Pippin is almost 16!

My friend recently found out that his cat has diabetes.  I kind of helped him along figuring it out because his cat was just peeing all over his house.  I told him there has to be something wrong, they don't just do that. So I brought over my glucose reader and sure enough.. the cat's glucose was super high.  This made me look back at this blog and see that I've been updating it a few times a year since 2012!  Wow. Pippin is now 4 months away from 16 years old.  He has really slowed down.  My mom gave us a heated bed that her cat isn't using at Thanksgiving and we brought it home and put a blanket and his bed on it and now he pretty much just stays there all day.  He loves it in his old age.

He had also been seeming to slow down on his eating though, so my husband and I decided to get his teeth cleaned.  I was very nervous about it since he's so old.  I really actually didn't want to do it but knew if the vet wasn't comfortable with doing it then they wouldn't. So I took him in last week and he did well.  His glucose was the worst thing that day.  They told me not to give him a shot in the morning so I didn't, but of course by the time he got there he was at 477.  So the vet gave him a shot and then had to watch him all day.  Otherwise, he had no teeth pulled.  She did say his gums weren't great but that's expected with old age.  The cost was $520!  Getting a pet's teeth cleaned is one of the most expensive things I swear.  And this was WITHOUT any teeth pulled.  We did use Care Credit, which is a credit card you can use for humans or animals that usually has a limited time where you can make payments without interest.  I think usually a vet office's terms are 6 months.  So you have to pay it in 6 months and if you don't you get a huge interest rate on your money.  If you don't have the money you may want to look into this for your pet but be sure you can pay the money back in the time allotted for no interest. My sister right now is struggling with her cat... she really wants to clean her cat's teeth but it's so expensive and she doesn't have the money for it. 

I learned another thing this week that I should've learned years ago but NO vet ever told me.  Apparently, you have to do what is called calibrating to your diabetes glucose reader. UMMMM WHAT!  Why was I never told this before.  My friend who's cat I mentioned above is an RN. So since he just ordered a reader he mentioned to me that readers need to be calibrated to make sure that they are still reading the blood glucose correctly over time.  WHAT THE! I've been using the same reader for like 10 years.  I'm really disappointed no one mentioned this.  I ordered the fluid from Amazon today for my Easy Reader to calibrate it. It was only $9. I'm not sure exactly how to do it yet but I'm sure there are Youtube videos out there plus my friend has done it several times at work so I'm going to have him come over to help me do it.  Anyways... even after having diabetic cats for at least 10 years I am still learning new things. 

Hoping your diabetic cats are doing well 

Glucose Reader trouble & new insulin

Well.. we were doing pretty good with our reader till about a month ago or so.  Suddenly we kept getting an error message ER 6 and had to use multiple test strips until finally the reader took a reading. We tried a new battery.. we tried everything to fix it. The vet ended up allowing us to borrow one of theirs for the last curve we did.  We use One Touch Ultra (the first series I think) and it has a life time warranty.  So we did call the company... who I might add was very friendly and sent us a brand new one with new test strips for free. We didn't even have to send the old one back to them! (the picture is the Ultra2 not the one we have but I am too lazy to take a picture of the one we have right now.. ha!)

The vet has changed Merry's insulin. The name of it starts with a B and I am posted this post after we tried it so I don't remember the name. It didn't work on him at all.    The litterbox is like concrete and he is drinking a lot. He switched from Prozinc.  Now he is back on the Prozine and Glipizide pills.  I am not really sure why the vet changed him because he was having good numbers?  I think she was trying to make it cheaper for us but in the end now we are just starting all over and building him back up to 8 units of insulin. Pippin is doing fine but he does get constipation a lot since he's been on the diabetic food. We started him on some stool softeners today to see if that will help.  When he gets constipated he pukes and stops eating.  Till the next update!

Diabetes is back!!

Well everything with Pippin was going so well... then the last 3 weeks he hasn't been eating very well.  Snubbing his food again.. biting a little bit and then spitting pieces out.  We tried wet food and he kinda ate that as well.  Took him back to the vet who did another teeth cleaning.  There were no teeth to be pulled.  So there really is nothing wrong with his jaw.  So I took him back to the vet today who ran a bunch of blood panels and his glucose is 426.  Ughhh..  so we are back to giving him insulin.  2 units in the morning and 2 units at night.  Merry (my other cat with diabetes) is getting a little better.  His insulin numbers have really dropped.   So now the vet has us giving him 6 units of insulin and mixing his diabetic food with Pippin's food (which is Purina One Indoor Cats).  We will do another glucose curve on Merry this weekend. 

 (Pippin at vet)

I said before I would show pictures of the glucose reader... and never did it... so I am doing it right now.  I will say that I bought the reader at the vet because I was in a hurry to get Merry better.  But now I would shop around for one to find a better price.  Also I would recommend people to get a good vet even if they are pricey if your cat has diabetes.  My vet is expensive for the visits but when I do the glucose curves on the weekend and call in with the numbers on Monday they always tell me what to change the insulin to for free.  So that is nice.