[nattiej1976]

Well what a big couple of months its been.

Got stuck working full time again for 6 weeks, urgh, its over now thank goodnes

We had a pretty sad, intense weekend, our 13 YO aby boy over the last week lost alot of weight, and over the weekend we noticed a very obvious increase of water intake and urine output, so went for the mad rush to the vet sunday morning, my instincts were right..........diabeties

Initially he was also showing signs of renal failure, a pet owners nightmare. Being a sunday getting test results in a hurry prooved to be another feat in itself, (given our slightly remote location, usually vetinary bloods are sent to another state, luckily our local people hospital were happy to run the tests and get results to us on a Sunday...phew)

The results came through 4 hours after admission, and luckily they advised that kidney function was normal, slight liver damage, but no more that what would be expected from diabeties, and we only had to worry about the Diabeties itself.

Poor Mon Mon had to stay in the ICU for the night under 4 hourly obs, apparently he started getting a little cranky with them by sunday evening, the notorius vet hater that he is. By the sunday evening his blood sugar levels were getting close to normal, so much so that the vet did not want to give him any more insulin for the day. When she came back the next morning though they had sky rocketed again.

We went to visit him this afternoon after picking taylah up from school, we were missing him like mad, when we rocked up he was asleep in his cage so we went to wake him up and the poor bugger tried to stand but couldnt, he was all wobbely and weak. He had not eaten anything for the past 24 hours and his blood sugar levels had plummeted, when we got there and woke him up, he was in the middle of a "hypo" bit cranky that the vets were not paying attention to this, and we had to find him this way, it really was very unsettleing for us all, but particuarly did not want Taylah to see her beloved cat in this sort of state). Anyhow, whilst we were there he gladly ate some tucker, devoured it in fact. I called the vet about an hour after our visit, who advised that he was perking up again, and had eaten even more since our visit, and had become very cuddly and smoochy.

He has been put back on IV for a little longer after this episode, and we hope to have him home again very soon, so we can start our new reigeme (daily insulin injections etc)

Has anyone else here had experience with feline diabeties? Im finding the thought of it very overwhelming, im not good in the first place with needles etc, but im going to have to be brave if we have any chance of keeping Monte fit and well.

[Yogi]

Originally Posted by nattiej1976

Well what a big couple of months its been.

Got stuck working full time again for 6 weeks, urgh, its over now thank goodnes

We had a pretty sad, intense weekend, our 13 YO aby boy over the last week lost alot of weight, and over the weekend we noticed a very obvious increase of water intake and urine output, so went for the mad rush to the vet sunday morning, my instincts were right..........diabeties

Initially he was also showing signs of renal failure, a pet owners nightmare. Being a sunday getting test results in a hurry prooved to be another feat in itself, (given our slightly remote location, usually vetinary bloods are sent to another state, luckily our local people hospital were happy to run the tests and get results to us on a Sunday...phew)

The results came through 4 hours after admission, and luckily they advised that kidney function was normal, slight liver damage, but no more that what would be expected from diabeties, and we only had to worry about the Diabeties itself.

Poor Mon Mon had to stay in the ICU for the night under 4 hourly obs, apparently he started getting a little cranky with them by sunday evening, the notorius vet hater that he is. By the sunday evening his blood sugar levels were getting close to normal, so much so that the vet did not want to give him any more insulin for the day. When she came back the next morning though they had sky rocketed again.

We went to visit him this afternoon after picking taylah up from school, we were missing him like mad, when we rocked up he was asleep in his cage so we went to wake him up and the poor bugger tried to stand but couldnt, he was all wobbely and weak. He had not eaten anything for the past 24 hours and his blood sugar levels had plummeted, when we got there and woke him up, he was in the middle of a "hypo" bit cranky that the vets were not paying attention to this, and we had to find him this way, it really was very unsettleing for us all, but particuarly did not want Taylah to see her beloved cat in this sort of state). Anyhow, whilst we were there he gladly ate some tucker, devoured it in fact. I called the vet about an hour after our visit, who advised that he was perking up again, and had eaten even more since our visit, and had become very cuddly and smoochy.

He has been put back on IV for a little longer after this episode, and we hope to have him home again very soon, so we can start our new reigeme (daily insulin injections etc)

Has anyone else here had experience with feline diabeties? Im finding the thought of it very overwhelming, im not good in the first place with needles etc, but im going to have to be brave if we have any chance of keeping Monte fit and well.

