Penny has diabetes

{{{Leeny & Penny}}}
I hope the vet can give you the answers and the guidance you need.

Leeny! *Claps hands loudly* STOP predicting your future before it happens! You don’t KNOW that Penny will become afraid of you and hide (and hate you is what I hear you crying inside)> My friend Cora had a diabetic cat for YEARS and every day she injected him and he didn’t run, didn’t hide, he just sat on the bed and let her do what was needed. I’m sure he didn’t enjoy it, who would? But Cora was loving and matter of fact about it, and he knew she was doing it because she loved him, and they had many happy years together. Penny knows you love her, and she will trust you if you project trust and love to her. You CAN make the best of this. I know you have a strong faith: lean on God! And remember the thing about closing doors and opening windows, but you have to be willing to screw up every bit of courage you have to climb, scramble claw your way through that window. See if your vet has any suggestions for places that could help defray the cost of the supplies: or maybe the local shelters would have suggestions. Don’t worry about how to pay off the credit cards right now: you can take it one step at a time. And most of all, remember that you have a huge community of people here to support you and help you and Penny through this. {{Leeny and Penny}} and sorry about being so fierce, but you can get though this! We have faith in you!

(((Leeny & Penny))) PC has great advice Leeny.. I know of a lot of cats that need either daily hormone infections or insulin and honestly they don’t bat an eyelid when they get their shots.. Good idea to give shots when they have their heads deep in their food bowls they normally don’t even turn around..

Ask your vet about a change in diet too.. Diabetes in cats is exactly the same as in humans and we now know when diabetes is caught early in humans it can actually be reversed with a strict change In diet so this might also be an option for penny.. Maybe talk to the vet about a raw food diet see if that would be kinder to her kidneys.. If he says it’s worth a try best raw food I’ve found nutritionally is small amounts of beef & lamb heart ( small amounts though as beef heart can be slightly high in sodium) beef lung is great!! Very high in taurine and small amounts of liver and kidney ( beef.,chicken, lamb…extra…only as a treat really) and of course the usual suspects chicken and a raw chicken wing is great as a tooth brush once a week 🙂 the trick with a raw diet is to constantly change it up that’s what is best nutritionally for the cat.. I’ve got some excellent advice of a very accomplished holistic veterinary surgeon…

Leeny,I’ve had two diabetic cats, one of which I still have. Here are some things you need to know:

* When you do testing and give shots, RELAX. It will make it easier for both you and Penny.
* You do need a veterinary glucometer and testing strips specific to use in testing cats and dogs. Sorry, but you can’t just use the cheapest human meter and strips. However, once you initially get the diabetes under control and know that Penny is responding consistently to a certain dose of insulin you will be able to do less testing.
* The insulin you say the vet is ordering that is used for humans is most likely Lantus. Cats respond well to it.
* Be sure to have a bottle of honey at home in case Penny’s glucose level drops too low. A few drops of honey placed in her mouth is the treatment.
* You will need some vaseline for smearing a thin amount on her ear before sticking it for the blood drop for testing. The vaseline keeps the blood from simply going out into the fur. I’ve found that getting a small tube of Walgreens generic vaseline works best. It is easy to squeeze out the tiny amount needed.

Most cats that become diabetic need to have less carbohydrates in their diet. Just going grain free is not the solution because other ingredients such as potato, yam, peas, all are carbohydrates, so limiting those also helps. I don’t know if you feed Penny canned or dry food or both. I can tell you from my own experience that feeding the expensive diabetic prescription diets didn’t help. What has helped is that I started reading labels and made sure I don’t feed any cat foods with gravy and sauces. Also, dry foods have higher carbohydrate content that canned foods so if you are feeding dry food you may want to gradually transition Penny onto mostly canned food.

Now, this next one you need to run past your vet but after years of having to give my two cats insulin shots I finally found a food that has worked to keep the remaining cat’s glucose levels under control. He hasn’t needed an insulin shot in almost nine months, although I do still check his glucose levels every week and have insulin on hand just in case. The food has zero carbohydrates in it; yes, zero carbs! It is available only through online ordering and not currently sold in stores. http://www.youngagainpetfood.com On the home page menu select cat food and then zero carb food.

It is expensive, however as it has not fillers, the cats eat smaller quantities and therefore I find that feeding it is less expensive than feeding special veterinary prescription diabetic foods and only slightly more expensive in the long run than feeding commercial cat foods available in the grocery and pet stores.

In the case of my cat, about 2/3 of his food is the zero carb dry food. I also feed him small amounts of low carb canned food twice a day. He went from his diabetes being wildly out of control to needing no insulin at all within two weeks of being transitioned onto the zero carb food. Frankly, I had been very doubtful of their claims and was stunned to find how well my Frisky responded and got off insulin after being diabetic and getting worse for three years. So I suggest you go to their website, do some reading, print out appropriate info from it and show it to your vet.

I will say that I disagree with the advice they give to make a total switch to their food all at once and to immediately allow free feeding of their dry food. Cats get loose stools and throw up from too quick a diet change. And until you know how they respond to any diet change, you need to monitor and control how much they eat and when. But eventually I have had free feeding of his zero carb dry food available and he does very well with that.

