New to feline diabetes

Hi everyone, my name is Shana and my husband and I have an amazing kitty named Paiyu, a 12 year old bengal kitty that was just diagnosed on Wednesday, 2 days ago, with diabetes. We noticed his excessive thirst and urination and took him to the vet right away. At the vet his BG was 531. Pretty scary for us, cause other than the new changes to his thirst this week, we hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary. The vet gave us insulin to administer every 12 hours with special canned food. We have been mixing it with his old canned food as he has a sensitive stomach, and also have been mixing the diabetes weight management dry food with his old dry food to graze on, again, per the vet's instructions. So far he seems to be basically the same, only had 4 doses of insulin though, so not sure if we should notice a change in his drinking and urination yet? We managed to get 1 blood sample to test on a glucometer we got from the vet. His blood glucose was 76, which seems low, but he was acting his normal curious, active self. I am struggling with getting the blood sample from his ear. I tried 3 x yesterday and only got 1 viable sample. Couldn't get any blood the other times and kitty seemed quite stressed, so i didn't want to risk trying again. I am also struggling with administering the insulin. He jumps when we put the needle in. I thought he wasn't supposed to feel it? He has been a total trooper through all this, but we really want to get better at all the pokes so he doesn't get fearful of us. Any suggestions are very welcome!

 

Here's a better pic of our sweet, cuddlebug.

 

Welcome.
What insulin are yo using? Good insulins are the human Lantus and Levemir and the pet insulins ProZinc and BCP PZI. For those two human insulin it is best to get the 5 pack of 3 ml disposable pens via a 10 ml vial. Although per ml the vial is less expensive most cats will not use up a 10 ml vial before the insulin goes bad/becomes ineffective. The human insulin N/NPH is sometimes prescribed but only lasts 8-10 hours. Same for the pet insulin Vetsulin/Caninisulin.
It is good that you are home testing BG, ost pf use here use a human meter vice pet meter like the AlphaTrac since the pet-meer strips are a lot more expensive. We test before each shot and periodically between shots. We record our reading and other info in a spreadsheet. See:
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/fdmb-spreadsheet-instructions.130337/
A low-carb canned is best. No reason for a prescription food. Here is a list of commercial low-carb canned

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/shortcut-shopping-list-all-8-or-less-updated.117688/

Here is a link to home testing blood sugarshttp://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/hometesting-links-and-tips.287/

For specific questions it is better to post in the Health forum
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/forums/feline-health-the-main-forum.28/

 

Thank you so much! We are using prozinc right now, 1 unit every 12 hours after feedings. I had read about just using regular canned food, like fancy feast classics. We will probably end up doing that. We are still getting used to the blood tests, but do plan to use them regularly once I master how to do it. I will definitely check out the links and will also post to the health forum. I really appreciate your response!

 

Welcome to FDMB. What a handsome fellow Paiyu is!

That's quite the drop in BG between the vet number and what you got home testing. Most cats do have much higher readings at the vet's office than they do at home and in some cats this can be 100 or even 200 points.

It sounds like you may be using a pet meter and your alert number for Paiyu's glucose going too low on a pet meter is 68. On a human meter the warning number would be 50. That reading of 76 you got at home would make me wonder if with the diet change has already caused his numbers to come down significantly. A lot of cats have significant reduction in their glucose readings just by changing their diet to lower carb foods. I'd recommend you don't change his diet any more until you can reliably test his BG at home and call your vet to discuss perhaps reducing the dose of insulin you are currently giving Paiyu to avoid the possibility of hypoglycemia.

 

A big help for us with ear testing has been warming the ear with a rice sock. To make one, put a little dry rice, like half a cup, in the end of a sock and sew up the end of it like a little bean bag. Heat in the microwave for a bit and hold it on the ear for maybe 30 secs to warm it up and bring the blood to the surface.

Also, I like to put something under the bottom of the ear to firm up my surface for sticking. That protects my fingers, too.

 

Thank you for your response. We are planning on talking to the vet today, I will definitely mention the reading of 76. I did not know that 68 was the lowest number to watch for, we will keep an eye out and try to get more readings. I hope that the diet change alone will help him, as we would like to manage the diabetes by diet alone if possible. We will need to test more as well. I wasn't sure how often or when to test regularly. The vet did say to test 6 hours after his insulin and that should be at the lowest, but I wasn't sure if we should test more than that. Thank you again, this was very helpful!

 

Thank you, I will try the rice sock for sure. We tried massaging his ear to get the blood flowing, but it didn't seem to help much. I think we were both stressed, kitty and me, so that didn't help matters.

 

Testing wise, you should test before each shot at least 2 hours after feeding, to ensure his numbers are high enough without any food influence to give the insulin. The lowest point in a 12 hour cycle with ProZinc is usually anytime between 5 and 7 hours post shot but some cats nadir (lowest point) earlier or later so always testing at 6 hours doesn't necessarily tell you what Paiyu's lowest reading is. In order to find that lowest point, we take random tests mid cycles to determine when our own cats are at their lowest. That lowest reading is important to know in order to make dosing decisions.

 

Hello and welcome. http://jfm.sagepub.com/content/17/3/235.full.pdf html