Nat, I am sorry to hear of this. I personally have not had any experience with Feline diabetes but my older sisters cat was diagnosed with it approx 4 years ago and outside of the 2 shots a day and gaining some excess weight has done very well. Good luck...

[nattiej1976]

3 days in now, Monte is still in ICU, but he should be coming home tomorrow. He has not been fully stabalized, but wont be until he eats properly, and apparently he is not (although everytime we visit him he has a whole meal) so the vet has decided that perhaps he needs to come home as he is probably going to eat when we are around and be a little less stressed of the comings and goings of the surgury.

The poor bugger has a million shaved off patches all over his body, down his legs around his neck down his sides, we might have to change his name to patch I think

Looking forward to him coming home, however at the same time really worried about having to try and manage it all, but im sure we will get through it

[nattiej1976]

Little happier today, mon mon has been home for 2 nights now, has been very tired, quiet, and reserved, which doesnt feel right in the first place because we are used to him being quite a spunky, extroverted cat.
However today seems a little more bright, and has spent the good part of the morning following me around the house having a chatter along the way, he has been eating resonably well, so would be finally gaining some more energy, and hopefully will start putting on some weight again.

fingers and toes all crossed that these are signs of him beggining to stabalise, and his body starting to support itself again with the insulin we are giving him.

Once we have him stabalised, we would like to attempt managing his diabeties with diet and reduce the ammount of insulin we have to inject, hopefully even cut the insulin out all together, but only time will tell if we can get him that stable.

We introduced a little bit of high protein, no carb food to his diet yesterday, just to see if he likes it and finds it palatable, and he had a good chow down on it, so that is a start, but to change him over fully will take a several weeks and several vet visits to ensure that the diet change does not cause hypoglycimia (sp?)

[lil mutt]

Glad to hear things are going well for Mon Mon, it's so heart-breaking to hear how he suffer all this time. Sending hugs, vibes and prayer for his fast recovery...

[Krissy48lowes]

My heart goes out to you. I had a dog go through this about 10+ years ago, and the vet didn't even offer to give him insulin. Instead we had to try managing it through his diet. After a couple of days we could tell that this just wasn't going to work, and that he was in to much pain to continue...So I really feel for you, lets hope Mon Mon gets feeling better real soon. It so hard to see an animal that you love go through this.

[nattiej1976]

Originally Posted by Krissy48lowes

My heart goes out to you. I had a dog go through this about 10+ years ago, and the vet didn't even offer to give him insulin. Instead we had to try managing it through his diet. After a couple of days we could tell that this just wasn't going to work, and that he was in to much pain to continue...So I really feel for you, lets hope Mon Mon gets feeling better real soon. It so hard to see an animal that you love go through this.

How heartbreaking Krissy, our vet did not think twice when we opted for life, she had several stories of diabetic pets living many happy years after diagnosis. When we asked her about the life exptancy of a diabetic pet, she was quite quick to say, with commitment from an owner, and insuilin, that they could live a long normal life, she told us of a cat in her care who was diagnosed when it was 18, she said it had lived to be 22 with good management of the diabeties.

Originally Posted by lil mutt

Glad to hear things are going well for Mon Mon, it's so heart-breaking to hear how he suffer all this time. Sending hugs, vibes and prayer for his fast recovery...

Thanks lil mutt, all prayers and thoughts VERY gratefully recieved

[nattiej1976]

Another rough 24 hours. Because Monte is now home and eating quite willingly, his glucose levels began to increase again, even though he is receiving insulin, rushed back to the vets yesterday and his BG was so high that they couldnt even get a reading from the glucometer, so he came back home with immediate instructions to begin increasing his insulin dose.

Back again today to check his BG and it has come back down to our target range, so with any luck the increased insulin dose should finally begin stabalisation..........all fingers and toes crossed anyway

[nattiej1976]

Monte spent the day at the vets, so they could run a BG curve over at least 10 hours. His BG levels have run low all day, but the curve appears to have had no dramatic changes outside of what it should look like (just running on the low side of the scale) what this hopefully might mean, is that with his diet change over the last week and the reduction and soon to be complete exclusion of carb rich foods, that he is beginning to stabalise. It is likely that the ammounts of insulin will be reduced, to bring his general BG back up just a little bit (either reduced 12 hourly intake or better still 1 needle a day instead of two)
So hopefully good news.

[nattiej1976]

News hot off the press, One needle a day.............YAY!

