? When 12 hour dosing is impossible

There has been a discussion the past few days of what to do when 12 hour dosing is impossible, in condos posted by @Stephanie&Quintus.
When most of us board our cats, they are not dosed on 12 hour schedules.
I had a pretty bad experience over Thanksgiving when I boarded Yum with my vet. I believe they dosed her around 8 AM and 5 PM---they couldn't say exactly. I think Yum's problems were UTI related, but I started wondering if other people have had bad boarding outcomes that they blamed on irregular shot schedules.

 

Many of us are pretty compulsive about asking about boarding related concerns including the timing of shots and if there will be someone on site 24/7. I typically encourage people to find a cat sitter. While my cat sitter obviously wasn't there 24/7, she took her job very seriously and Gabby was not the perfect client, by any means. (She would NEVER let anyone except me test her and if you tried, you were likely to be missing a hand.) But, we took other precautions such as lowering her dose. My sitters and Gabby learned to peacefully coexist.

There are probably an equal number of horror stories about boarding as there are about cat sitters (one that I can think of involved the sitter not showing up to even feed the kitty).

 

When Max was first diagnosed I left him for his first shot and a curve. My vet left early and another one was taking care of him. I had lots of questions and yours was one of them. She told me that when they boarded diabetics years ago and weren’t open as many hours they would shot around 8:30 and then when they left around 3:00. I bet no boarding place is nearly as diligent about timing as we are. I thought at the time that if I ever left Max I would reduce his dose to play it safe. J

 

I would be going to jail after I got thru with that person. Horrible

 

These stories are sad and maddening already...and I'm sure it's just the tip of the iceberg.

I paid a sitting service (pre diabetes) a hefty fee and nice tip to come over twice a day and feed my cats raw food and play with them and I was upset that they didn't clean up the boredom messes Toki left (spilled cat litter, open cabinets and drawers from hunting for plastic and styrofoam). Not coming to FEED them?! I just can't.

I think I'd rather them dose Asia once a day than twice too close together, I can't imagine!

Asia would probably let anybody test or shoot her and be patient and friendly to them, but I just don't see myself trusting anyone to take all the precautions necessary. Maybe the exception would be another responsible person on this board with a diabetic cat/diabetic cat experience. For better or for worse, I've just decided I won't be leaving Asia until she leaves me. This means I can't go home for Christmas with my extended family, vacations are out of the question, etc. But, she's 21 years old. If she were diagnosed at 10, I'd really have to rethink that!

 

The more I read about it, the more I tend to leave Toro on a safe feeding schedule(with a friend) , with only zero carbs food - and without insulin shots. At least that way I'm sure he's not going to get into hypo when we are away, anything else can be fixed after we come back.....

 

I found someone's lost cat once. "I'll be right over" turned into 4 hours. Having a cat is a yes or no thing, no inbetweens.
I also loaned a neighbor our trap for her cat which she never did set up. Eventually he came back. Better yet! The cat was diabetic but she had not "gotten around" to testing him.

 

@Toro & Ovi - Not giving insulin can be problematic especially if a cat has a history of developing ketones. That's a situation that may not be able to be fixed.

 

I left Silver for a few days as I had to go to the UK in a hurry and it was awful. One side of the Atlantic - a nervous catsitter who could not get the hang of testing so I had to half the dose and the other side of the Atlantic - my mom who had suffered a major stroke and brain bleed. Thought I was going back for a funeral. So difficult in those situations - very torn but I had no choice but to go.

 

A token dose might be safer as I had to do. It still really messed Silver up though and still not back in the blues he was getting.

 

Since pet sitting is now a profession they really should be either more educated/less nervous or partner up with someone who is capable. I've had amazing sitters and "The Blob" who just kind of forgot to come. Just about every local college has courses in animal care, they need to get with the program.
And funerals........ what else can you do?

 

Happy cat here...no ketones, ever.
I wonder.....usually cats go months and months with diabetes until they start losing weight and getting thirsty, peeing a lot and all the other diabetes symptoms. What can two weeks without insulin do worst than that?
I mean 2 weeks is nothing comparing with over 6 months which we believe Toro had diabetes without us knowing it........
I've read about caregivers giving insulin without doing tests. Obviously they don't observe the cats more than 30 min or so twice per day, they don't know if and when the cats ate their food .....isn't that more dangerous than few weeks of hyper? It's like a long row of no-no there: shot insulin without tests and without knowing the food intake for the next 12 hours.........
I have zero experience with that but the time for vacation will come....and I have lots of doubt about how to proceed.

