Anyone want a free diabetic cat?

I guess we're on pretty much the same schedule then. Of course, this is the first night of the two-shots-per-day deal for me. The first two days of treatment were just in the morning.

And yes, I've decided that I'd definitely keep him until I find him a good new home. I wonder, if I do this, do you think the new owners would give me visitation rights? Ha. Probably tough to find a deal like that.



Last week he started walking a little wobbly, and he had a cut on his paw that kept bleeding--which I found out was most likely due to him falling off something while I was at work because his back legs were getting weaker due to the diabetes that I stupidly didn't realize he had--so I brought him to a vet that the owner of my local pet store recommended. He hadn't been to the vet in years, because he'd always been so healthy and active, even though he may have been a little bit overweight. The vet and her staff seem like good people.

He had been exhibiting the other obvious symptoms (increased thirst and urination) for a while and I, in my supreme ignorance, thought he was just thirsty because it had been so hot out, and that he was peeing so much because he was drinking so much. It started happening just as the weather was getting hot, so I just--no excuses--I'm an idiot. Okay, guilt session over.

Anyway, the vet put him on PZI, and he is now eating Hill's prescription w/d dry food.

Hmmm...this is a very interesting site. You people are nice.

Thistle - sounds like you caught it early! That is great! And that combo is what my cat is on. The humilin (hman insulin) wa sok, but impossible to regulate. PZI is the insulin which may allow for one shot every 24 hours. And, cats generally regulate faster on it. Sounds great! All of it! My cat takes 4 units of PZI every 12 hours - a lot of insulin. I go through a vial every 1.5 months, roughly.

I really hope you all settle out quickly. And, that you decide you can keep him. I have faith, however, that you can find a good home for him if you hold out as long as it takes.

Do you have corn syrup in the house?

Ok, I'll leave you with this and go to bed. My cat, tonight, as of minutes ago. He's having a little night crazy - sorry it's so dark......


Scritchscratch

Corn syrup! I read about that, but forgot to get it tonight. Tomorrow for sure. My cat is only getting one unit of the PZI each shot right now. I am not really too sure whether it's working or not. I am not really very clear on what I'm supposed to be looking for though. I guess if he's not having a seizure, things can't be too bad.

I have another question. I know the cat's leg strength is supposed to come back. However, I'm a little unclear on how rapidly that happens. Is it a gradual thing after a period of time of being regulated, or does it just come back pretty much as soon as he is regulated?

By the way, Screech is such a cute cat!

Yep, Screech is cute. Good thing. (thanks).

Back leg strength - I'm not really sure what that's about, but it should clear up once he gets more stable. Maybe it has to do with bad circulation....?

Low blood sugar means too much insulin (at one unit 2xday, not a likely occurance). Too much insulin can sort of equate with not enough sugar, hence the syrup. So, if your cat seems very lethargic, confused, shaky - rub a finger full or two of corn syrup on his gums and bring him to the vet. This is not likely to happen now or even in the next few weeks, but as you try to figure out his dosage, you may go too high, in that case you'll want the syrup around. An example of lethargy - my cat woke up, once or twice before he was stabilized, and started mrooooowing (that low, throaty mroooow). It woke me up and I watched him slide off the bed on his belly. Not very cat-like. He wasn't tracking really well with his eyes and he was moving his head very slowly and erraticly. I swabbed his gums with syrup and brought him to the vet. Eventually, you learn how to watch for recovery and reduce the next insulin dose, etc. But at first, go to the vet.

High blood sugar you are more familiar with - excessive drinking and urinating, rotten fruit breath (I never really 'got' that one), cranky.

Both low and high glucose can make for weird eating habits or cravings. I once had my cat drag a loaf of bread out of a shopping bag and tear right through the plastic to get at the simple starch.

They are starting you at one unit and testing there and upping the dose weekly because it's the best way to stabilize a cat without over-dosing it and without keeping it at a vet hospital. Have patience.

Okay, thanks for the info. Very helpful. Oh, and here's the scoop on the back leg strength stuff. I found it in wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetes_in_cats_and_dogs#Neuropathy_in_cats

Ok, Thistle, I'm off to bed...... stay in touch!

This is interesting to me. When Fitz was dx'd with diabetes there were no glucometers (at least for cats), no internet for support and information, and the only insulin available was either human or porcine (if I remember correctly). So there has been some real advances.

Fitz had also those weird food cravings for a few years before being dx'd ~ but neither the vet nor I thought they were anything but manifestations of his decidedly weird personality. He craved corn, grapes and particularly cantaloupe. Definitely not normal cat preferences, but all high in fructose or sugar-producing starch.

Sounds like good information, Thistle. Now if we could just solve your scheduling and financial problems...

I used regent strips with screech while he was being regulated. They test for urine glucose and ketones. The results were very rough, but gave an idea of what was going on.

Yay!

Good on ya. I really hope you find that caring for him isn't as hard on you as you thought it'd be, but if not, then I'm sure with some effort you'll be able to find a great home for him. I bet you'll be glad later on that you made this decision-- this way, you'll never have the uncertainty about what happened to him that you'd have had if you took him to a shelter, and you'll know you did your very best for him (what's his name, by the way?).

Good luck to both of you-- keep us all posted!

So one of my closest friends is visiting from out of town. I haven't seen him in over a year. He's only here for a few days, so this is probably the only night we will have to see each other. So we're hanging out and having a good time, and his girlfriend, who I am meeting for the first time, asks if we want to go out to a bar and see a band that she knows. I, of course, being the person that I am, am totally into it.

We get halfway there and I realize I've forgotten about my cat, who should have gotten his shot about a half hour earlier.

