The Feline Diabetes treatment continues

The bad news is that we are going to switch insulin. I guess the good news is that we have something to switch to.

The Lantus is not cutting it. It is inconsistent and driving us MAD. Actually this weekend, I think his numbers weren't too bad. We used to get a 2+ on the urine glucose and now we are at approximately 1/2 on the reading, so this is improvement.

This week on Lantus Insulin: Last Friday AM preshot was 32 mmol/dl. Evening preshot was 26.1. Saturday morning was 19.8 and evening was 19.7. I thought we were on a roll except Sunday morning we were at 26 again and at +4 we were only at 24/
Maybe we rebounded? Who knows?

So, I have spoken with our vetranarian and we are going to try PZI insulin. It is 100% beef and is only one amino acid different from feline insulins (amazing how cows and cats are similar!).

Hopefully we will start getting this under better control. I know we have some made progress but it has been 6 months and it is discouraging.
Wish us luck.

The Feline Diabetes treatment continues...

The Importance of Home Glucose Testing

We test Kitty's blood sugar at home, using a human glucometer. We prick the edge of his ear and use take a small drop of blood as a sample to measure how much sugar is in his blood. This is an absolutely invaluable tool for us, especially since Kitty has proven so difficult to regulate.

Case in point: Last week, his numbers were terrible. Worse than usual. I thought we had totally lost the plot in treating his feline diabetes. I was giving more insulin, but the response was poor. I had a thought: perhaps my Lantus insulin had gone "off"? It looked fine. Most people find that they get foreign matter, particulate or "floaties: in their Lantus as in indicator that it may be losing effectiveness. We had no such cue. The other issue is that Kitty is so wildly unregulated, we thought this was par for the course.

On a whim, I purchased a fresh bottle of Lantus on Sunday. His morning preshots have been 22-28 mmol/dlLlast week. This morning he was at 14.6 mmol/dlL. Last night I gave him 4U of insulin. Today I decided that I should reduce that and gave him 3U. When I came home at lunch, he was at 5.6 mmol/dl and quickly dropped to 2.7 mmol/dL. (Note normal ranges for healthy cats are 4-8 mmol/dL. For diabetics, we don't like them to go too far below 6 mmol/dL because they do not have the mechanisms as we do to prevent hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) which can have terrible consequences. However, I gave him some Pounce treats and once he was on his way up, I felt it was safe to go back to work. Luckily my employer is kind and patient; I was gone for over 3 hours!

Tonight, his preshot was only at 5.4 mmol/dL, four hours after I last tested him. Shooting at this level is asking for trouble, as today has proven. If I hadn't been testing him, I would be giving insulin blindly and possibly causing harm. I am going to wait and see if I can give him a shot later this evening. Hopefully we will be able to manage this overlap better, but for now, this is what we have to do.

Ignorance is bliss, but not when dealing with feline diabetes.

Dealing with criticism when treating feline diabetes

One of the more difficult things when treating feline diabetes is well meaning friends and family that don't understand the energy, effort and expense that goes into treating this disease.

I recently turned off comments on this blog because of some hurtful and mean comments.
Kitty has not been easy to regulate. We aren't even close. But we are trying to give our guy the best care possible and the best quality of life possible. We made that commitment to him when we got him 14.5 years ago and that commitment has only gotten stronger.

Dealing with special needs pets is stressful, time consuming and expensive. I wish we didn't have to deal with this. Every day, my nerves get a little more frayed, the edges get a little more ragged. My dear husband summed it up: "If we weren't here to care for him, who would be?", so we persevere.

Someone made a comment about it being stupid to spend money on a pet that was only $20 to begin with.

My response is well, if you look at it that way, children are FREE. It doesn't cost anything to "make" a child and almost anyone can do it.

Now, don't get me wrong, I am not comparing pets to children, I realize it is a totally different thing. I am just trying to say that the value of something is often very much more than what you paid for it.