Duchess

[cjsmith]

Preliminary update from the blood lab: glucose high. I don't have a number on that nor do I have an "upshot" (insulin required or not). The rest of the report will arrive Monday, including stuff like thyroid numbers.

I've already told my vet that if she's diabetic I'll want to switch to a veterinarian closer to where I live. He suggested I ask the emergency clinics for a recommendation. "They usually know," he said. "As these animals come in they know whether a vet's any good." I bet that's excellent advice.

Comments

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I like the "shot while eating" idea. That's a good way to make sure she at least HAS enough food to go with the insulin.

Duchess is gray and white too. That part made me smile. I will have to make sure her motor is running properly. :-) :-)

The website I looked at also recommended Karo syrup for sudden low blood sugar incidents. Two votes is enough for me. I'll have to get myself some of that right away. If she's going to get a mis-estimated dose it's likely to be early, when I'm still a total goober. Thanks also for the tip about baby food! That could be very handy.

Gila stopped being diabetic completely? That's amazing! How did you know to stop giving her insulin? Sugars consistently under control with lower and lower doses? Did she stay not diabetic for a long time?

That hour or so in the morning is going to be tough. Right now I'm usually out the door ten to twenty minutes after rolling out of bed. Shifting the sleep schedule won't work unless I ditch Rob (*wry smile*), so I guess I'll just be showing up at work later. I will probably cancel the YMCA membership because there's no way I'm going to swim in the mornings now.

Thanks for all the information! This is very helpful. I had no idea you could vary things as much as you did with Athena. That's reassuring in a big way.

[tryslora]

Teenie was a tuxedo cat, and I had her at the same time as my folks had Baby (another tuxedo cat). They were scarily similar in some parts of their personalities!

It's not just the mis-estimated dosage... sometimes their sugars just vary (just like humans) so they need more food to counteract. Except they don't understand what's going on like we do. *wry smile*

Oh, and I thought of something else as a suggestion other than the Karo. When I was diabetic myself, the doctor told us to buy tubes of the frosting gel (which is basically colored corn syrup) because then if I went into insulin shock, it was pre-prepared in a tube and Kev would be able to just stick it in my mouth. I don't know how that would be for cats, with additives, tho.

And yeah, Gila stopped being diabetic pretty much completely. My mom caught that she was going low blood sugar more and more, and when they retested her at the vet she was steady, so she just went to diet. One thing that is frustrating is that at least when we did it with Athena, there was no blood sugar testing at home. Which means it's all guesswork. And watching. I kept wanting to use my own test kit on her, but figured I'd likely get a hand torn off if I tried it!

You'll find a way to get the schedule worked around. It took me some time, and I was extra extra careful at the beginning. You'll need to learn her patterns. One hard thing with multiple cats is making sure that the right one eats the right food! But once you and she both get used to it, you'll get something of your schedule back.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the variation in their sugars is what I was thinking of when I said a mis-estimated dose. I'm likely to be less aware of signs and signals early on, plus she'll probably be varying more.

I like the frosting gel idea! I suspect an additive in the gel would be a lot less of a problem than slipping into a coma due to no sugars, and I'd hope to avoid using it often. I'll ask my vet whether that's an okay infrequent substitute.

I get the impression that some vets are supportive about home testing of a cat's sugars -- and that it's done with a human kit. One web site recommends getting the blood droplet from the ear. Poor kitty!

If I'm "monitoring" her for an hour, can I, say, hop in the shower for ten minutes during that? How critical is it? How about if she's in the bathroom with me and I can stick my head out the curtain? The ability to shower and dress *while* watching her would really help.

[tryslora]

Yep, human pharmacy. But without human insurance. *wry smile*

For the monitoring, yes, you can definitely take a shower and go about your normal stuff and just keep peeking at her periodically.

I could see the blood testing working with a normal test kit. Kitty levels are different than human levels. Well, actually they aren't, but it's harder to get a kitty into the optimum place without rising low blood sugar, so at least for us, we were told to expect her to run a bit high regularly.