Another suggestion I’ll offer that has literally been a life saver for my diabetic cats; keep a log of your testing and shots given! You need to know when you gave how much insulin and what the glucose readings were. Get a simple students composition book or spiral notebook. Each time you test or treat or even need to note significant events such as throwing up, problems in the litter tray, etc. you make an entry in your log.

Note the date/day, time, and particulars. I’ve found it easiest to round the time to the nearest 15 minute mark; it makes it easier to compute how long since the last insulin shot, etc. A typical entry might read:

Sat 2/14 9:30 am BG 125 1.5

The BG stands for blood glucose and the 125 is the reading from glucose test. The 1.5 indicates that 1.5 units of insulin was injected.

You’ll find it invaluable to keep the log. It only takes seconds to make each entry. Keep the notebook handy in a spot with the testing equipment so you don’t forget to log each test and shot. And if you have to give other meds, log those also. You’ll find your own system of making brief notes.

The reason keeping a log is so very important is that it is all too easy to get confused as to just what Penny’s last glucose reading was and just when she got her insulin and how much. In the early stages of learning to handle all this and as Penny’s diabetes responds to the treatments, her glucose levels will be somewhat changeable. The only way you will be able to remember details is if you have it all written down.

Consistency in times when Penny is tested, fed and given insulin is important. But life is such that it is impossible to always to these at the exact same time each day. There will be times when you are off by several hours from the normal schedule. Again, if you have a written log of this you know just when you did or did not last give a certain amount of insulin.

It all seems hugely daunting and scary at first. Like any other new learned skill, it gets easier with practice. If you make a point of relaxing, making the testing and shot times ones of gentle love and attention, it is quite likely that Penny will adjust and not become afraid and avoid you because of all this. It just takes patience, some extra attention and love.

I will be glad to answer any questions you have about my experiences with diabetic cats. I also urge you to do some online research as there is a wealth of information on the internet about treating diabetic cats. I’d advise sticking with professional websites from veterinary sources for your info although I also found it helpful to join the Yahoo Group that is for diabetic cat owners.

If you would like to email me for additional information and questions, my email is the following (with the numbers in it written out as words to protect against email hacking). mrm one four one four at yahoo dot com

Let us know how you and Penny fare.

Leeny, like Jcat says, cats are smart and it won’t take Penny long to realize how much better she feels for getting her insulin shots. Honestly, I think it took longer for me to feel comfortable with the testing and shots than it did for my cats. Alice even got where she would come to me for her shot immediately after eating. We had a routine; she would eat, I would give her two or three minutes to wash up, and then I would literally sing her to me. There was one particular lullaby I put new words to with her name in it. I’d sing that and she would come right to me, settle beside me on the sofa and let me give her shot.

It seems daunting but you can do this and Penny can have a good, comfortable, healthy quality of life for some long time more.

Let us know if you have any questions. Between Jcat and me and any others who have dealt with diabetic cats we can help you learn to deal with this.

Leeny, glad you are getting to practice the testing and giving shots under supervision. That is a great help!

As to the insulin, wow, don’t know which one the vet wanted to prescribe but $250 a bottle is higher than anything I’ve heard before. I know that Lantus costs about $136 per bottle with no insurance here in the St. Louis MO area. That still is very expensive but as a bottle would last four to six months I was able to manage it.

Regarding restraining Penny to be able to test her or give her shots, what has worked with my cats and might (or might not) work with Penney is to hold her turned on her back, up against your stomach with her rump in your lap, her spine up against your stomach, her head up against your chest. I hold my cat with my left arm across his chest/stomach and use my left hand fingers to hold his ear while using my right hand to use the lancet to stick for the blood and then to hold the test strip to the blood drop. It isn’t the way vets hold cats for testing or that you will find in instructional videos online but it works for me. Whether or not it would work with Penney depends on how she does and doesn’t let you hold her.

As to a high protein / low carb diet, if feeding raw isn’t an option, I still suggest you show your vet the info about the Young Again Zero Carb dry food to see if he/she approves your trying it as at least part of Penny’s diet. Like I said in my earlier post, I was stunned to find that it truly has worked to get my Frisky from being an out of control diabetic needing more and more insulin to being in controlled remission within a couple weeks of starting to feed him the zero carb food as half his daily diet along with also feeding him some canned food separately.

Keep us up to date, please. We do care.

Leeny, an additional thought about Penny not liking to be held for testing and shots. My Mandi cat is like that; she is loving but hates to be held at all. So on the occasions when I need to give her a pill or such, I place her on the sofa tucked snugly between the arm at one end and me. It isn’t fool proof but does make is easier to deal with her when I have to give her a pill. Perhaps Penny would learn to accommodate to being snugged in between you and the end of a sofa for testing and shots.

Anyway, I hope that Penny learns to know she feels better for treatment and to cooperate so it isn’t stressful for her or you.

Excellent news that Penny doesn’t have pancreatitis! And it sounds like you are making good progress dealing with her diabetes. Hang in there and best wishes that all goes well for both Penny and you.