Anyone have a pet with diabetes?

IAmSherlocked

Hi Guys,

Does anyone here have a cat or dog with diabetes and if so, can you give me an idea of what the day-to-day looks like when dealing with that (price, insulin injections, food type, anything else you think useful)?

Long story short, my cat Silvester went into congestive heart failure yesterday. He stayed overnight at the emergency vet, and was on oxygen until about 5am this morning. Turns out his heart is enlarged and he had fluid in and around his lungs. They said he's doing much better today and I will probably be able to take him home in a few hours. They also think he might have diabetes (they did give him some insulin yesterday and monitored him just to be safe), but they won't get the lab results back until later today.

I was just wondering what my day-to-day is going to look like with him if he is diagnosed with diabetes on top of heart disease. I've already been told he'll need to be on meds for his heart but I would think that will be fairly straightforward, it's the idea of insulin injections that worry me.

Thanks for your help!

aggiebug

Honestly I would be surprised if your kitty shows up truly diabetic. Cats when extremely stressed get elevated glucose levels in their blood and urine. And considering he has had an extraordinarily stressful heart situation I expect his diabetic symptoms are quite transient.

Also a truly diabetic cat can revert back to normal with just a diet change. A diet like m/d or DM (both prescription diets) can be enough to control their diabetes.

If your kitty is truly diabetic the biggest thing is consistentcy. It is typically twice a day injections needing to be as close to 12hrs apart as possible. With regular bw and glucose curves done. Cost of insulin can vary depending on which one works for your kitty. Some are quite expensive up to $200 per bottle which lasts maybe 3 months. Not including syringes you would need.

IAmSherlocked

Thanks for the info. They did a test (protosmine? They ran so many tests I get them all mixed up) and his glucose levels were high, but not nearly as high as when I first took him to the ER. It was at 645 when I brought him in, but I've seen it spike like that before in stressful situations. Since it was still high they gave him 1 unit of insulin which seemed to help him some. They did write me a prescription for insulin (cost me about $220--that was the cheapest I could find locally and luckily my pharmacy price matches. I did see it online for about $180 but since I needed it now I was willing to pay the little bit extra).

I'm hoping with some lifestyle changes we may be able to reverse this whole thing. I try to feed all the cats good quality food with no fillers, or other crappy stuff. I'll ask my normal vet about a prescription diet although last time I looked at those (a few years ago) they didn't seem to be as nutritionally good as say Wellness or other brands. Maybe that has changed though. 

So far kitty has been home for about 8 hours and he hasn't eaten anything since Sunday night (his last meal before going to the vet. He refused to eat at the doctor's office). He has been drinking water though, so that's a good sign, right?

aggiebug

Not eating is a serious issue in cats. If he isn't eating he needs to Br force fed or have a feeding tube placed to enure he is getting some nutrition.

IAmSherlocked

I was worried about him too, didn't want fatty liver or anything to develop. I was planning on taking him back to the vet today if I couldn't convince him to eat anything (he was drinking a ton though, so at least that was something).

I finally convinced him to eat some tuna that I had warmed up and added a little more water to, I just hope he can keep it up. He hasn't wanted any canned food (tried several different brands), dry food, or anything. I even tried to make a "soup" out of the canned food and force feed him but no luck on that one. I'm planning on going out and getting some more tuna since he seemed interested in that and I'd rather he at least have some sort of food in his system, even if it isn't "cat food" necessarily.

Thanks!

NavyBlue143

Insulin should not cost that much. We got our dog's insulin at walmatt. It was $30 a bottle, and the bottle lasted him maybe two weeks. Not sure if cat insulin has different requirements, but we used Humulin r on our lab. Over the counter, they just kept it begind the pharmacy counter for security reasons.

IAmSherlocked

That is awesomely cheap! I priced all the local pharmacies and online, and the cheapest I could find was $180 online. The name of it is Lantus Insulin if that makes a difference. I did call my vet but because of state laws they can't fill the prescription from another office, but if my normal vet decides to keep kitty on the insulin I can purchase it through them for $55 a bottle, but their bottles are much smaller so it would cost much more in the long-run to do that.

aggiebug

Lantus is a LOT more expensive, but more effective in cats (typically).