Newbie from Hamburg, Germany

Hi All!

My name is Jeannette and I live in Hamburg, Germany. One of my two cats, Lily, was diagnosed with diabetes last week Monday. So glad I found this forum! She's a 12-year-old tabby cat that we've had for a year and a half now and is quite a character.

Her numbers at diagnosis were 480+ and the vet prescribed 2 units of Caninsulin twice a day (This is the brand that the vet has to prescribe first by law here in Germany, I've read). We're managing well with the shots so far.

This week Monday she got another blood test 3 hours after insulin and she tested at 283 (this was, however, the quick test that her stress levels will affect).

I ordered a glucose (blood) tester and was able to successfully get a drop of blood today (was worried about that!) and her current level is 176, 4 hours after insulin. From what I've read, that looks pretty good? I'm starting a log for the vet, who is thrilled that I'm willing to test at home - seems most people aren't.

So now it's time to take a deep breath, find a routine for all this, and work on changing her food. I've always been careful about the food my cats eat, but she came here with some pretty bad habits and is a total dry food junkie when allowed. I've always given her a small serving of Applaws dry food every day, but it has been demoted to "max 5 pieces as a treat" while I get her carb intake lowered. I stumbled across an excellent German website with a PDF listing all the catfoods available here, their carb levels and whether they are suitable for diabetic cats, and it's been a godsend.

We took her to the vet because she started peeing in the hall. It started at the same time we were doing some loud renovation work, so at first I thought it was protest peeing, but it seemed like an awful lot and it smelled really strong. My first thought was some kind of urinary tract infection, and diabetes was the last thing on my mind! Whatever the case, I think we caught it fairly fast and she didn't have any other obvious signs of being sick - her fur was shiny, she was her usual energetic self, etc.

Here's hoping we can get her into remission!

 

Welcome Jeanette and Lily! It sure sounds like you have things well in hand. It's good you are home testing Lily while you change her food. Make sure you test her before you feed her, and give her shot, as well as getting a test or two later. I'm still new here and not familiar with caninsulin but I'm sure someone that is will chime in to give you more info.(it's still pretty early here). BTW love the pic!

 

Hi and welcome. You are on the right track to helping Lily. You mentioned staring a log for your vet. There is a spreadsheet that most people use to track dosage and BG numbers. If you look at the post before mine from Sharon14, you will see in her signature at the end of her post a line that says "Colin's SS". If you click on that you will see what the spreadsheet looks like.

Here is the link to instructions to set it up. I believe there is a tab for international users.
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/fdmb-spreadsheet-instructions.130337/

 

I was looking for that spreadsheet - thank you!

And thanks to Sharon14 for the welcome too.

 

Welcome Jeanette and Lily,

Sounds like you have things moving along. Canninsulin works for some cats and not so well for others. It might or might not have a fast onset - meaning they can drop lower after the shot. Because of that, we suggest being sure they have food in heir tummies before the shot. So with Canninsulin, we suggest you feed get a test 20 minutes before the shot, then feed, then wait 20 minutes before shooting. The thinking is that if they are going to vomit their meal, they will in that first 20 minutes. The other thing that sometimes happens is that Canninsulin may not last as long as other insulins. Sometimes it lasts 8 hours rather than 12. But we have had several members lately who have not had that experience and have had nice 12 hour cycles.

We have a saying here: Every Cat is Different". So your job is to see how Lily does with the insulin by testing. Test in the first 2/3 hours. Does she head down right away? (If so, you can use food to steer her up). How soon does she start up - 8/10 hours? You can use that info to work with the insulin to her advantage.

Here is the guide for Vetsulin/Canninsulin

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/vetsulin-caninsulin-user-guide.302/

@Squalliesmom is the latest User and she has done very well. You might check out her posts and spreadsheets.

BTW, the insulin is usually called Vetsulin in the US and Canninsulin in Europe and Canada.

 

Hi, Jeanette and Lily, welcome to FDMB! It's wonderful that you're off to such a good start! Also great that you have got a lot of support from your vet, not everyone does. Vetsulin (Caninsulin) has worked very well for my kitty; he was diagnosed in June. Changing to a low-carb diet made a huge difference in Squallie, too. He went from needing 7 units of insulin 2x daily to, now, less than 1.

