New User to the Forum!

Just a quick introduction. Brought our cats in to a new vet the other day for a checkup and both cats had bloodwork done as well. Mack's blood work came back and I guess his level was around 500. He is an EXTREMELY scaredy cat, so maybe his stress levels were really off when they did his test as well. He is 8 yrs old and weighs 15 lbs. He is a very happy cat at home, loves to eat of course.

We're having a tough time thinking about how we will go forward. We're bringing him in tomorrow for the day so he can be monitored while given insulin throughout the day. :-\

Needless to say we're worried about our lives being turned upside down. What do you do if you want to go on vacation for more than a day? Or a week? Just some worries we have about being chained down to being able to care for him 24 hours a day. We love him to death and just want many more years with him.

Thanks so much for all your advice and help.

 

Hello and welcome to you and to Mack

The early days can be tough: There seems to be so much to take in. And you're likely to be wondering how your cat's life is going to be from now on; and how your life is going to be, and whether you can cope with that.

The good news is that feline diabetes is very treatable. And, if you can learn to homestest (ie, test your kitty's blood glucose at home (way easier than it sounds!)) then it becomes a lot more manageable.

Some cats (like mine) are on insulin for life. If your cat remains on insulin then it may be possible for you to find someone to give him shots while you go away.
But quite a few lucky cats go into remission, ie. become 'diet-controlled' diabetics.

Mack is quite young to be diagnosed diabetic. Is he very overweight? Has he been on any steroid treatment recently?

And do you know what insulin Mack is going to be prescribed?
And what is he eating at the moment?

Welcome aboard!

Eliz

 

Welcome to FDMB.

We strongly encourage folks to home test the blood glucose with an inexpensive human glucometer (see my signature link Glucometer Notes), feed a species appropriate low carb canned or raw diet (see Cat Info), and lobby to get an effective, long lasting insulin for cats (ProZinc, Levemir, Lantus, or BCP PZI).

 

We went thru that very same thing, we thought our lives as we knew them, were over. I took about 7 weeks, which yes, we're hell, but then things leveled off, we got used to the routine and less afraid. It does get easier. We've had to take our Goof with us on a couple of occasions, which wasn't real fun, because if you looked up the words " scaredy cat" in the dictionary, there's a picture of Goof, but we all survived. This summer we're going to find out how much he likes camping! Home testing isn't as hard as it sounds, just takes practice.