Newly diagnosed bad first day

My first (and only day) of insulin is detailed here: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/hello-im-a-newbie.210562/

I haven’t given Ganon insulin since the day he almost went into hypoglycemia. I have drastically changed his diet though, from free feed dry food to Sheba pate 3x/day (although he’s 8.8 kg not sure if I’m feeding him enough). He loves it, water intake and urination has decreases to normal and his breath even seems better.
I’m going to speak to the vet but I’m still angry that I wasn’t told to test him and I’m thankful I did.
Anyway, he’s newly diagnosed and the rest of his numbers are great. I don’t want to give him insulin and I want to see if diet change and exercise will help. His test at the doc his glu was 500. Today before meal it was 340. Still high and I’m not expecting remission overnight. But. IS IT POSSIBLE WITHOUT IBSULIN? That is the $1,000,000 question here. It’s 3am. I can’t sleep. This is obviously a huge concern.
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

 

I read your first post. I see that you gave 1 unit of ProZinc that day. Is that correct?

Yes, some kitties can be controlled by canned low carb food as their sole diet. It's too early to say if that'll be the case for Ganon. Is he on low carb wet food completely now? The BG reading at the vet was high and likely part of that was the extra stress. Testing at home is the best way to figure things out and keep your boy safe.

Re your recent test results at home: if those are what he's showing on strictly low carb wet food, they're high enough to warrant insulin. Not what you wanted read, I know. It's possible that he might need insulin for a finite period of time and then can be controlled with low carb wet food only. It's too soon to know. Meanwhile, allowing him to run in high BGs is detrimental to his health.

Let's get started:

A. You need a structured BG testing routine:

Here's what we recommend as a minimum:

1. test every day AM and PM before feeding and injecting (no food at least 2 hours before) to see if the planned dose is safe
2. test at least once near mid cycle or at bedtime daily to see how low the BG goes
3. do extra tests on days off to fill in the response picture
4. if indicated by consistently high numbers on your spreadsheet, increase the dose by no more than 0.25 u at a time so you don't accidentally go right past a good dose
5. post here for advice whenever you're confused or unsure of what to do.

This is useful: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/hometesting-links-and-tips.287/

B. You need to set up the spreadsheet we use here:

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/fdmb-spreadsheet-instructions.130337/
We rely heavily on the patterns of BG data on this colour coded spreadsheet to assess how a dose is working.

C. You need to learn more about ProZinc and how it's used best:
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/...prozinc-pzi-insulin-for-diabetic-cats.164995/

D. Post on the ProZinc forum for insulin specific advice:
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/forums/prozinc-pzi.24/


If the 1 unit dose truly is too much insulin then we can guide you in the use of fractional doses. If your U40 insulin syringes have half unit marks you'll be able to read 0.5 u directly and eyeball 0.25 u or 0.75 u will a little practice. It's not uncommon for some cats to need only a tiny dose to improve the BG levels. There isn't necessarily a correlation between size of insulin dose and "how bad" the diabetes is.

I hope this helps.

 

kris answered you so i will just comment on food question.
am assuming you are feeding the same single servings version of sheba pate that i feed my younger cats, if so 3 of them per day is not enough food. without going to look i am pretty sure each single serving of the poultry pates is under 50 calories each, so 150 calories per day is jot enough for your big boy (if my math is right he is like 19lbs right?). looking at your avatar pic, he looks like he is a cat that is suppose to be around 12-14lbs max, if so using 13lbs as an ideal weight, he needs at least 195 calories per day right now, so at least 4 shebas servings per day.. you need to weight him weekly and if he is losing more than 2% of his current weight per week than you will need to feed him a little more so he doesn't lose that extra weight too fast and end up with other health issues.

 

Just sending hugs, Effie

And I think you had a great first day. You followed your gut, and you did everything it took to keep Ganon safe. I mean that.

 

Hi and welcome.... Kris gave you great info I just wanted to add I tried food alone for remission and found out later from a few experts that supporting the pancreas/insulin even short term will give you a better shot at remission.

 

Hi Effie, glad to see your post. Was wondering how you and Ganon were doing.
I'm sorry to hear your feeling so much stress. Kris has done a wonderful job outlining some proactive steps for you to help Ganon.
Just wanted to follow up about the carb content of Nutrish. I think it's 13% which is considered medium carb.
Also, I agree with Sandi. You did a great job keeping Ganon safe