Diabetic Pet

[NessieOggy]

Our 16+ year old cat was diagnosed last year and we had quite the learning curve! Does anyone have a diabetic pet that receives injections (especially of Lantus)?

[Lore]

My 10+ year old cat was diagnosed in mid-August and has been getting Lantus injections ever since and is doing great right now.Was it difficult to get your cats diabetes under control? How is he /she doing now?

[NessieOggy]

It took quite a while to get him regulated and when he finally did click over to "neutral", it caught us by surprise. The change was literally overnight and we thought maybe we didn't do the test strip properly! He went from 3.5 units twice a day and then down to 1 unit once a day. We were giving him 2 injections a day, but it became too difficult and caused him too much stress.

Do you administer blood tests at home, have a vet do it or are you using urine test strips?

[Lore]

I don't know what you mean when you say he clicked over to "neutral".
Is that based on testing a blood sample?
I have just been testing via the urine test strips as per the vets instructions.
I was doing that every 2nd day but now doing that twice a week.
Checking for glucose level and if there are any ketones.
After there had been some improvement I had to do a blood glucose curve and
approx. 3 weeks later after more improvement I had to do another blood glucose curve.
He has also had a few blood tests at the vets.
Did the vet tell you to go down to 1-iu once a day? Or is it supposed to be twice a day?
How is doing the injection difficult or causing him to much stress?
I am asking that because my cat acts like he does not even feel it, no stress at all.
I use the Lantus Solostar pen and the needles I use are 4mm/32 gauge.

[NessieOggy]

I was speaking of the urine strips when I mentioned neutral & should have said negative. The vet did tell us to go down to once per day, although its not optimal to do so. Unfortunately, Tai started to associate eating with getting an injection, thus the move to once per day.

[xjeepguy]

Our 16+ year old cat was diagnosed last year and we had quite the learning curve! Does anyone have a diabetic pet that receives injections (especially of Lantus)?

Our cat was diabetic for the last 6 years of her 16 year life . Two injections per day , every day . Be glad to answer any questions if you have them .

[Lore]

I'm going to have to ask my vet for more detail on using the urine strips.
For some reason I thought that if it read negative that the cats diabetes was no longer an issue
and that insulin was no longer needed.
I'm not sure where I got this idea and I must be wrong as your vet has you giving insulin still.
My cats urine reading was at +2 for a few months and has just recently gone to +1.
Will ask my vet when I see her next week.
Do you get the urine strips from your vet or from a drug store?

[Lore]

I have a question.
Do you have to use the urine strips to test the urine glucose forever.
Right now I'm testing twice a week.
Am I probably going to have to test that often for the life of my cat?

[NessieOggy]

I'm certainly no expert and can only share our experiences with you, Lore. From what I understand, some cats can lose their insulin dependency... I think it has to do with the pancreas being able to do its job again. We weened Tai off insulin and he lasted over 3 and a half weeks before his sugars rose again. For him, just a little insulin does the trick in keeping everything in check.

We chose to use test strips rather than draw blood from the ear for testing. It depends on the cat ... ours wouldn't be a happy kitty (to say the very least). We got our test strips through the pharmacy at Costco (about $7).

Cheers xjeepguy, appreciate that.

[xjeepguy]

I have a question.
Do you have to use the urine strips to test the urine glucose forever.
Right now I'm testing twice a week.
Am I probably going to have to test that often for the life of my cat?

If your asking me , we never used urine strips at all . We tested , at first 3 times a week with a meter . After a couple of months we could almost guess what her levels were just by watching her water consumption .