Will our furbabies be ok?

My partner was feeling emotional tonight about the possibility of Dweezil having a shortened life because of the Diabetes...so i was reassuring her. But now she's gone to bed, i'm feeling alone and scared.

Will Diabetes shorten our cats' lives IF it is regulated?

I told her no, that if regulated, there would be no reason it would shorten his life. That once the numbers get below a certain point, his kidneys won't be overworked, his pancreas will recover, and basically, even if he remains on insulin for the rest of his life, as long as he is regulated, what is the difference between his own body naturally producing enough insulin and it being given to him from an external source? So he should have no reason to die early from it.

But is this true?

I mentioned to her that a person with Diabetes who eats well and takes their insulin if required need not have any complications. It's only those who eat poorly and don't treat themselves properly that end up shortening their lives. But can that be applied to cats?

I am scared. I want my baby to have a long life...or at least as long as it would've been if he didn't have Diabetes. Is this possible?

 

Dweezil I really don't know, I asked my vet the same question, & she seemed to think Squiggles would live a natural lifespan . However I think it depends how long the cat has had diabetes before it was diagnosed & how well it's being controlled

Both my previous cats who didn't have diabetes lived to 19, ( which is quite unusual) but with Squiggles, who's now 8, I think as long as I get her to 14 or 15 I think she'll have done well ( She had diabetes for 4-5 months before I realised.)

Try not to dwell on it too much *HUGS* you're doing everything right for Dweezil , just enjoy him. I'm sure other people will be along soon with their thoughts xx

 

Thank you, Lyn. I need those hugs.

 

Hi ladies,

Whilst none of us has a crystal ball, I would like to offer you some reassurance about what the future may hold.

My Bertie was diagnosed with diabetes 8 years ago at the age of 8. (This week marks his 8th anniversary as a diabetic on insulin.)
He's 16 now, and has been diabetic for half his life.

The vet who diagnosed Bertie suggested I have him PTS. I told her I had no intention of getting rid of my cat, but every intention of getting another vet (which I did, straight away.)
Then I got online and found FDMB.

Bertie was certainly not the poster boy for feline diabetes. He was in very high numbers for quite a while intially. And he was very hard to 'regulate'. (In fact, I thought we were such a hopeless case that I left FDMB for a while 'with my tail between my legs'...) However, despite the fact that Bertie's diabetes was tricky for me to manage, he flourished.
He has had a happy and healthy 8 years on insulin. Any health issues he's had would have happened anyway even if he wasn't diabetic (like the time he got grass stuck up his nose....) And his blood glucose levels have got better and more stable over the years.

Because he's 16 now I don't know how long I'll have left with him. But I do know that whenever he does finally 'pop his clogs' he'll have had a happy and full life.

Best wishes to you and your kitties!

Eliz

 

Oh! I love that post, thank you!!!!

Grass up his nose!! That made me laugh!

I have no idea how this thread got posted twice, and each now has different responses. Oh dear. Lol

 

Elizabeth, that's a very reassuring post, & I too laughed about the grass getting stuck up Bertie's nose LOL

We never know how long we're going to have our kitties, we can only do our best for them & love them while they're here.

 

We recently celebrated a 20th birthday with J.D. and Dyana.... He had diabetes for the last 8 years ( or more)
So cats can live long full lives with diabetes and proper treatment .

 

Unfortunately there is no way to predict how long they will live. I have had 4 diabetic cats and even though all are gone now, none of them died because of diabetes. Rascal and Witn lived into their late teens and it was CRF that took both of them. In both of their cases, they were diagnosed with CRF long before the diabetes. Witn lived until almost 20 and had diabetes for several years.

I lost both Spot and Ricky at young ages, but again, neither to diabetes. They were both about 8 years old. Spot developed very aggressive cancer and Ricky had a blood clot in his rear legs. Both of these cats I adopted knowing they had diabetes. I had them for several years and during that time, their quality of life improved from the time they were adopted.

If I did not have a houseful of cats and a large dog, I would not hesitate about adopting another diabetic cat. There is no way of telling how long we will have any of our pets, but the bond and love that develops makes every minute worth it.

 

It's just like people - everyone is different. There is no way to see ahead to know with cats (or people) what the future may bring.

I have had 3 diabetics. 1 died a week after dx from DKA. The other 2 died at about 18. ECID.

 

Mikey was diagnosed at 6 months old (as Type 1, very rare in cats). He's now almost 3 and is in perfect health aside from the diabetes. He's going to be diabetic for the next 20 years, if I have anything to say about it. But, if he makes it past 10 years, I still know I did a good job with him. (My two previous cats (neither diabetic) passed from CKD at around 10-11 years old.)

After I joined FDMB, I spent the first month or so checking everyone's signatures on here, looking for those (GA) kitties and what they passed from because I wanted to know how long I'd have with my Mikey. I eventually stopped checking because the vast majority had passed on from things unrelated to diabetes (cancer, blood clots, pre-existing or comorbid renal failure, injury, etc...).

Time with our kitties is invariably short and we have no control over many things that try to take them away from us. The one thing we do have control over is managing their diabetes so most of the time it becomes an afterthought and not the actual problem.

@LynnLee + Mousie has another diabetic that was diagnosed at 4.5 years old and has been diabetic for the past 8.5 years. Diabetes is not a death sentence; it's a life adjustment, and not a bad one at that. I always joke that it takes less time for me to test and shoot Mikey than it does to make their food. Food, which if I had known about it before with my two previous cats (fed prescription dry Hill's w/d for most of their lives), they might not have ended up in renal failure at such "young" ages.

 

One other thing I wanted to mention is that the diabetes can be a blessing in disguise. There have been countless stories from people whose cats suddenly lose remission or their BGs start spiking and, because of monitoring, those pet parents were able to catch something else going on and treat it in time before it became life-threatening.

Cats are very good at hiding sickness and pain until it's sometimes too late. Rising BGs are a clue we have at our disposal that can help prevent other issues from becoming problems. In fact, I just tested Henry (my non-diabetic) last week because he had a bout of diarrhea and I wanted to see if he might have an infection or something else going on. BGs were normal and it put my mind at ease that it was probably something he ate (he's a hunter) and the diarrhea soon cleared up.

 

Just to add another good news story, our main treating vet has a diabetic cat. She was diagnosed 12 years ago and is still going strong!