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Thursday, May 2, 2013
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Tips for taking Care of a Diabetic Cat-how much does it cost?
I found this great list of tips for Taking Care of Your Diabetic Cat. One tip that is very important is the cost. Diabetic cat medicine is NOT cheap. Each month we buy insulin at $100 a vial about one per month, Glipizide $15 a week, needles $35 about 1 box per month, diabetic cat food $35 for 6lbs about one bag per month. We mix that with regular cat food which is about $12 per month, and then we have to buy a large Tidy Cat bag of litter per week because of how much urine the cats have and that is about $25 a month. That didn't include all the tests done at the vet, the glucose reader, the needles for that, the strips for that as well. Sometimes we have to buy more of the items listed above because we may use more one month then we normally do.
So as you can see this costs at least $200 a month. And that's if we don't have anything else crazy go on with their health. Which it always does. Possibly if Merry's diabetes wasn't so bad (8 units a day and Glipizide) the cost wouldn't be so bad. Pippin only gets 3 units of insulin and that means the insulin would last much longer if it was just him. This is a great article on the cost of cat diabetes. My vet even has a diabetic cat that lives in the vet office his name is Ringo and he has a facebook page!
Just remember that it is not going to be cheap.. we budget the cost into our bills every month. Your cat can live a great life. Just check out Merry and our neighborhood squirrel that we have named Mama Squirrel!
Edit... (Oct 22nd 2013)in just 5 months since I have posted this the cost has already gone up. If you read my other posts you can see more of what has happened... Merry we discovered has Acromegaly which has added a new insulin for him and Pippin now has to be on a steroid $30 a month and has gone up a unit in his insulin. The costs adding up never really stops.
Edit 2017: Look online for resources to make things cheaper. It took us years to finally figure this out. Prescription cat food (we use Purina DM for diabetic cats dry food) is $20 cheaper through Petsmart if you sign up for their auto refill. Needles are much cheaper online too. Nice thing is that Petsmart or 1800petmeds will contact your vet for you so you don't have to worry about getting a prescription sent over. As time as gone by we have figured out ways to make diabetes way more affordable. I just took time to do research online. There really is no way to find cheaper insulin so that we have kept getting from the vet office. There are so many cheaper resources out there then your vet office. Don't buy your glucose reader through them either.. order it through amazon.com. Get your test strips through amazon too. It was like $10 for a box of 50.
So as you can see this costs at least $200 a month. And that's if we don't have anything else crazy go on with their health. Which it always does. Possibly if Merry's diabetes wasn't so bad (8 units a day and Glipizide) the cost wouldn't be so bad. Pippin only gets 3 units of insulin and that means the insulin would last much longer if it was just him. This is a great article on the cost of cat diabetes. My vet even has a diabetic cat that lives in the vet office his name is Ringo and he has a facebook page!
Just remember that it is not going to be cheap.. we budget the cost into our bills every month. Your cat can live a great life. Just check out Merry and our neighborhood squirrel that we have named Mama Squirrel!
Edit 2017: Look online for resources to make things cheaper. It took us years to finally figure this out. Prescription cat food (we use Purina DM for diabetic cats dry food) is $20 cheaper through Petsmart if you sign up for their auto refill. Needles are much cheaper online too. Nice thing is that Petsmart or 1800petmeds will contact your vet for you so you don't have to worry about getting a prescription sent over. As time as gone by we have figured out ways to make diabetes way more affordable. I just took time to do research online. There really is no way to find cheaper insulin so that we have kept getting from the vet office. There are so many cheaper resources out there then your vet office. Don't buy your glucose reader through them either.. order it through amazon.com. Get your test strips through amazon too. It was like $10 for a box of 50.
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