Stormy AKA Pretty
New Member
Greetings and salutations. My name is Mathias. I've discovered your community throughout various search engines particularly on the topic of feline diabetes mellitus. I recognize there are many guidelines on how and where to post, the acronyms used, posting new thread with the required subject format, creating a spreadsheet, etc. I ask for your patience while I become accustomed to these. 
We have an almost 7 y/o indoor female dilute calico named Stormy (I call her Pretty) weighing in at 12.15lbs currently (she's quite a long and tall cat). She was diagnosed on 2 January 2025. What led up to her diagnosis were a variety of behavioral changes which included increased thirst, weight loss, extreme hunger, loss all interest in play, accidents directly outside her litter box, rarely sleeping with us, etc. She loafs on a kitchen chair with a bird's eye view of her food dish and runs to greet (turn meow-a-saurus) one of us whenever we walk throughout areas closest to the kitchen or harass us during her bouts of extreme hunger. When she was first diagnosed she wouldn't wake us up in the middle of the night for food and waited until the usual 6:00AM wake up call. Now, she's waking us up as early at 3:30AM with meows and cries for food.
Prior to diagnosis, her meals were a mixture of Purina dry food and Purina Fancy Feast wet food. She casually grazed with the dry and had a can or two of wet. She absolutely love experimenting with new canned foods. We introduced some new healthier options into the rotation from manufacturers like "Cats in the kitchen, Fussie Cat". She weighed in between 17-18lbs (2 lbs more than when we first adopted her). We gradually (shame on us
) introduced table scraps such as low sodium potato chips cos she likes the crunch, pieces of chicharron (she goes MENTAL when she smells it! LOL ). In the summer of 2024 we switched her over to wet only and this is when we started to notice the changes.
Wet food feeding: [2] cans of 3oz food breaking them up into 4 meals throughout the day.
She doesn't/can't tolerate a [2] meal a day w/ snacks throughout the day.
The day of her diagnosis she was put on Senvelgo. Three days later she began having constant bloody diarrhea. Specimen collection results all clear; no ketones or parasites. Our vet had put her on metronitizole (sp?) for two weeks to help with her toileting. Initially I thought it was because I had fed her some chicharron that caused all this as we'd given it to her before with no issues. A couple of days after she finished her meds the symptoms came back. Took her to an ER VET, full blood panel, ultrasound show healthy w/ elevated liver enzymes. She got put back on metro... and changed her diet to a gastrointestinal wet food to help with her toileting. Again when the meds finished, diarrhea returned. One month into being on Senvelgo and having given her one of the Fussie Cat wet cans she likes, she vomited quite a bit the next morning. Yet, the day before when I fed her that can, her mood changed as if she were back to herself somewhat. Sleeping on her perches, resting quite fine without running down the stairs when she heard one of us in the kitchen. It was a remarkable turn around. During this time we did not monitor her sugar with a glucometer.
Reading the information leaflet that came with the Senvelgo, she presented the symptoms for a cat who is not suitable for the medication. We notified our vet and made the transition to Lantus insulin once she presented hyperglycemia. From here is when we began using a glucometer. Started off with 1 unit every 12 hours and only checked her BG AMPS 1 hour after a meal.
Her BG is always in the 300s with some rarity being in the high 200s. Under vet advisement, we continued increasing the dose up to 2 units yet this did not help with her BG.
Current wet food: Purina Dietetic DM 5.25oz cans broken into [4] meals a day.
Additions to her food: Lettuce (LOVE IT!), fish flakes, and most recently cooked plain chicken.
She now sees a specialist in internal medicine, switched from metro...to Tylosin powder (diarrhea) and is now up to 4 units. Once that Tylosin ran out, the diarrhea was gone! Amazing...! I fed her chicharron on a day when I was emotional cos of her hunger pains and the next day the bloody diarrhea returned and now she's back on the Tylosin until her toileting returns normal. She will no longer be fed that.
Her BG is still over 300 daily, her hunger is non-stop, and I'm at a breaking point where I just don't know what to do to 1) get her BG under 200 2) make her feel comfortable, healthy 3) encourage play. I humbly ask for the communities help because I feel what we've gone through and tried just isn't working.
