New with questions

Hi everyone! Gus was diagnosed on Saturday and I took him back to the vet today to go over administering his insulin shots and to get information from them. I left there even more concerned about some things and I have been trying to read as much info as I can but I am pretty overwhelmed.

They put him on Lantus, I haven't gotten it yet so I haven't had a chance to start him on it.

I got the Alphatrak 2 meter and his numbers have been between 380-274 over the last 2 days. I have been giving him more wet food instead of the dry but I am leery of pulling him completely off of the dry right away because I have had issues with that in the past. The vet prescribed Hill's Prescription Diet m/d GlucoSupport - i'm not sure if this is a good option but I bought it because i'm assuming it is better than the regular dry he eats.

What made me concerned at the appointment was what the Vet Tech told me about his eating and the strict insulin schedule. Gus is a big cat, he's 19 pounds and loves to eat. The Tech told me that he is only allowed to eat once every 12 hours. When I mentioned that I leave him a little dry when I go to work or when I go to bed she said absolutely not. She said that I must feed him a 1/2 hour before I give him his shot and if he doesn't eat it all I have to take what's remaining away. Do I have to follow this? I don't want him to constantly be hungry. I have been trying to cut back on his food over the last few months and he has lost about 2 pounds but that could be from the diabetes.

The other thing she told me is that I have to give him his shot 12 hours apart and can only fluctuate an hour before or after but that he can not miss a dose. I work 3p-11p so I thought I could give his shot at noon and midnight which is fine for my schedule. My only issue is that every once in a while I have mandatory overtime and can end up working a 16 hour shift without much notice. I can take a break and run home and feed him and give him his shot but it might not be able to be done within that 1 hour leeway she said I have. I explained my situation to her but she didn't really say anything besides the fact that I have to stick to the 12 hour window. What do I do in these situations? My parents offered to help but I can't expect them to be available at midnight on short notice. She really stressed me out with this.

Everything else at his appointment went fine. He has let me draw blood from his ear for the BG testing and the trial run at injecting the pretend insulin went fine - those were my main concerns but now I am stressing out about his eating and 12 hour injections.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

Sounds like the vet tech is more familiar with feeding and the older fast acting insulins. With the gentler acting Lantus, and same as for human diabetics, smaller more frequent meals are best. It is easier on the pancreas. Many of us buy autofeeders, such as the Petsafe 5, to provide small meals while we are gone. As for food, low carb wet food or raw are best. The dry m/d does not qualify as low carb.

Lantus really does like shooting 12 hours apart. You can move it 1/2 hour once a day. And as long as he isn’t showing ketones, or been diagnosed with DKA, you can skip the odd shot. If your parents want to help, I would encourage you to take them up on that. Getting help from someone else will really help you.

 

I had some Hill's Science Diet m/d dry food early on that I would give Mia a few kibbles of when her glucose dropped too low. It would always raise it up. Seeing the direct impact that stuff had on her glucose, I would not feed it to my cat. I think it was something like 18% carbs (which is better than some dry foods but still too high). If you need some dry food to use during the conversion to wet food, I would suggest Dr. Elsey's Clean Protein Chicken which has between 4 and 5 % carbs. Hopefully, you can get to a point that you don't need dry food at all. My girls get 4 wet food meals a day and any leftovers are left out for them to graze on.

You can calculate how many calories your cat should get in a day (a common formula is 20 calories per pound of healthy/ideal body weight) then break that up into multiple meals.

 

Hi and welcome!!

Take a big breath all this diabetes and insulin stuff looks worse at the beginning than it is.

Combining his schedule with work can be a bit complicated I can't lie to you but it can be done, if you can get some one to back you up would be great but if not still it can be done, you will require a bit of organization though, the time feeder is a great help because that way you can be shure he gets food when you are out, actually with Lantus that is the one you will be using is better if they have several meals and even better if some of the meals are given mid cycle ( a 12 hour period between two shots) and with the time feeder you can program it to open at a certain time just make sure he doesn't have anything to eat 2 hours before the time you are going to give him his insulin ( this is so that the test results are not food influenced and you know is safe to give insulin) because with Lantus what you need to do is test, then shoot and give him his food (shoot and food can be given at the same time some people find it easier to shoot that way or one after the other ).

Establish the shooting schedule at the time when you are usually going to be able to give it to him, consider that you will have to always test him before giving him the insulin and try to stick to the schedule as much as possible but don't stress so much about it, when being a single working parent there will be times you will shoot a bit late ( not much but a few minutes 15-30 actually one hour can be a bit too much with Lantus but it could be done too ) and you will have to go back to the regular schedule later on ( you will learn how to do it don't worry about it now) and there will be times when you will have to skip shoots,which is not good but not terrible either (as long as he doesn't have a ketones or DKA problem) , life happens but cats can handle skipping one shot once in a while ( we try that that doesn't happen very often but when it does is not the end of the world )

 

Thanks for the reassurances and advice. She really stressed me out when she said he absolutely can’t miss a shot. It wouldn’t be a common thing but it’s a possibility.

I ordered Dr. Elsey’s Clean Protein Chicken this morning and will start switching him to that once I get it. I will also look into auto feeders, I never really thought of that option but it’ll definitely help.

 

When that happens write in the Lantus forum , where you will find a lot of people using Lantus and ask for advice, some of us have been there so I'm sure someone will be able to help you sort things out

Is great that you are changing him to a low carb diet, that will certainly help him and will probably cause his blood glucose numbers to go down a bit so is better if you can transition him before you start giving him insulin (of course that would depend on how cooperative he is)

 

Welcome to FDMB!

I agree with Wendy -- the vet tech is not up to speed with an insulin like Lantus. You're instincts were on target!!

There are a couple of housekeeping details.

• Can you add some information to your signature? If you take a look at Veronica's signature, she's included everything we ask for so we have a quick way to know the insulin you're using, when your cat was diagnosed, the meter you're using, etc.
• You will need to set up a spreadsheet. This is the link to the instructions. A spreadsheet will help you keep track of Gus' progress and will allow up to see how he's doing and help you manage his diabetes.
• You will want to take a look at the sticky notes at the top of the Lantus forum. The sticky notes contain an overwhelming amount of information about Lantus and how it works, dosing methods, etc.

Once you've gotten the above taken care of, we'd encourage you to post in the Lantus forum. The insulin forums can offer you a great deal of expertise when it comes to dosing.