[chiclet]

Hi, I had a diabetic cat that when it was time to let her go at age 16, I realised that I had kept her going for about 8 years. That last couple of years were kind of rough and honestly, if I went through it again, I would have put her down much sooner. She had quite the regimen of medication and cataracts towards the end.

That being said, the first few years after diagnosis went quite well. Personally, I preferred the twice daily routine, I think it kept things more stable. Tip, you can reuse syringes, toss them when you are feeling more resistance getting into the vial. You have to be extremely careful when you recap them, if you choose to. Watch out for signs of neuropathy.

Mine never stopped with the large volume of urine, but I could get a feel for sugar levels by how sticky the clumps seemed to be. I found it too expensive to use the urine test strips daily.

Some people would have been appalled at how lackadaisical I seemed about scheduling the shots and when I gave them. I did not follow strict routines, and I am not sure that was a bad thing. There is a blood test that can indicate how well the sugar has been controlled for the past few months and her results always came back showing good control. I made mistakes here and there, but they turned out to not be the end of the world.

Towards the end, it was no longer possible to get the cheaper animal insulin (which worked better) and I had to switch to the really expensive artificial stuff that had a far more limited shelf life. I had to throw out a lot of insulin. You can get the vials that go into the insulin pens to help reduce the cost.

There will be a point where he can no longer control when and where he urinates. Mine tried for a long time to get to the box but invariably ended up standing outside the box, this was a deterioration from being in the box and peeing outside of it. Her life started getting more and more restricted, I couldn't let her on the carpeted areas, unless we were with her. If I could catch her, I would carry her to the litter box, often with her peeing all the way.

A turning point was when she peed on me while I was holding her. That was a point when I should have euthanised her. It finally reached the point when she was losing weight so fast and it could not be turned around, I knew it was time to let her go. Broke my heart and I can still cry thinking about it, that was years ago.

You can still have a number of good years, but you should talk it over and decide at what point you should let her go.

Tip: She had a number of different meds towards the end, plus she was on lactulose. I found that getting gelatin capsules and stuffing the medication into them, plus filling them with the lactulose made it a lot easier to get it down her. Not to mention it becamed two pills instead of four or five plus a liquid.

I wish you well with this, it is a huge commitment.

[CorkyMax]

Just came across this article from Veterinary News Network. Problem is they did not date it but thinking it was in the last couple months. Maybe everything is okay now but still some useable information there. Giving 2 links on this.
Veterinary News Network | News Detail

http://www.myvnn.com/page.asp?id=39&...=8&story_id=94

[nattiej1976]

NEW UPDATE
Monte has been doing really well the last 5 days, there is a sparkle back in his eyes, some of his usual spunk has come back, he is pretty much back on his target weight, is eating really well.
We took him in to the vet today, and his blood glucose is still running pretty low, even though only 5 days ago we reduced his insulin intake by 50 percent, so as of tomorrow it is being reduced by another 25 percent.
He has been put on specific diet (high protein, low carb) and as of tonight we have begun our own BG testing, to allow us more home monitoring and control over his BG levels.
He has taken well enough to us taking blood for the tests, the vets syrynge the blood out of his leg or neck, which is unsetteling for him. We are taking it by using a lancet pen on his ear, he bearly even notices the little prick as it occurs, so is by far the less distressing way to get the readings. If ever any of you end up in this situation (which I dont wish on you) dont doubt that your cat seems so much happier with it being done at home, by the family that it trusts, Monte really has come to the party and is not fighting us at all through this process.

Anyhow, after speaking to the vet today, she feels that if we continue on this path that over the coming months, perhaps even weeks, it is quite possible that we may find that Monte goes into remission (yes you heard that right, it is possible for a diabetic cat to go into remission if the care and management of the diabeties has been taken seriously and dealt with promptly)

I really dont want to get my hopes up too high, but oh gosh, its hard not to at the moment

[nattiej1976]

I havnt updated for ages..............not long after my last post, Monte moved over into a insulin dependent remission. His diabeties is now being managed by food alone...........gosh you dont know how much less stressful it is not having to worry about regular insulin injections.

I want to thank all of you for the thoughts, prayers and sharing your experiences.

Monte will always now be diabetic, and we still need to check his blood glucose reguarly to ensure it is on track, but now that we have been able to get him stable on diet control, hopefully we will be able to continue waking up to a happy feline freind for years to come