Tigger OTJ

I'm finally throwing caution to the wind and declaring Tigger OTJ!!!

Tigger is our adopted, feral Indonesian Kitty....we estimate he is 13-14 years old. In the last year he started acting & looking less healthy....small things at first....not jumping up on the furniture, losing weight & his coat started looking rough and dull.....I took it all as signs of aging, and although it saddened me, I accepted it.....since we offered free feeding of dry food and unlimited water, I did not really notice his increased appetite and water consumption.....when my older son graduated college in May, we took a 10 day family trip & hired a neighbor's kid to come in once a day to check food & water and clean litter box.....when we returned, our poor Tigger was barely standing and looked shockingly skinny & scruffy.....(I think the stress of us being gone so long put him over the edge)...we immediately took him off to the vet.....after three days of intensive care....IVs, etc. and lots of tests, we were told he had diabetes.

We were sent home with a prescription for Lantus insulin and instructions on how to inject him twice per day with 2 units. We were told we would need to do this for the rest of his life. Food was not really stressed.....although the vet did offer to sell us their dry, diabetic cat food....wet, high protein food was not mentioned. Well, in this computer age, of course I started researching on the Internet. I quickly found Doctor Hodgkin's TR protocol and read a lot of the success stories....for some reason, reading about the need to test the BG levels and adjust the insulin shot based on the BG results made total sense to me.....blindly injecting a set amount did not.

Within a few days, I took a leap of faith (I'm still kinda shocked I did this) and ignored the vet's orders to follow TR.....I ran out to buy wet food based on the list provided here...we were so lucky that Tigger took to it like he was starving....I read here that some cats react like "Thank, God....finally the right food!" and that was Tigger....I am thankful I did not have the additional struggle of trying to get him switched to a new food....I had tons of questions and I received immediate help all along the way from many wonderful members here...(try getting that from a vet!!) ....but I have a very special thanks reserved for Jacqui, who truly held my hand through this. She answered questions quickly, (once from a taxi cab!!!), which not only gave me the directions I needed at that time, but helped calm my fears and worries. She gently steered me to the best treatment for Tigger...and boy did it work......!!!

We started on 6/6/2012 and he had his last shot on 6/30!! If you look at his chart, he swung wildly at first with highs into the 500's.....now he is hovering nicely below 100!! We truly have our Tigger back....he has gained back his weight and his coat is shiny and smooth.....his zest for life has returned and he is running around the house again and giving our other cat, Leo, a hard time . Despite my fears to the contrary, all the testing, poking, waking him up to test, shots, etc. has not made him fear me, it has actually brought us closer together.....weirdly, he goes right to the towel on the bathroom floor whenever I go into the bathroom.....that is the spot where I did all his tests & shots. We are down to just one test per day and I am planning to go to once per week, then once per month.

I hope Tigger's success will help inspire anyone who has a newly diagnosed kitty to take the leap and at least try TR.

Best & Kind Regards, Cindy, Tigger (and Leo, too!)

PS.....an added benefit of TR: We also got our chubby Leo off the dreaded dry food, which I am convinced is what gave Tigger diabetes, and he is slowly losing all his unhealthy, extra weight....he was not a happy camper about it, but we kept at it....again with help from this board, and now he can't wait for me to open a can of Fancy Feast!!