantus 2x a day and he's already feeling much better. The vet wants him back to do a glucose curve soon. He is, unfortunately, a kibble addict. I'm currently transitioning him to Wellness Core and have requested samples from Young Again. I'm dubious about getting him to eat canned food as I've tried in the past (and he's always had access to it, from kittenhood - we got him and his sister at 8 weeks old. Sadly, sister passed away suddenly in January of this year.) Am willing to try again though it might be a long process.

My question for now is - going out to buy a glucose meter & test strips. I have easy access to Costco but Walmart is far away. Any recommendations? I don't mind paying a bit more for good quality device but would like to keep costs down if possible. Thanks for your help, and this message board is a great resource - I've learned a lot already!

 

Omg, Plum is a doll! I can't offer too much advice, since my cat went into remission from diet change alone, but I wanted to welcome you to the forum. The people here are an amazing bunch of cat lovers with loads of experience treating feline diabetes. You're in the right place. You want a meter with low test strip cost since that's where the true expense is. Also you may want to stay away from meters with true or tru in the name since some members have had problems with unreliable readings from those meters. I'm not sure which meters costco has but I'm sure others will be around to help. Again, welcome!

 

Welcome! Have you seen these tips for transitioning to canned food? http://catinfo.org/docs/TipsForTransitioning1-14-11.pdf

Even lower carb dry foods can cause problems with regulation, and they are hard on the kidneys, so transitioning to low carb, canned is ideal. Rule # 1, however, is that a cat must eat! If he's refusing all canned, I would feed him him the dry, but keep working at transitioning, and hopefully you'll find something that works. Some common things that help with transitioning are to stop free-feeding the dry (you need to work with your cat's natural hunger drive), and feeding smaller, frequent meals of canned (as much at each meal as he'll eat in one sitting). If you need to feed canned while you're not home or sleeping, there are automatic feeders that can help you out.

I use the Accuchek Aviva and really like it (a lot of our European members use it, too). I usually buy my test strips on ebay, though, because strips are very expensive in the store for my meter.

 

Omg Plum is sooo super cute!!!!!

 

Thanks, everyone! We like him - he's one of those goofball cats who act more like a dog, if you know what I mean? He also has kitty asthma, which complicates things - but we will just deal with it all. I tried mushing a bit of his kibble into a tiny bit of canned food today and he was not pleased, but I'll keep at it. I have seen the food tips; thank you!

 

What a cute cat, Plum is I'm so glad you found this board. When you are ready, start posting in the Main Health forum.
I started out with the OneTouch meter and loved it but the test strips were expensive in the stores, so I would buy them off of E Bay. Eventually, I switched to the Arkray Glucogard Vital from American Diabetes Wholesale. I would buy like 250 strips at a time from them and always ordered more whenever I got down to my last 100.

 

I get my strips mailed from Walmart online, and the shipping tends to be quick and quite affordable (I'm on an island with no big box stores, and the strips are currently all I buy from Walmart). I have the ReliOn Prime, which has the cheapest strips, but many people here use the ReliOn confirm, which apparently can also use generic Arkray strips,--it uses slightly less blood than the ReliOn . My pharmacists worked out a deal to take Leda on as a patient and gave us a Bayer Contour next EZ as a back up meter--it is a very nice meter, but the strips are more expensive and they take just slightly more blood, which for me means more wasted strips :-( At lower levels the two meters seem to get very similar numbers.

Best of luck!

 

I usually buy my strips for my Relion Confirm on Ebay. If you're Ebay savvy, you can catch some great deals! I recently bought 400 strips for $65.00 and normally a box of $100 in Wal-Mart is $35.00 alone. I also bought a box of 100 for $11.00 dollars which had a shorter expiry, but because I test a lot I used them up within 2-3 weeks.

 

Thank you so much, everyone! Costco was too crowded and overwhelming so I ended up trekking to Walmart & got the Relion Confirm. That's great to know about Ebay; I'm not savvy about it but hubby is. Now to work up the courage to poke Mr. Plum's ear.....

 

You can do it. I bothered most of us at first. Eventually, you and hubby (hopefully) will become pros at it. And Plum will get used to it and look forward to his treat after the test. A lot of our cats come running to the testing spot as soon as they hear us getting reading to test.
Best of luck. Post your number, please.

 

While you work on the blood testing, see my signature link for some Secondary Monitoring Tools which help you assess some other characteristics to monitor health. Some of them are things you've already observed, such as thirst and appetite increases.

And come on over to Feline Health to start posting your questions and observations.

 

Hello and welcome. Before you try to poke his ear make sure you read through this link and watch the videos. http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/hometesting-links-and-tips.287/

 

Awesome; I was just about to search for some videos! And thanks for the Secondary Monitoring Tools; that's a great resource.

I've had a kitty with CKD (she lived to be 21) and we currently are managing our German Shepherd's megaesophagus. Oh, and we also have a 3 month old kitten. (Sweet Jesus, she had better be healthy.) Cue circus music!

 

Welcome to you and your adorable kitty Plum. We are so glad you found us and will be happy to help you with whatever questions you have as you learn the sugar dance. When you are ready to start asking questions head over to the Main Feline Health Board where we all post questions and learn alot too.