Immediately my night goes from "Yes! let's go have some fun!" to, "I have to go home and give my cat an insulin shot, and suddenly I'm not really in the party mood."

I rush home to give him his shot (an hour and a half late), and the night is over. I hope giving him the shot an hour and a half late isn't going to cause too much of a problem. My vet told me I have about a two-hour window on the times.

Oh, and when I got home, he had stepped in his own urine in the litter box (he does this frequently now), and then made pretty little paw-prints all over the floor and couch. I mopped the floor, tried desperately to clean up the caked litter from the couch, and am now tired and ready for bed.

Frustrating. But at least he's okay. I have to try to focus on that part of it instead of how horribly inconvenient this all is.

Ironically, his name is Lucky. Even more ironically, I usually just call him Sugarbutt.

Aw....... shooting him late isn't great at this unregulated stage, but it's way better than shooting him too soon. So, he's still drinking and peeing alot? In a week or two he'll be up more units and that will stop.

Sorry you missed out tonight. It does get easier, really! You have to do a little more planning and live a little less spontaneously, but there are ways to deal. That window your vet mentioned allows you to shift the schedule a bit. If you shoot the cat at 8 am, shooting him at 8 pm should be feasible even if you want to go out. But, if you wanted to have dinner out and then go dancing, you could shoot him at 7 pm. If you have a 'thing' after work and can't get home until 9 pm, that's ok.

I have a bit of a crazy schedule myself. I tinker with timing, but I also have help from family and friends. I try really hard to not rely on them though.

Well, tomorrow's schedule is going to be a little screwy as well, but I should be able to stay within that window of time. I'm so worried that I'm messing this all up.

One of the good things about all this is that my cat is soooooooooo laid back, the shots are very easy to administer. In fact, when I'm back there pulling and tugging on his skin to try to find a good spot to inject him, it almost seems to me like he's actually enjoying it. He doesn't even seem to notice when I give the shot to him. What a great cat.

How was it with yours when you first had to do the injections?

Oh, and yes, he is definitely still drinking and peeing a lot.

I was scared as hell. Remember when you were a little kid, and some adult asked what you wanted to be when you grew up? Half the little girls said "teacher" and the other half said "nurse". Not me, I wanted to be an archaeologist. I thought dealing with someone else's bodily fluids and needs was yucky. So that first injection was scary. But I soon realized that it doesn't hurt the cat at all (if I remember the vet said they don't really have many nerve ending in their skin, or at least in their scruff). I did it at the same time as feeding Fitz. As soon as his nose was in his bowl, a bomb could go off next door and he wouldn't twitch anyway. The injections became the easiest thing about diabetes.

I also remember clearly the first time I asked the pharmacist for a box of syringes. The vet had given me some insulin, so I was just buying syringes. There was a lineup of people. I mumbled. The pharmacist gave me a look. I mumbled that it was for my cat. The pharmacist gave me a stronger look, but he handed it over. I paid and fled, feeling like I had been pegged as a heroin addict or something.

Which reminds me ~ get yourself a "sharps" container for those used syringes. You don't want a garbage handler to get nicked by one. I used a liquid detergent bottle or 2-litre pop bottle. If you're really conscientious and can safely manage it, break off the needle part.

Now, with 3 cats and their litter pan, I get to play archaeologist every day.

At least you got your wish.

So here's the next little scheduling problem. I am going out tonight too, and I am thinking that, even though I will have to cut the night short, I won't be home until around midnight again. I have been doing the shots at around 10:30 since this began. But now, my hours at work are changing again, so on Monday morning I will have to start giving the shots at about 8:30 or so.

So I'm not sure if I should just skip the shot tonight, and start doing the shots at 8:30 tomorrow morning, or if I should do each one a little bit early for the rest of the weekend, so that by monday I'm at the new time of 8:30.

I could give him the shot tonight at midnight-ish, and then do the next shot at around 10:30-11:00 AM like I have been, and then do another one a little earlier on sunday night, like around 9:30, and then by monday morning I can do it a little early again, getting me to the new time of 8:30.

I don't know which is best. What do you think?

Tico, you've given me a good idea. Since I have the syringes already, I think I will take up shooting heroin. It won't help with the cat, but at least I won't be stressed out anymore.

Thistle - My cat did not like the shots at first, at all. Sometimes he was more sick than other times and he hated the shots the most at this sick times. Now he mostly seems to like the attention. You do have a great cat! Do not skip the shot tonight! Right now, while you are in the process of stabilizing the cat, it's important to try and stick to the schedule as best as possible. I'd suggest making sure you are indeed home by midnight, then shootng the cat a little earlier each time:

Saturday night: midnight
Sunday morning: 10:50 am
Sunday night: 9:40 pm
Monday morning: 8:30 am

You're cat is currently not getting enough insulin (extra water in and out), so you need to make sure he does get his shot tonight. The units are pretty big (u--40, right?). If you get in later than midnight, you could give him a not-quite-full 1 unit. But, frankly, I don't think you'll have an issue AT THIS TIME with making dosing times a little too close together.

Tico - I'm glad the bad diabetes experience didn't put you off having pets!


When I got the syringes at CVS, the pharmacists were amused that I had a diabetic cat, not suspicious. I think. They'd ask for my last name and come back to confirm by asking "Screech" with chuckles in their throats.

I am going to do exactly as you suggested littlek. Maybe I'll get lucky (the adjective, not the cat) and the people with whom I'm going out will call at the last minute and cancel. Yes, U-40 is correct.

I was thinking of buying the syringes over the internet. Do you think that's a good idea?

Thistle, I don't know anything about buying drugs and drug stuff over the internet. I tried to ask people here what they thought about it a while back -- if anyone new of a respectable online seller, and no one did. Why did you want to buy them online? Expense or ease?