Newly diagnosed and slightly overwhelmed : /

My beautiful 9 y.o. female, Chicken Meow Meow Catwomen, (Chicken) for short, was diagnosed with feline diabetes after our Vet visit on June 13th. Her fructosamine level was 634 and her glucose was 360 (of course I am accounting that some of that was stress related). I started her on Lantus 2 units twice a day on June 18th. My husband and I are both seasoned Registered Nurses and this whole process was very overwhelming for us, not so much the medication but the food... Feeding... How much, how often. I also have a seven year old male cat, named Casper, so it is difficult to tell who eats what, who drinks what, who urinates, etc. Casper primarily eats wet food and I use to share that with Chicken but then I thought the wet food was bad for her because she was overweight at 15.4 pounds so I took her off the wet food and only on her automatic feeder for dry food, and that is when I started to notice massive amounts of weight loss (mostly muscle mass, 4 pounds since November 2013 but most of it very recent-since December last year) and then I noticed that she was having difficulty walking, which just makes me want to cry and I took her to the vet right away and so our journey begins. God bless Casper also because he is right there every time I check Chickens sugar... He is great moral support for her! Chicken is on Purina DM wet food before I give her the insulin and then I put 1/2 cup of the Purina diabetic dry in their bowl. They get wet food twice a day. Chicken's fasting glucose is anywhere between 139-195 and at night 226-272. The 272 was before her first dose of Lantus. Also lantus is extremely expensive, even though I would pay anything for her meds, Target will split their box of 3cc Lantus pens and they sell for about $80.00. Just in case that may be of some help to somebody : ). I'm sorry this is so long... The hardest part for me is watching her in pain when she walks and trying to get a drop of blood from her ear, ugh!!! But I am determined that we will beat this and get our baby girl into remission : ). Thank you for listening and allowing me to share and shred a few tears

 

Welcome to FDMB, the best place you never wanted to be.

There are 4 things you'll need to manage your kitty's diabetes:
- You - without your commitment, the following won't work.
- Low carb over the counter canned or raw diet, such as many Friskies pates. See Cat Info for more info. If already on insulin, you must be home testing before changing the diet.
- A long-lasting insulin such as ProZinc, Lantus, BCP PZI, or Levemir.
- And home blood glucose monitoring with an inexpensive human glucometer such as the WalMart Relion Confirm or Target Up and Up (the pet ones will break your budget!).

The ear pricking isn't particularly painful to the cat as they have fewer nerve endings in their ears. Mostly, cats don't like being restrained.

The difficulty standing and walking fully may be neuropathy. In addition to good glucose control, adding 300 mcg of methylcobalamin, a specific form of B-12 vitamin, will help relieve that.

 

Thank you for the information and dosage... I actually have that medication here at the house so I will administer that this evening along with her Lantus.
She is a very good girl for her glucose testing... I just think she feels me getting nervous. Going to heat up a rice pack for this evening's test. I know she loves the cuddles and the attention and food rewards, so that makes me happy!! Thank you so much for your helpful response : )

 

It sounds like you've gotten a good start with testing and administering Lantus. The methylcobalamin will also help in conjunction with improved regulation.

You may want to cut back the dry food, now that you've gotten an idea of Chicken's BG levels.

Nice to see that you are asking for help quickly! Cats have the best chance of going into remission if their humans are promptly proactive. I was a little slow to pick up on all the craziness that sugarbaby parents need to deal with, but now husband and daughter are involved in our cat's care. The fact that you and your husband are registered nurses should be very helpful!

 

Hi Chicken's Mom (and Dad) and extra sweet Chicken! Welcome!

Feeding - some feed only at shot time, others 'free feed' throughout the day. One thing I do want to mention tho - the 'Purina Diabetic' hard food is stuffed full of carbs and will cause higher numbers. Does it say 'Diabetic' or 'Diatetic'? The food's salesmen have many vets convinced that it's some 'special' when it's truly just dry food. They all talk a good talk but that's their job. The vets push it because they think it IS special...there's lots of wet foods just as good and cheaper.

I have a 'civie' (non-diabetic) that also has to be right there for testing - every once in a while, he'll actually climb under my hands or on the table for HIS pokie. I oblige, it's a good way to spot potential issues early. The blood from the ear will happen easier soon, there's not many nerves in the ear so there isn't pain like your finger for example.

HUGS!

 

Thank you so much for the encouragement. Thank you again for taking time to respond and giving us support and I will continue to decrease the dry food until hopefully I can take it away for good : ). I tried to get things started asap even though I was/am still nervous but I know it needs to be done. I feel I have so much to learn.
Best of luck to you Marnipaul and Miles!

