1. Name of your kitty, and date of diagnosis.
C.C., female, 13 years old, diagnosed May 19, 2016
2. Which insulin, and which glucose meter?
Vetsulin, and I use an Alphatrak 2 meter with Alphatrak strips
I did not start testing her at home until 7/16 (thanks to the encouragement of this forum). In retrospect I wish I had started it RIGHT AWAY, but it was not something my vet encouraged... she said "most people don't home test. You can if you want but most don't." I was already feeling overwhelmed at the diagnosis and didn't know if I could handle that too, so I decided not to. I now feel like those were to wasted months and that had I started earlier, not only would CC have been safer, but she probably would have achieved remission sooner. Live and learn.
I was very comfortagle using the Alphatrak meter, despite the high cost of strips. I liked having the same meter as my vet, and that I wasn't getting lower readings than she actually was. There was only one time that I needed strips RIGHT AWAY, but I just had to go to my vet and could buy them there. Much cheaper online though... and I learned to always have a backup set of strips on hand so that never happens again. (ADW sells them for about $53 and I always use a $5 off coupon code).
3. Details of diet. And did you switch from dry to wet food? If so, at what point?
We were initially told by our vet that our best hope for getting cc into remission was to feed her the prescription diet. We bought both the cans of perscription Purina DM Savory Select and the dry D/M. In retrospect it's obvious this was not the best choice. We did that the first month and a half or so. I wish I had known how bad that food is from the beginning. I wish my vet were better informed as well! After doing research and finding this forum we learned how FF Classic was better, so that's what we did.
Starting the end of July took her off the prescription food and just did FFC, however being a kibble addict she was not thrilled. She ate it but was always wanting to get into the dry that we have for some of our other cats and for the outside strays we feed.
Finding out about Young Again Zero dry food was truly a game changer for us. we asked for a free sample of the food, and we for the first time saw mid day blue numbers pop up in her spreadsheet. She liked it, it lowered numbers, and that was good enough for us to shell out for a bag.
We received our bag on 8/5/16 and began feeding FF Classic wet food (about 1 1/2-2 oz) at each preshot time and free feeding Young Again Zero whenever she wanted. The YAZ caused absolutely no change to her BG.
Two weeks after starting the YA food and CC's preshot numbers dropped from Pinks and Yellows down into the blues. She regulated quickly and with lots of dosage reductions and tweaks we are where we are now.
We have continued her feeding of a small meal of wet morning and evening and YAZ available at all times. I can't say enough good things about this food.
4. If you used any other insulin besides the current one, which one was it, and how long were you on it.
We always used Vetsulin. I was initially told to give 1 unit twice a day, and was not told it was important to home test, but just watch for hypo. I saw some improvement... her fur was not as greasy and she seemed to have more energy, but that didn't last too long, and a few weeks later she was as lethargic as before, and very unkempt looking. After two months she was given a fructosimine test at the vet and it was showing CC was still very high and unregulated and her dose was increased to 2 units.
That day I decided I needed to put on my big girl undies and take a more proactive role in her care rather than just blindly shooting. I ordered the alphatrack meter, and found this forum. When I first joined the board I was inundated with lots of people telling me her insulin was no good and was too harsh, and that she wouldn't go into remission if I used it. I was very upset and questioned whether my vet knew what the hell she was doing. I wondered if my vet had steered me completely wrong.
A few days later I called my vet to see about a change. I found Well my regular vet was on vacation for the week, so I talked to a different vet at the practice, and she convinced me to give Vetsulin another 2 or 3 weeks and see if it's working better, and if not call back we would talk about switching. I'm glad she talked me out of changing right away because two weeks from then I in fact was seeing better numbers (preshots in the yellows) and longer duration and decided to give it a longer go, figuring if it didn't work out I could always switch.
When I first started testing I found the Vetsulin was not working for long... maybe six hours, but as time went on and the more controlled her numbers were, the longer the duration extended... eventually giving me 10+ hours of duration. After switching food to FFC and YAZ food induced BG rises weren't really a factor at all is when I saw the most headway in her healing.
I tested. A LOT. All those tests gave me a great picture of how she would react to each dose. As her preshot numbers came down and subsequently her doses were less, the steepness of the curve were less as well. When her preshots were nice and low (under 180) I found it relatively easy to dose small amounts to get her into healing low 100's and double digits. I of course would not attempt to do that before having LOTS of data on how she reacts to each dose... but once I had that picture I was able to get her into those healing ranges for several hours a day until her pancreas was able to take over.
One thing I really like about Vetsulin is I found it extremely easy to find the patterns and predict what the result would be with fairly good accuracy and very few surprises. Once I had lots of data I found it pretty easy to get the numbers exactly where I wanted them. I also love the flexibility Vetsulin offers so that if I had to shift the timing an hour or so here and there, it wasn't a problem.
5. Date of last shot. And average BG (blood glucose level) since then.
Her last shot was .25u on a reading of 131 in the morning of 9/6/16.
Her averages 10 weeks ago when I first started testing were AMPS 428.7 and PMPS 365.6
This past week CC's average AMPS was 109 and her PMPS 101.9.
View attachment 23473
I'm am still in awe of her progress in that time.
6. From start to finish, how long was your cat on insulin?
111 days. Just over 3 1/2 months.
7. Anything else specific to your cat's situation that it might be important/useful for others to know (concurrent health issues? Other?)
For months before her diagnosis CC had what I thought was arthritis, and was giving her cosequin for it. The cosequin seemed to help for a period of time, but then seemed like it was no longer as effective and her limping got bad again. As she was nearing remission it was clear what I was actually seeing was more likely the beginning of neuropathy, and I observed that as her diabetes improved, so did her ability to walk and jump. She does not limp at all now, and I'm lucky she didn't get worse then she was! I give her a bit of B12 in her food now just for a little extra boost. I feel really fortunate that she was able to be brought into remission so quickly.
