New member in Canada

Hello all, I’m so delighted to have found this forum! I am based in Toronto and have a 12 year old girl with a brand new diabetes and hyperthyroid diagnosis. We are trying to wrap our heads around many new factors, not the least of which (unfortunately) is cost. Our vet did not speak to us about home testing, but I know it is very important. I’m wondering if any fellow Canadians can advise as to best place for affordable supplies for testing, and even the ongoing shots. What glucose meter should I be looking at (since we don’t have the same options here)? Finally, recommendations on food - can we look at any other reasonably priced options, rather than the very price Purina Diabetes formula? (Sorry for all the budget talk — but I’m a musician, and it’s still CoVid times, so.... yeah, income is pretty non existent right now)

thank you for any and all help! Luna is a real sweetie — we want to support her in a longer life, as well as we can!

 

Hi and welcome to you and your kitty.
Can you tell us what insulin you have been prescribed and the dose please?
Yes home testing is the way to keep your kitty safe.
Here is a couple of links to useful information
https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/new-how-you-can-help-us-help-you.216696/

https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/hometesting-links-and-tips.287/

We have quite a few Canadians here. I will tag a couple for you who can give you Canadian information
@Wendy&Neko
@Red & Rover (GA)

 

Hello and welcome to the forum! I was in your same position a few months ago and here is what I have gathered. I will summarize the costs at the bottom of this post.

Here is a link to a post where I help a fellow Canadian pick out inexpensive test supplies. You can get the Bravo glucometer, lancets, lancing device, and 100 test strips + shipping for around $60 and it ships pretty fast! This is the same setup I use. You can get 100 more test strips for 40$, and 100 more lancets for $8. Suppose you test your cat 4 times a day, then you are looking at 120 tests. Then add 80 extra test supplies for when you mess up a strip, then you will maybe need 200 tests a month. So that would be 48+48+13 shipping = $109 per month for test supplies (that is all you need). You can get free shipping if you spend $200 on supplies (that is what I like to do). As you get more confident with testing, you will probably find you test less and then won't waste as many test strips, so your monthly cost will go down.

For inexpensive food, you can start with Friskies Pate (I also started with Purina DM but then switched to Friskies). Look at your local grocery store and see what they have and then compare it to the food in this chart. You want to have <10% carbs. You will want to look for the Friskies Pate (in the US they are called "Friskies Classic Pate" so that is how they appear on the food PDF). Personally, I buy these ones and they are only 60 cents a can.

• Friskies Pate Chicken Dinner
• Friskies Pate Turkey and Giblets Dinner

With how much I feed Dixie (200g a day), this comes out to $24 a month.

As far as the insulin, I get ProZinc insulin from my vet for $114 and the syringes for $30/100. It will depend what type of insulin you put your kitty on, but we are lucky to be in Canada where the insulin costs are lower than the states! (However they luck out with very cheap test supplies). If you give two shots a day, then you will use 60 syringes a month ($18 in syringes). The ProZinc bottle I have has lasted for 5 months so far and is probably nearing the end of its life. So lets say $23/month in insulin. This will all depend on how much insulin your cat needs as well!

Here is a thread that I created to gather info about where to get cheap test supplies in Canada. But since you have a lot to think about right now, I would recommend that you just get the meter and strips (maybe extra strips) from DiabetesExpress, and pick up some Friskies pates. Then talk to your vet about insulin. That is all you will need

I have found that the biggest cost for me is just all the vet visits. If you don't home test and you take your kitty in for glucose curves, then that price will really add up as well! It is cheapest if you just learn to test at home.

So all in all, I spend per month:
$109 for test supplies
$24 for food +
$23 for ProZinc insulin +
$18 for syringes +
= $174 CAD/month

I feel like the biggest costs have been the vet visits though. The senior blood tests are around $400, and the dental was $2500! And just the general visits for her issues. I will say though, after regulating her blood sugar levels she has become a whole new cat! Many of her issues have vanished (as they were a result from her being an unregulated diabetic).

If you want to get even cheaper supplies, there may be other options but I haven't found much... I bought lancets for half price on walmart (so I got them for around $4-5), but they are much thinner and more annoying and I definitely wouldn't recommend them to a beginner. I have heard other people have success getting things on ebay, but I've never seen any deals in Canada.

You also have other options for the syringes, which depends on which insulin you will get from the vet... so I will hold off on talking about that right now.

Please let us know if you have more questions about anything!

 

Hello, waving at you from the west coast. Sorry about the dual diagnoses, that always makes things a tad more complicated.

I am glad you are on board with home testing. You want to look at getting a human meter, not a special pet one. The test strips are the most expensive part and what you go through. Human meter strips are much cheaper and easier to get if you have a sudden need for them. You also want to get a meter with the smallest blood drop requirement you can get. The Freestyle is a common one for that reason - available in practically any pharmacy. The Bravo meter has one of the cheapest test strips prices in Canada. It's on line ordering so not as convenient, meaning you just need to keep more in stock and order earlier. Lyla @Butters & Lyla uses the One Drop, another subscription model but from the US. Basically a monthly fee for all the test strips you want. I've also seen people in the past get good prices from eBay.