We have an almost 7 y/o indoor female dilute calico named Stormy (I call her Pretty) weighing in at 12.15lbs currently (she's quite a long and tall cat). She was diagnosed on 2 January 2025. What led up to her diagnosis were a variety of behavioral changes which included increased thirst, weight loss, extreme hunger, loss all interest in play, accidents directly outside her litter box, rarely sleeping with us, etc. She loafs on a kitchen chair with a bird's eye view of her food dish and runs to greet (turn meow-a-saurus) one of us whenever we walk throughout areas closest to the kitchen or harass us during her bouts of extreme hunger. When she was first diagnosed she wouldn't wake us up in the middle of the night for food and waited until the usual 6:00AM wake up call. Now, she's waking us up as early at 3:30AM with meows and cries for food.
Prior to diagnosis, her meals were a mixture of Purina dry food and Purina Fancy Feast wet food. She casually grazed with the dry and had a can or two of wet. She absolutely love experimenting with new canned foods. We introduced some new healthier options into the rotation from manufacturers like "Cats in the kitchen, Fussie Cat". She weighed in between 17-18lbs (2 lbs more than when we first adopted her). We gradually (shame on us
) introduced table scraps such as low sodium potato chips cos she likes the crunch, pieces of chicharron (she goes MENTAL when she smells it! LOL ). In the summer of 2024 we switched her over to wet only and this is when we started to notice the changes. Wet food feeding: [2] cans of 3oz food breaking them up into 4 meals throughout the day.
She doesn't/can't tolerate a [2] meal a day w/ snacks throughout the day.
The day of her diagnosis she was put on Senvelgo. Three days later she began having constant bloody diarrhea. Specimen collection results all clear; no ketones or parasites. Our vet had put her on metronitizole (sp?) for two weeks to help with her toileting. Initially I thought it was because I had fed her some chicharron that caused all this as we'd given it to her before with no issues. A couple of days after she finished her meds the symptoms came back. Took her to an ER VET, full blood panel, ultrasound show healthy w/ elevated liver enzymes. She got put back on metro... and changed her diet to a gastrointestinal wet food to help with her toileting. Again when the meds finished, diarrhea returned. One month into being on Senvelgo and having given her one of the Fussie Cat wet cans she likes, she vomited quite a bit the next morning. Yet, the day before when I fed her that can, her mood changed as if she were back to herself somewhat. Sleeping on her perches, resting quite fine without running down the stairs when she heard one of us in the kitchen. It was a remarkable turn around. During this time we did not monitor her sugar with a glucometer.
Reading the information leaflet that came with the Senvelgo, she presented the symptoms for a cat who is not suitable for the medication. We notified our vet and made the transition to Lantus insulin once she presented hyperglycemia. From here is when we began using a glucometer. Started off with 1 unit every 12 hours and only checked her BG AMPS 1 hour after a meal.
Her BG is always in the 300s with some rarity being in the high 200s. Under vet advisement, we continued increasing the dose up to 2 units yet this did not help with her BG.
Current wet food: Purina Dietetic DM 5.25oz cans broken into [4] meals a day.
Additions to her food: Lettuce (LOVE IT!), fish flakes, and most recently cooked plain chicken.
She now sees a specialist in internal medicine, switched from metro...to Tylosin powder (diarrhea) and is now up to 4 units. Once that Tylosin ran out, the diarrhea was gone! Amazing...! I fed her chicharron on a day when I was emotional cos of her hunger pains and the next day the bloody diarrhea returned and now she's back on the Tylosin until her toileting returns normal. She will no longer be fed that.
Her BG is still over 300 daily, her hunger is non-stop, and I'm at a breaking point where I just don't know what to do to 1) get her BG under 200 2) make her feel comfortable, healthy 3) encourage play. I humbly ask for the communities help because I feel what we've gone through and tried just isn't working.
I completely agree about Purina DM as the primary ingredient is Meat by-products which are the scraps of everything, it has become quite the anchor on the purse and hasn't helped maintain a stable BG. We still have FF grilled...something (it's upstairs, too lazy to walk right now 
), but they have soy, wheat gluten, corn and synthetic vitamins I'd like to try and keep out of her diet. 
. Sometimes there is a bit of a time delay before things get automatically approved, so one job as a mod is to approve earlier.