 

For my Thanksgiving trip---my first time away since she became a full fledged diabetic in February---I was going to leave Yum off insulin. She was at a low dose and she has never had ketones. Of course right before my trip she got a UTI. It responded to Convenia at first then she gave me a BG of 513 just 3 hours before I had to go to the airport. Leaving her off insulin or even untested was not an option.

Yum was feral. Looking back, I should have made socializing her to other people a higher priority. She behaves at the vet but she is not social. I could take her with me, but air travel and a strange home would be extremely stressful for her. If someone other than me is going to give her insulin, she will have to be confined to a cage or possibly a bathroom. I don't have a great pet sitter. She might be able to catch Yum in the bathroom, but she wouldn't be able to test her BG.
I will probably board her at the vet again, if I have her stabilized from where she is now. If I don't have her more stabilized, I don't know what I will do.

I was wondering: Is a single shot at the same time every day better than 2 shots a day at uneven time intervals?
Are there charts on the forum which show severe problems arising from uneven dosing intervals?
Will a cat go from blue or green to red and black just due to 7 days of uneven dosing?
Maybe I can pay a vet tech extra to go in and dose her at a fixed 12 hour interval.

 

Well every cat is different but take a look at Silver’s spreadsheet. Before I went away I was getting blue a couple greens on 0.25 dose. After I came back he’s been mainly pinks. It will mess him up a bit. Ideal is the two doses 12 hours apart with testing.

 

re what @Sienne and Gabby (GA) said earlier. It's a big generalization to say "No two cats are the same" and I say it all the time. But your cat and ours are getting older every day. (To be completely honest Noah has missed many shots because I have been too physically ill to do it.) Some cats can do it, some cannot. It affects so many other systems in the body, sometimes things build up over time and one day Kablam, you've got a cat that is a high dose bouncer if you're lucky and much worse if you're unlucky. It's a long term maintenance issue.
Feral cats can live with diabetes but not long and it's an unpleasant way to go.

 

We are currently in this quandary . Before Tyler had the diabetes diagnosis, we had decided to re-emigrate back to the UK & Europe. Ty emigrated with us over 14 yrs ago and he would be emigrating back again.
Now he has this we must stay here for as long as he is with us. He wouldn't get a pet passport and I wouldn't put him through basically two days of travel and two long haul flights.
No cattery here will take a diabetic cat. There is one pet sitter/visitor service but we are too far out for this and I am not at all sure they are knowledgeable or qualified to tend to a geriatric diabetic cat lovely though they are. They have boarded my Rosa Bourkes before now.
This leaves boarding at the vet but to be honest that environment is less than palatable to me. It is a small room with cages and little else. Although the place is the 24/7 vet teaching and emergency hospital I am under the impression that if Ty was boarded there for a couple of days , the insulin shot may happen at the 12 hrs interval but little else by way of exercise , engagement, special diet. This is no blame to them , just they are not geared up really for boarding like that.
This means I'm stuck here each and every day and I am concerned about the stir crazy aspect. Ty hates car travel so taking him somewhere with us is not a goer.

I have looked at house sitters. Lots of people have & do this here & decided it would need to be a veterinary nurse or similar for Tyler. Thing is though that Ty may not take to that person at all or a stranger now might cause him stress. Certainly the kitten wouldn't have it.

It's an *argh* situation all round. I try not to think about this as have already written off visiting family/friends in the UK for this Xmas which was a blow & abandoned the thought of a weeks holiday next June for now.

 

Okay. He didn't go dramatically downhill but you did lose the blues. Hmmm. It's the blacks that instill fear and horror in my heart.

 

Blacks could be bounced tho. Silver had a few but not for long.

 

You have that right. *ARGH*. I was supposed to be house hunting over a 1000 miles away and moving close to family this year, but Yum's diabetes became my overwhelming obsession. Of course, she is so worth it. Sometimes life requires choices.

 

I hear you. It’s sooo hard. I had no choice with my UK trip. How about having a friend who might be willing, come to your house and get to know Ty. Then perhaps be present when you test. It took a while but my pet sitter is a church friend who visited enough to make Silver comfortable with her. I left her happy to shoot but couldn’t quite test and, at a lower reduced dose, kept Silver safe.

 

Oh my God I type slowly. @ Juliet @MJW what I said was not directed at you. "messages have been posted while you were typing like a 3 year old". Argh!!!