As for syringes, I think local knowledge will get you best prices. Out west Safeway pharmacy is cheaper for syringes and insulin (if you are using Lantus or Levemir), though Costco and Real Canadian Superstore also had good prices.

Piling onto the previous post, here is a list of some addition Canadian foods. CANADIAN Food Chart I fed raw food, a lot of it home made and it turned out to be cheaper than the better canned cat foods.

 

The One Drop meter could also work for you, but make sure that you have a newish smartphone and can download their app because you need to order supplies through it. I think you can download the app to test it out before you need to go ahead with a purchase.

You probably wouldn't get the One Drop lancets (because they are 16.57 CAD per 100) and they are 33G which means they are very tiny. You want a thicker needle when you start out to help your cat's ears bleed. So now you need to factor in the price of sourcing lancets somewhere else online or at a local store.

If you want the One Drop meter then look out for any coupons then have. I got a 20% off Halloween coupon when I bought it. Maybe they will have a new years one. The One Drop meter could turn out to be great if you want the cheapest test strips. But if the unlimited plan doesn't work out, then I think the Bravo meter is a good alternative.

Thank you, Wendy, for pointing out the local stores. I have been only shopping online during the pandemic so I forget about the possible deals there could be!

 

Lancets: look for 26 or 28 gauge (the lower the number the thicker the lancet).

Welcome!


Mogs
.

 

Thank you for all your helpful replies!

so we were prescribed 2 units of ProZinc twice a day, with the recommendation to wait about 1.5 hrs after feeding to give Luna her shot. I had read in a few places that Friskies pate was ok to feed her, so while we have a couple of cans of Purina DM, we have a supply of friskies to continue with. We have another cat as well, and it just makes it easier to feed them both the same thing.

Have any of you Canadians ordered any supplies from petsdrugmart.ca? It has a better price on the insulin and various other supplies than the vet....

I will look into the glucose meter tomorrow. Once we get a meter, how often should I be testing her blood sugar levels?

 

For questions about ProZinc, you might want to open up a thread in the ProZinc-specific forum to get more eyes on it. There are some stickied posts there that show how we like to deal with dosing ProZinc. Here is a post introducing ProZinc to get you started. The Start Low Go Slow (SLGS) method is talked about in this stickied post. If your cat is already on low-carb food then they start at 1 unit twice a day and if not then they start on a 0.5 unit per day dosage (this is all mentioned in the post). This will increase depending on the BG tests that you get.

As far as tests, you will want a minimum of 2 tests a day (once before breakfast (shot time) and once before dinner (shot time)). The reason for this is to ensure that your cat's blood glucose (BG) level is high enough to handle a dose of insulin.

You will then want to get some tests at the "nadir" which is when your cat drops to their lowest blood glucose level. For my cat that is about 4 hours after insulin shot. It can change (it used to be 2 hours after) and is different for every cat. It is also good to get a test before you go to bed, so that you can see if your cat is going to have an "active" cycle where their BG level suddenly drops.

I aim for at least 4 test a day now because Dixie's BG levels have come down so much. But when she was first diagnosed I didn't test as much, because if your cat has really high BG levels all day then there is less risk of them dropping too low and having a hypoglycemic incident (although nothing is certain!).

I'm not sure about your vet's recommendation to wait 1.5 hrs. I have always followed the SLGS method where you test the BG level, then feed them, then shoot the insulin. This took me around 30 mins when I first started out but I am much faster now! I am not telling you to disobey your vet, but maybe you will want to make a post about it in the ProZinc forum to get more advice. My vet originally told me to put Dixie on DM Dry food and that I had to pay for a fructosamine test and Alphatrak meter ($$$). When I came back to them a month later with my SLGS dosing protocol and all the test results with the human BG meter, they were very impressed! So maybe do some research around here and then you could follow up with your vet about what to do.

If you haven't gotten any insulin yet, you could also try Lantus which is pretty inexpensive in Canada as well. It is more popular on this forum, so there are a lot more people on the Lantus board. The ProZinc board is tiny in comparison! They work a bit differently. Personally, I have found that the ProZinc has worked well for Dixie because it gave me more flexibility in when to give Dixie her insulin shot. You could check out the Lantus information as well and see if that is more your style.

 

Hello! Welcome.

I am also in the GTA. If you need help with anything at all locally, don't hesitate to ask. I believe others have pointed you toward the least expensive supplies. I don't even bother using the word cheap because nothing about this is cheap.

In Canada, President's Choice has some good options for less expensive low carb food. @KittenTheCat feeds it to Kitten. If you look at her spreadsheet, she has a tab in there with a list of the foods. Oh I see Wendy linked the Canadian food chart. The PC foods should be on there.

I've ordered supplies from Diabetes Express. Sometimes they have good prices for supplies.
Buying Lantus pens at Costco is less expensive around me. I'm not sure how they compare to the petsdrugmart prices. I don't use ProZinc so can't speak to prices on that.