 

Hi Squeaky, KT and Civie...Thank you so much for you response and support. I am using the Purina "Diabetic" dry food. Only giving them 1/2 a cup a day which is so much less then I had been giving them. I know it has 15% carbohydrates in it, which is bad and hopefully one day soon they will be off of dry food completely. I did find a good list of low-carbohydrate wet food that has the carbohydrates listed and are acceptable to feed diabetic cats and are probably less expensive then the Purina DM. So if Chicken does not start eating more then she is now I may have to consider trying something else. I found this list at www.askthecatdoctor.com if anyone is interested.

That is an excellent idea to give Casper a Pokie every once in awhile just to ward off evil spirits, lol. I really feel that the ear prick is painful for Chicken, it just breaks my heart. I know it is not suppose to hurt but she meows like it bothers her and it just kills me. I give her lots of lovins and hugs, kisses, a couple treats etc...I will just keep at it and hope I get better at it and she gets more tolerant with me, (although she is very good).

Thank you so much again for the support and the advise. Best of luck to you, Squeaky, KT and Civie : ))

 

You can use a tiny smear of Neosporin with pain relief on her ear before you poke. Not only will it maybe make it less painful but sometimes it helps the blood bead up. Just be sure it is only a tiny smear, not a glob.

 

Thank you for the helpful tip Sue and Oliver... I will give it a try. This morning's blood sugar poke went pretty well, I warmed up the rice pack and held it to her ear for a bit first. Still took me a couple tries but no meowing or deep groaning so that was improvement. The bad news was her BS was 285, which I am uncomfortable with. I tried to get her to eat the Purina DM and she would not take it and then I read my list of approved wet food and gave her a can of fancy feast. She liked it. Almost ate the full little can. Since Chicken's sugar this morning was so elevated I am not going to give them any dry food today. I will see about tonight because we both work nights and I have to be there two hours early tonight for a meeting so hopefully my husband can give her the Lantus and I will already have done the blood sugar, so hopefully we are not to far off schedule. I hope the next sugar is lower.. They seem very erratic right now and I'm feeling a little out of control because I want better regulation. Hopefully with time it will improve! Thank you for caring enough that you took time out of your busy day to help us. We really appreciate it.
Xoxo,
Chicken and Stacey (Chicken's Mom)

 

285 is not an awful number, especially if she has only been on insulin for a few days. Generally we think a cat is regulated if they are in the lower/mid 200s at pre shot and in double digits at nadir (but not below 50 which is approaching hypo territory) We usually tell a new diabetic not to shoot under 200 but to stall - wait 20 minutes without feeding and retest, to make sure the number is rising and that it is nearer 200. Once you have some more data, you can shoot in lower ranges and aim for lower numbers overall.

The wet low carb may also lower her levels.

 

Hello!! Last night's blood sugar was 135. She ate and then got her insulin. The vet never said to hold it if she was under a certain number but I think I would feel better if she was on a sliding scale of some kind. I don't even know if they do that with cats : ). She is going Friday for her first glucose curve so I guess we will see what that shows.
Thank you again for the reassurance that the 285 was not that bad because it was really scary for me! I feel a lot better since I have found this forum and I am able to get some advice from cat mommy's that have been through this! Hopefully one day I can help someone else the way you all are helping me! Thank you again so much!! Have a great day!

 

We suggest new users not shoot below 200 mg/dL unless they have test data showing it is safe.

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Sure I will happily put in that information, hopefully I will get to that today : ). I am going to call the vet and check if I should medicate under 200 because this morning's and last night's blood sugar were both under two hundred.
Thank you so much for your reply. Have a great day!!

Stacey and Chicken

 

BJM mentioned this earlier but it is worth saying again. A cat's BG levels can drop dramatically when dry food is taken out of their diet. So be sure to test more than you normally would for a few days. I was feeding Billy dry and wet DM and after going to all wet his BG dropped a LOT over a period of 3-4 days. It may not happen in your case but you need to watch for it if it does.

 

Thank you for the reply. I spoke to the vet and told her what her numbers have been. I still give them about a half a cup of the DM dry for the day. Her sugars have been really great, under 200 for probably the past three times we took it but tonight it was 212, so... She goes for her first glucose curve tomorrow so it will be interesting to see how that goes.
I'm guessing we will be bringing our two kitties on vacation with us this year since I can't leave Chicken because she needs her shots and testing, and I can't leave Casper at home all alone, so it should be interesting!! We miss them when we are gone anyway : )) have a great night everyone!!