You will find that this is a wonderful place to be for advice and support! Everybody here is incredibly kind and helpful, with a wealth of knowledge to share. I can't imagine where Squallie and I would be now without the advice and support we have received here!

 

Hey Jeanette and welcome! This is a great bunch of people who are so dedicated to helping us help our cats. Sounds like you have done a lot of homework all ready to want to home test your cat to keep Lily safe. Also, you all ready understand how important a lower carb diet can be. So glad you were able to find a link for lower carb food available to you in Germany . I am not sure if someone all ready said it but, you want to keep the carbs 10% and under. Lily looks like a real character and you are the second person recently that posted a pic of your cat laying on her back. The other cat is apparently a real character as well. Ask all the questions that you need to and someone will respond to answer. If you need help to set up a Spread Sheet, ask and someone can help with that too.

 

Hello Jeanette. I'm a Vetsulin user also however I'm switching to another soon. You are on top of things. Smokey had diabetes when I inherited him but no instructions. So I didn't know anything until many months later. I have received so much help and support from everyone here. When Smokey had his 1st (and mine) hypo episode September 6, is when I got really involved with his diabetes. Always a work in progress.

Again welcome and keep us updated. Paula

 

Hi Jeannette and Lily, welcome to FDMB! Love that pic of Lily, I guess she is showing you what she thinks of the camera haha

 

Here are some Secondary Monitoring Tools you may find helpful to assess your cat.

 

Thanks for all the helpful replies everyone!

 

You have been very helpful, thanks so much! I'm making sure to try to get her tested at a different time every day so that if I don't manage a proper curve before the next vet visit in a couple of weeks, I'll at least have what data I do have as spread out over the day as possible. Luckily I work from home!

 

Good Morning Jeanette, If you test Lily before you feed her in the AM and the PM 12 hours apart, you can do you own curve. Test before the meal, feed, and then test every two hours for 12 hour. Most of us here do our own curves because when the cat is at the vet they are very stressed and the numbers can be up to 100 points higher and then the vet is basing her doses of insulin on that artificially high number. And it will save you $$ and less stress on your cat. We use a Spread Sheet to collect all our data; it helps us to identify the patterns we're looking for when making suggestions on dose increases. Here's some instructions on How to create our spreadsheet

If you need help setting in up just ask and someone will help your. Also, when you are ready and don't understand it, ask again and someone will send you an explanation on how to use it. I just don't want to overwhelm you right now.

ETA: Oh, I just saw where someone all ready gave you the instruction. Sorry I was redundant.

 

Oh, I don't mind! I'm learning so much from this forum.

We're practicing testing now. She's very uncooperative right before mealtime and I'm not quite up to testing her with the meter when she's struggling (yet), but she lets me do whatever I want in between. We're getting there!

 

That picture is hilarious!

We started on canninsulin but because I was home testing I was able to see, and show the vet, that it wasn't working well for Vyktor - fast hard drops and losing efficacy well before the next shot was due so that he was spending too much time in high numbers and not enough in normal numbers where the healing takes place - which is what you need for remission. You can see that at the top of his old spreadsheet - the 'ss' in the last line of my signature. It's great that you're home testing so you will be able to get a clear picture of how it works in Lily. It's incredibly awesome that you work from home so will be able to keep a close eye on her.

With the test before the meal problem. As long as Lily isn't a slow eater it will be ok to get the test immediately after she's done and before the food has had a chance to effect her BG. You could try just letting her have a couple of tspns of her meal first so that as she gets into her new routine you can reduce that until she's getting none of her meal first and you don't have to worry about being on her like a hawk to get her as soon as she's finished eating. Mums kitty is a bit squirmy when it's meal time so he gets a couple of small dices of raw chicken beforehand to settle him down. Getting a test unaffected by food before a shot is really important so that you know it is safe to shoot.

Welcome aboard you are doing an amazing job already

 

Good idea about a few tbsp. on food to stop the squirming.