Thor was in need of adoption as he was at the agency for about 8 months. My friend picked him out and kept pestering me to see him. When I did, he totally worked me by giving me hugs and playing with my necklace. He was a big orange suck!
But I have had animals before and I think that if you have them you need to take care of them properly. So we give him insulin every day. At first the thought of it made me cry, but it isn't that bad. We just give him a few treats and while he is eating, give him a needle into the skin. You don't have to worry about hitting a muscle or vein, just pinch up the skin and poke. He doesn't even notice.
Now every so often we have to test his levels, which brings me to the frustrating part of this. We have a lancet and a glucose monitor, the same as a person would use. The only difference is you have to poke them in the tiny vein in the ear. The poke isn't too hard, but getting enough of a drop to fill the monitor has been frustrating. Tonight we tried several times and finally gave up frustrated. I read on the internet that you can try and warm the ear a bit, so I will give this a whirl.
So, that is life with a diabetic cat. Sometimes I think I am crazy, but, then the little bugger will give me some warm hugs and play with my necklace and draw me into his little orange loves.
Sucka!!!
Kyle used to have a blind, arthritic, diabetic cat that he gave insulin shots to. though I don't think their vet had them do blood sugar levels.
ReplyDeleteI had a diabetic cat named Chicklet, he was all white and lived in 2 countries and 4 cities. We had to give him the shots too, at least until our vet decided to try something out. He told us to stop feeding him kibble food (the dry stuff) and only give him wet food.
ReplyDeleteSo we tried that and a little later (I cannot remember how long) we didn't have to give him the shots anymore. You might want to talk to your vet about that, and see if adjusting your cats diet will help.
Well, you guys are making me feel better. I thought I was just crazy for doing all this, but I love the little guy. And he looks so healthy otherwise. My vet told me to do blood curves so I have watched videos. A couple times we had success but this week didn't get enough blood for a test.
ReplyDeleteI got some different food for Thor but its not making much difference, but it is still dry. I am reading the same about using wet food and even raw food diet as they need more protein and no carbs.
It is good to know Brad that this worked for you, that gives me some hope that maybe i can get him down to one shot a day or none.
Yay, you guys rock!
I hope it works out for you. Kathy says it took about 3 months of giving both insulin and a pure wet food diet.
ReplyDeleteHe gave me a huge scare one night too. He had stopped being an overly cuddly cat, mostly because it is just so damned hot down here (he was a Cdn cat). But this one night he allowed me to pull him up next to me and as I lay petting him he was just getting looser and looser until he had almost no motor control of his body, it was just dead weight. I paniced. Kathy was asleep and I just didn't know what to do. I took hm to the master bath to get a better look at him and he was just listless. It popped into my head that I should try feeding him, and I had to actually put food into his mouth for him to lick it up. I did this for about half a can and this seemed to work. Life came back into him and calling the vet the next day I found out he went into diabetic shock, and feeding him was exactly the right thing to do. It was at that point that the vet said to stop giving him insulin. So if you do go this way, keep an eye out for that, I donno if it would happen, but it may. But definitely talk to your vet too, see what they say.
He lived another three years and died of a blood clot, so nothing diabetic related.
Oh, one other thing that was funny. After going from a heavy carb diet to a low/zero carb diet, he craved potato chips. If Kathy & I were watching a movie, and were eating chips, he would stick his head into the bad to get at the chips. Pretty funny stuff.
That is exactly what I was reading. The article said to be really careful when changing the diet, because if you keep giving the same amount of insulin, then he might have a diabetic shock. My vet said if you see that to take corn syrup and rub on their gums if they won't eat.
ReplyDeleteYou definately did the right thing, good thing you noticed! So this is also why I am trying to get better at the blood tests so i can do some checks as I try this transition.
I got some different lancets and am planning this weekend to go to a store that has better food, so I will let you know how it goes.
Good luck! And yes, keep us updated! :)
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