New to the group and thank you for having me

i am so happy to have found this page/forum. i'm sure u are used to hearing it, but i have so much appreciation for such a great informational resource and even more for finding a group of like souled supporting people.

My name is Chris and my little fur family is actually pretty large. We have 1 dog, 9 cats, 5 guinea pigs and 2 parakeets. I kno and work with a lot of rescues in my areas and it seems like are always getting calls asking us to help with 'just one more' .. thus our hard limit for kitties used to be 4 -and we are now at 9 . We have 3 pretty distinct group of ages for our kitties ..3 seniors (Oliver 16, Rosie and Baby Kitty 15), Tigs aka Potato, Tomtom Tamale and Saki are all 9 and then our last little formerly feral colony of Gomez Adams, Wednesday Adams and Mouse who are 2. We have had many babies over the years who have gone over the bridge who are still with us in our heart.

I work in 'human' medicine now and have worked in veterinary medicine before at an animal emergency clinic and have been surrounded by animals both domestic and 'farm' for most of my life.

What brings me to the forum is our oldest kitty, Oliver was recently diagnosed with diabetes. He just started on Lantus today and we are hoping for the best. He has always been a portly gent and suddenly started to lose some muscle mass in the hind quarters .. at first I thought it was just from aging as he is up there in numbers and has always been extremely healthy. We went thru a period about 2 week ago where the weight and muscle loss took a big spike -so fearing thyroid issues, we took him to the vet. His bloods all came back fine -except for diabetes. He's a good boy and I am ready and willing to go the extra mile with blood testing, food adjusting, etc. One of the reasons im so glad for this webpage and forum is because altho most vets treat feline and canine diabetes,its been my experience and the experience of local friends of mine also that they really dont give a lot of surrounding info. Having diabetes myself in the past and working in human/animal healthcare, I kno that there is more to pet diabetes than just shooting insulin, giving 'more' canned food and bringing them in for quarterly testing. I have shared this page address with a few friends too who have kitties with diabetes.

Thanks again for having us- Oliver and I love u!

 

This is our Oliver.

 

He looks like a big snuggle bug! Welcome, I'm glad you've found this resource, it's been a great help to us with our Benny boy.

 

Hi Chris, Oliver and family. First let me say that I would love to rub that wonderful fuzzy belly. Tell Oliver I said so!
You are indeed in the right place to learn more about Feline Diabetes and treatment. Good for you that you are willing to test, that's your best tool to keep Oliver safe and to track the insulin effects.
It is recommended here to feed a low carb wet diet, less than 10% carbs, and we have a food chart at the top of the Main Health forum complied by Dr. Lisa Pierson DVM, who also has a wonderful nutrition site: wwwcatinfo.org.
Please set up your signature with Oliver's pertinent info that will display with each of your posts: SIGNATURE
We use a spreadsheet that you can fill in all the BG testing data as well as insulin dose and time, here is the area where you will find instructions and how to understand the grid: SPREADSHEET. This data will help any advising members to make recommendations as needed.
There are a couple of forums for you to take a look at: FAQS and LANTUS that are going to help you learn more about treating the diabetes, testing etc, plus the insulin specific forum is going to help you understand how Lantus works and the protocols used here.
Going forward, please post in the Main Health forum or Lantus forum so that more members can meet you and Oliver, and provide input, answers and support. This Introduction forum is just the welcome mat and we want you to get all the help you need and want.
Best wishes! and hugs to that adorable fuzzy wonder cat of yours.

 

Welcome