Drea03
Member
Hello. I have a 14 yr old kitty who was just diagnosed with DM last week. I work at a vet office so I found out pretty quickly from his symptoms and tests. I did a UA which was almost normal except high glucose. Next day we did a full blood panel including fructosamine just to see what’s been going on the last 2-3 weeks. All good except glucose was 384 and fructosamine was mid 300s. Also lipase was elevated so we put him on amoxicillin. He’s been fed a can in morning and LID dry measured out for the day. I immediately switched to no dry and wet/freeze dried raw which he’s had before. Wet is low carb and high protein I’ve made sure. Doc was thinking his numbers werent high enough for insulin but I insisted instead of glipizide which doesn’t seem to have much success. I wanted ProZinc but wouldn’t be able to order in time to start him ASAP so I went with vetsulin. I did a Home glucose curve 3 days ago. We started out with 2 units. His levels dropped too much. No insulin that night. His numbers have been so scattered. He’s not cooperating as much now. Tired of being poked understandably. I’ve been feeding 280-300 calories a day (about 2 cans and half a cup freeze dried raw) He’s a little over #16. Maybe I’m not giving this enough time to see better results? I’m not sure if it’s too early to bump up the insulin a little? Going to talk to doc again tomorrow. I’m just trying to do-the best I can to make him feel better. Yes I have a good background and good vets for advice but I’m here to seek advice from others going through this themselves. I don’t have a fancy spreadsheet yet but I have a picture of his numbers I’ve been able to get. I’ve been using Alphatrak 2 but looking to buy something else as the strips are pretty expensive for the alpha. Any advice is much appreciated. I’ve read through a lot of posts already and this forum is great! Thank you.
I use vetsulin because it is by far the most affordable insulin and Zoe was started on it. I asked Vet about Lantus and it can be $300 vial so no way is that affordable, and that is why they put her on Vetsulin. Interestingly, Zoe was diagnosed in Oct 2018 and started on 3 units. I am a nurse and over a period of time I bumped her up to as much as 5.5 units and she still stayed in the 300 range. She has had one episode of low reading since diagnosed, but basically her nadir sits in the 200's, and pre shot in the low to mid 300. I recently took a 4 day trip in January and kenneled her at the Vet. They put her back down to 3 units (of course they managed her food better and she was not able to scarf her sisters food while there). I have left her at 3 and she runs low to mid 300s. I have ordered a microchip feeder ($139)
for her sister so that Zoe can no longer get double amounts of food and if I didnt give a few Temptation treats daily she probably will be lower on the BG scale. Bella is so finicky I hope she will take to the new feeder when it arrives seeing how expensive it was to purchase. Zoe is like the puppy in 101 Dalmations who is always saying "Im hungry, Im hungry mommy" She is about 13 lbs and should be around 9lb I think. I purchased a timed food bowl for her I havent set up yet thinking she might do better with smaller more frequent feedings. She is basically on FF pates and we still struggle with days that both turn their nose up at the flavor that day. I must say I would never choose to do otherwise because of her diagnosis, but man is managing a cat with diabetes an expensive venture.!!! LOL. I will say that because of her early training with her favorite food in the whole world-- temptation treats---she comes to me every morning and evening for her ear prick and insulin voluntarily without the treats now as reward. She is such a sweet kitty! (no pun intended).