Tulip was diagnosed yesterday

Hello all,

My name is Hailey and my sweet baby's name is Tulip. She is about 12.5 years old. I took Tulip in to the vet yesterday for a scheduled checkup. I knew something was going on, because she seemed very skinny to me. Turns out she had dropped from 12 lbs to 8.3 lbs since her last vet visit in March.

We are still waiting to get her full blood panel test results back, and should get them on Monday or Tuesday. But her BG at the vet's was around 450 mg.

Tulip was prescribed 1U of ProZinc, 2x a day. They told me to wait to give her the shot until she had eaten more than half of her normal amount of food.

The vet tech taught me how to give insulin and we gave the first dose of 1U yesterday afternoon. When we got home, Tulip was a little spacey because of pain medication (the vet had to express her anal glands which is never fun) but she ate some wet and dry food, drank some water, and I bought her some new toys and spent lots of time petting her and brushing her by the fireplace.

She has been eating dry Blue Buffalo Healthy Aging for Mature Cats. The vet told me that she needs to eat wet food in addition. Yesterday I picked up a few cans of Blue Buffalo Wilderness wet food, and made sure it was high in calories and low in carbs.

This morning, I fed her about 1/3 of a small can of the BB Wilderness Duck flavor at 7:30am before giving her 1U of ProZinc at around 7:45am. I was worried that I didn't get a good enough seal when I put the in her, but it seemed to go far enough into the "tent". She was a little squirmy but I think I did it alright.

We are now laying in bed together. After her shot, she drank some water from her kitty fountain and I gave her lots of pets. She seems content and is napping now.

After trying to educate myself as much as I could I am just worried about hypoglycemia. But she is not exhibiting any signs of it right now so I think she is okay.

I don't have a blood glucose reader yet. We will go back to the vet in about 5 days to check and I am going to ask about getting a home testing device. I took notes on how much I fed her, what time, and if she was increasing or decreasing with her water intake and urine output (seems to be decreasing on both).

I am terribly sorry for such a long post. I am just so worried for her. I want to do everything I can so that she is okay. I feel guilty that she's been suffering and I didn't do anything sooner. I love her so much. I wish I had diabetes instead of her.

Please send my sweet baby some loving energy. We really appreciate it.

Love from Hailey and Tulip

 

She's laying next to me in bed right now

 

Hi Hailey, welcome to you and Tulip. She's a little luv bug and we will do all we can to help you learn about feline diabetes and give her effective treatment.

It's great that you have begun insulin therapy, but that is only one of the three basic components of effective diabetic treatment. Diet and home testing are the other two.

We can go into more detail about a good diet for Tulip to get the blood sugar levels more regulated, and how home testing can help protect her from hypoglycemia, plus let you know just how the insulin is working for her. Going forward, you can start a new thread in the Main Health forum HERE and ask about diet and testing.

Please create a signature for Tulip that will be attached to any post you make, then we can see her information right away without backtracking through previous posts or asking the same questions over and over.

Editing your Signature, Profile, and Preferences

Testing Tulip is going to help ease some worries about hypoglycemia, and you do not have to wait for the vet to advise on a meter, or have permission to test. Some cats are not symptomatic with a hypo....until they suddenly are. We all test our sugar cats here, so that we can do everything we can to protect them, and know real time how the insulin is working. Again, I suggest you post on the Main Health forum so that we can go into more detail...this forum is only the welcome mat just to say "Hello, here I am, what's next?"

You are in the exact right place to get information and support as you venture into this new journey. We will help all we can as you learn, and help Tulip to better health and well being.