My kitty crossed the rainbow bridge this morning. RIP my furry friend.
I’m so sorry. It’s never easy.
We brought our 20 year old cat with us when we moved; she was in failing health but still seemed to have good quality of life. In the end I was giving her fluid injections daily and hand feeding her. Husband was not ready to say goodbye when it was really past time, and had to talk with our old veterinarian before he was able to agree. He now says he should have agreed sooner.
We found a woman who came out to our house and gave Tabby a sedative first while she was nestled in my arms sitting outside, then the rest. It was very considerate and caring. When we were ready, the woman took Tabby away and we had arranged a cremation via our new vet office; one of the little statues was titled Tabby so that’s the one we picked and she is now out in our garden under the Bird of Paradise plants.
The next day there was a rainbow.
So sorry!
Different kitty. The one that was on palliative care for lung cancer.
The one with the suspected cataract is squeaking along… she is the eternal cat. Still has a few lives left. Had some bacterial infections when she was a tiny kitten, almost died after spaying, had badder stones, and the last one was a biggie - radioactive iodine treatment for overactive thyroid. Now the cataract… I swear this cat will outlive everyone as long as she eats (she has not lost her appetite a single day in her life!).
Thank you. It was a long time ago, but still an awful memory.
I am sorry to hear of your kitty’s passing today.
Sorry for the loss of your kitty
I do have a question and hope this is a good place to ask. My kitty was just diagnosed with Feline Diabetes. He was given a steroid shot about 6 weeks ago and soon after he started loosing weight and eventually we took him to the vet 2 weeks ago where they tested him and noticed his glucose levels were high and diagnosed him. The issue we are having is regulating it. It seems to be either too high or too low. We have tried 1 unit of insulin and down to 1/2 a unit. Just can’t seem to get it to remain in that normal range for long periods of time. They did put a libre 2 monitor on him and all day long I’m dealing with the alarms going off.
I assume you’re giving him insulin twice a day?
Have you switched to a food for diabetics, and do you regulate his food?
When our cat was diagnosed our regular vet said we could continue to let her graze all day, but when she went to the ICU for 5 days, they put her on special food (Purina Pro Plan DM), both wet and dry, and told us to feed her only twice a day. We stuck with that for the 3 years she survived. I think @BunsenBurner also had or has a diabetic, and she fed hers over the counter food with low carb content (at least I’m thinking that’s what it was - could be wrong).
It took us a couple of months to get our cat regulated. If the cat stops eating, have him checked for pancreatitis. It’s VERY painful, and we waited a couple of days before taking ours to vet, which we regretted.
Thank you for your response. Honestly I feel like it’s been all over the place with the insulin. We were planning on doing 7am and 7pm injections. Then when it was 7pm and I checked his levels, it was 53 (very low) and I just could not give him an injection as I was scared he’d seizure. So I held off, waited till the morning and it was then high so I gave him the 1 unit and within a few hours it dramatically dropped down again to critical low levels. Once again I held off on the 7pm shot. The next day I gave about .75 units instead of the 1…that seemed to work out better but through out the day he still would drop very low. My vet said to leave food out to let him eat and when the levels would drop to rub his gums with karo syrup. It is just frustrating as I’m checking all day long. He currently has out his dry food and wet food.
This is the last 24 hours. He got .75 units at 7am yesterday and .50 (1/2 a unit) at 8pm last night.
Our vet said anything under 100 should be absolutely avoided. Also, our cat gets dry DM food and twice a day I give him low carb non-prescription food (classic chicken Fancy Feast). Because he refuses to eat wet DM food, and the vet gave me OK to feed that. Actually gave a list of wet foods that are OK for diabetic cats. I’ll try to find it and will post a link.
Has the meter you have been using been calibrated for cats? Back when our cat was diagnosed, our vet said that there was one specific meter we needed to buy that is calibrated for cats and dogs - Alphatrack 2. I got mine from Chewy. What kind of insulin are you giving him? Glargine? You might need to switch insulin type.
Yes, thanks, you remember correctly! I mentioned in the post above that there are OTC foods with low carb content that are suitable for diabetic cats if they refuse DM.
Oh gosh not sure if the meter was calibrated for cats. My vet put it on him. It’s the freestyle Libre 2. The insulin is Insulin Glargine-yfgn
Would love the cat food reccomendations. I’m not doing anything prescription
Today I’m doing a reset. Gave him .5 units after he ate (he didn’t eat a lot) and then put the dry food away since that’s higher in carbs.
Don’t put the dry food away if that’s what he prefers to eat. Our vet said that in cats, low glucose does more damage than intermittent high glucose; he looks like he is hypoglycemic most of the time so it is OK.
Here is a very comprehensive list of wet food content which might be somewhat hard to read.
Pretty much all classic Fancy Feasts are low carb.
Yes my vet said the same that we don’t want low numbers. Hence giving him karo syrup when it drops this low. The concern for my vet now is why I’m giving him not the full 1 unit. But honestly every time I do his numbers plummet. I couldn’t sleep the other night due to the alarms the monitor was sending off with “critical low glucose”. Its like having a newborn.
So I’ve been going back and forth with wet cat food this week to find what he likes. just noticed I use the Tiki brand and on that list it says it’s 0 carbs. So now I’m wondering if doing the 0 carb food PLUS the insulin is too much?
I recommend calling your vet with these questions. Something is going on. Maybe your meter is not giving accurate results. Maybe you need to give the cat a different type of insulin. Are you measuring your insulin with a syringe? Lots of questions.
Capillary blood is the gold standard sample type for glucose measurements. Looks like some CGM meters that have been designed for human skin can apparently be used in cats but may not always give reliable results.
Jumping in to say if your cat prefers dry food, you can try moistening it with some water. My kidney disease cat who was prone to dehydration would eat dry food that had water added.