New here

Hello, I hope I am writing in the right area. I am Janelle. I am the wife of Steve and mother of Marshmellow. At first I was a little skeptical of Steve changing things that our Veterinarian did not approve of. After all she is our Vet, for our newly diagnosed sugar baby Marshmellow. I saw that there are a few of you who have gotten their sugar cats OTJ. I hope someday we can get our cat OTJ also.

 

Hi Janelle! I love my vet, but, I'll admit I am treating my sugar baby, Bud, in a way that goes against what she has said to do. Vets have to be knowledgeable in many diseases and sometimes even many species. They just can't stay on top of the latest treatments. There's a ton of experience here at the forum. They live and breathe feline diabetes everyday!

 

Welcome to FDMB, 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
- Low carb over the counter canned or raw diet, such as Friskies pates. see Cat Info for more info,
- A long-lasting insulin such as ProZinc, Lantus, BCP PZI, or Levemir
- And 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!)

 

Hi Janelle

We too have a great vet, but the information they gave me on feline diabetes just wasn't as up to date or as accurate as it could have been. I've gone against their advice just about every step of the way - I reduced the initial dose they wanted, changed doses without consulting them first, threw out the prescription food and switched to Friskies pates and I rejected their suggestion of buying an Alphatrak meter in favor of the much more reasonably priced ReliOn that I've used from the start. Oh, and I refused to settle for their target blood glucose level of 180, instead aiming for normal numbers for Rosa. I do send them Rosa's spreadsheet every few weeks so they can see how she's getting on. The first time I sent her spreadsheet in, they called me very concerned about what I was doing and tried to persuade me to do things their way. I said I'd think about it and went right back to doing what I'd been doing with help from all the great people here. I'm still not sure they're convinced - they still keep asking me to have fructosamine tests done and take her in for them to run a curve, but when I refused the last time and pointed out that her numbers speak for themselves, they were forced to agree that I've got good results even though they don't like the way I've got them. Rosa's numbers were hideous on diagnosis - she was diagnosed with a blood glucose of 680 and it took a couple of weeks to see any movement in her numbers. She was diagnosed on January 12th and right now she's at day 11 of an OTJ trial. I know for certain that she wouldn't have got this far using the vet's targets and dosing instructions and not home testing (which they weren't really all that keen on even if I had bought an Alphatrak). In fact she'd almost certainly have had a major hypo incident within the first week as they'd wanted her on 2 units of insulin and unmonitored instead of the 1 unit I finished up starting her on with home monitoring.

The intensity of the way we tend to deal with our diabetic cats' treatment here no doubt isn't for everyone, but from experience it does work for a lot of people if you are able to cope with the extra work of monitoring and working out dose adjustments with the help of everyone here.