New to the forum

Hello everyone,

I have two kitties about roughly 10 years old and they've been with me for a year and some change. I rescued them locally at the same time; while their previous owners has similar stories, they came from seperate homes. One had their owner pass away, and the other's had to go into a home; both elderly. They were both pretty big cats when I got them, and both lap kitties.. I almost don't have enough lap to go around!

The first couple months I had them, my male cat, Georgie, was fine. They were both playful and everything seemed good. Around December, I went home to visit family and left them both in the care of my roommate. When I came home and saw Georgie, I think I about fainted. He had to have been half the weight he was when I left. I took him to a vet soon after, who thought it might be the condition of his teeth--they're not great, but I've never seen him struggle with his food, though he does dribble a little bit when he drinks water.

As he got thinner and thinner, I worried more. I tried whatever I could think of; different food, different feeding times, treats for snacks (looking back, that may have made it worse; I'm not sure, but you know what they say about hindsight). Finally, it got to the point where he would do little but eat, do his business (on my floor), and sleep. When he did crawl into my lap, it would just be to curl up on me and sleep. He didn't want to play with my other cat, Angel, anymore and would never try and groom himself (though he would let Angel groom him).

My parents have a diabetic cat back home, so I had my suspicions, especially after I talked to them about everything that was going on. I don't have a lot of wiggle room in my budget, but I saved up and took him to a new vet to talk about what was going on and get a blood test. The vet told me that a lot of his thinness was due to the fact that most of his muscles had deteriorated, and gave me a list of possible conditions. The next day, he called and gave me the verdict: diabetes, and his level was about 475. Insulin and needles in hand, I went home and got my first lesson in just how wiggly my little guy could be.

We started at 2 units twice a day, and the next week the vet upped it to 4 units twice a day, as after the first week his levels hadn't budged. I haven't noticed any change in the week or two since, though I'm about to go in again. My parents linked me here, so I'm about to gorge myself on some KNOWLEDGE so I can take better care of my little fella.

I apologize for the essay! I got a bit carried away, and this has all been so stressful that it was nice to just get it out! I'm about to do a whole lot of reading on the forum and website, and hope I can get my kitty back to his happy, healthy self.

 

Welcome Goody and Georgie. I'm new here too, and it is stressful, but everyone here is on your side. As they keep telling me, breathe! Educate yourself about DM and the treatments so you can help your kitty and never be afraid to ask questions, both here and at your vets. Do that and I'm sure Georgie will do fine!

 

Hi Goody and Georgie, and welcome to you both.

Can you tell us what insulin Georgie has been prescribed? Two units BID is a high starting dose for a cat and also increasing from 2 IU BID to 4 IU BID is possibly too big a jump. Also, are you home testing Georgie's blood glucose levels yet?


Mogs
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Thanks for the welcomes! Remembering to breathe has definitely been a challenge.

Critter Mom, the vet prescribed ProZinc. I haven't been home testing yet, but my folks are helping me out with that. The vet had told me that wasn't possible when I asked about a way to do it, but I know my parents do it with their fella back home; I wasn't sure what to make of the situation, especially since I asked the day of the diagnosis and was still kind of walking though a fog of 'oh no, oh no'.

If it helps, he has been eating a food that's low in grain--I'll be looking at the info here shortly to see if we should make a change.

 

It can take a little time to get the hang of home testing, but it is the best way to help you keep Georgie safe on insulin. Key tips are to make sure the ear is warmed long enough to improve blood flow to the test area, and also to smear a thin film of Vaseline or Neosporin ointment onto the test area so that the blood droplet will bead up instead of wicking into the fur. Here are a couple of forum stickies to help you improve your testing technique, and also a link to tell you how to set up a Google spreadsheet in which to store your test results. The spreadsheet is an invaluable tool to help you monitor BG patterns and it will help you with both regulation as well as safe dosing. Sharing the spreadsheet will enable experienced members here give you better suggestions when you need help.

Home Testing Hints and Tips (includes how-to videos)

Testing and Shooting Tips (includes a very useful diagram of the ear to show the 'sweet spot' for getting samples more easily.

How to Set Up a Spreadsheet and Link it to Your FDMB Forum Signature

In addition to the spreadsheet link, it is helpful to put both of your names, insulin and glucometer type, plus brief details of any other health issues/medications. Have a look at other members' signatures to get an idea of what to include.

In addition to home blood glucose monitoring, we also recommend using urine test strips to monitor regularly for ketones (e.g. Keto-Diastix). Monitoring of urine glucose levels is very crude, and does not help with gauging whether an insulin dose is safe.

With regard to food, grain-free isn't necessarily low enough in carbohydrates. Here is a link to the forum sticky that has further links to charts of suitable foods. If you are making a food change to a lower carb diet, you must be home testing first. Depending on the drop in carb content blood glucose levels can drop quickly and dramatically, so it's vital to ensure that you don't give too much insulin during the transition so as to ensure Georgie's safety.

I've only got a passing acquaintance with Prozinc, but @Sue and Oliver (GA) may be able to advise you on its use, and starting dose in particular. FDMB has a 'sliding scale' dosing protocol for Prozinc, so we will be able to help you learn more about that.



Mogs


EDITED TO ADD:

Too much insulin can look like too little.
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we put together a protocol for ProZinc; it is in my signature in blue. I agree that the starting dose was high. We suggest starting with one unit and slowly increasing by 0.25, as your home testing indicates.

Home testing is vital - to learn how low the insulin takes him mid cycle and to be sure your pre shot number is high enough to shoot. How can we help you with home testing? The important things for us was to warm the ear enough (a rice sack works well for us) and using a 25-27 gauge lancet at first (the 30/31 gauge most humans use can be too small for a cat.

 

Wow, thank you so much for the links! This is some great data you have all put together, and very helpful.

After reading some resources, I'm having some doubts about my vet.. they've never asked about diet, and told me home testing wasn't an option. Should I consider switching to someone else?

 

Many people have this dilemma. My vet hadn't had anyone home test before and she wanted us to feed prescription food. Because I liked her and the way she treated my cat, we kept on. Eventually she agreed that home testing was a valuable thing and we agreed to disagree about food, I continued using her as my vet. For me, it was important that she let me research on my own and acknowledge that what I was doing was working.

So, if your vet will accept that you want to home test (would she give insulin to her child without testing their blood glucose levels first?) and feed what you think is best for your cat (you might share a website written by a vet : www.catinfo.org) then I wouldn't be too fast to go vet shopping. If her approach is "my way or the highway" , then I'd look around.

 

If you decide to go vet shopping, there are some Vet Interview Topics in my signature.