Sharon and Dominick

Hello everyone. I joined this board in 2010, when Dominick was first diagnosed. We adopted him in 2009 and now he is probably about 10 or 11 years old. Generally, I've had an easy time of it with him, because he's spent almost all that time in remission. I don't think that would have happened if I hadn't read so much information on this forum. We were also very lucky that the veterinarian who diagnosed him really knew his stuff about feline diabetes. He recommended that I learn to home test, for example, and he even lent me a meter to use until I got one of my own. Unfortunately, we moved and his new vet isn't quite as well informed.

After the initial diagnosis we changed Dominick's diet first, to Fancy Feast classic pates, then started Lantus and he was in remission within three weeks. He relapsed in spring of 2013 for unknown reasons, and was OTJ again within two weeks. In January this year, he got a respiratory infection and his numbers rose slightly, nothing to worry about. The vet gave him Covenia for the infection. Then he stopped eating, his BG skyrocketed and he went into DKA - I was shocked at how fast that developed. He survived and pretty quickly went into remission for the third time. Now, he's relapsed again for unknown reasons, and for the first time I'm having some difficulty getting his BG under control. I have started following the Tight Regulation protocol and we are making progress. I know better than to expect a fourth remission (of course, I didn't expect the third one, either), but I want his BG to be within normal range as much as possible so he continues to be a happy and healthy cat.

Thank you so much for being here and making all this information available. You have improved the lives of countless diabetic cats - including mine.

Sharon and Dominick

 

Welcome back! But sorry you have to be here. Let us know if we can help in any way. Assume you are using Lantus again? If you haven't, you might check out the Lantus forum to see if anything's new. They have some great stickies.

 

Hi Sharon

Firstly, I just want to say that it is awesome to see such a dedicated carer

May I suggest that you move to the lantus/levemir insulin support group forum and let us help you over there. That is where all the lantus experts hang out. We can help you out with dosing as you go along, eg following TR you wouldn't have raised from 2.5 to 3 units when you got green on the 2.5. We can also help you out with when you need to test, e.g when you're in a bounce there's no need to test as frequently. There will be all sorts of other things that haven't even crossed your mind that people will notice and be able to advise you on.

A lot of people post daily at least until they've got the hang of things. Although Dominick has had diabetes for quite a long time I'm guessing you haven't had too much experience since he's gone into remission quickly on each occasion. We will be very happy to help you get him under control and who knows, maybe there is another remission in his future