Struggling to help my boy

Hi all,
Any advise received warmly welcome. I live in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus which is an unrecognised country to the world except Turkey. My beloved Pushkins was diagnosed a month ago and as yet it is not under control. Our vets has put him on Hills WD dry food but reading I have heard this is not a good product to feed him as high in Carbs even though supposed to be a vet diet!!! I did managed to source it from South Cyprus as so many brands are not available here. Starting changing him to wet food in Jelly mainly Felix as can't get much else. Also we have no choice but to use human insulin as that is all that is available and it's that's or nothing. I'm trying to source a good glucose monitor from the uk one that uses only a small amount of blood and will feed onto strip from any angle, as I'm not home in Uk can anyone help me choose so I can get it sent out.
Thank you in adavance
Neets x

 

Welcome Neets and Pushkins! You've come the right place for all the assistance you need and want to help Pushkins. Diet change can have a profound effect on BG levels so we recommend you start home testing before changing diet. Lower BG means less insulin is needed and home testing is the best way to keep Pushkin safe while making a diet change.

Any human meter will work just fine and most members here use a human meters. I'm not aware of any meters that allow feeding the strip from any angle. They are either end loading or side loading to my knowledge. Some allow for more blood to be added within a certain time limit if the sample is not large enough initially. The Freestyle Freedom Lite and Freestyle Lite meters have side loading strips (choice of either side but only one side per test) and need the tiniest sample size available. The AccuCheck meters are also popular in the UK. The strips are end loading and take a bit larger sample (double the Freestyle but still small). I know some use a One Touch meter but I believe the blood sample required is larger than the other choices.

The strips are the most expensive part of home testing so the cost of strips is something else to take into consideration when choosing a meter.

What human insulin are you using? Use of human insulins is quite common and we have members using several different types so help is available here.

Please join us over on the Health Forum with any and all questions you might have. You'll be amazed at the knowledge and tips and tricks we have up our sleeves to make your journey easier on both you and Pushkin.

 

I don't know if the felix you get is the same as what we get in Australia but if it is I don't think it's a good food for diabetics either, ingredients include sugar (who the heck would put sugar in cat food!) and also something else carby I can't remember off the top of my head, maybe some sort of flour or thickener. You may want to look at doing raw food if you can't get something appropriate in a can, catinfo.org has some good info on raw diets and a section where diabetics are discussed.

But as Linda says, if you're using insulin you really should be home testing before you change the diet as it can have some dramatic effects