Diabetic cat
Diabetic cat
Advice is needed. My 14y/o cat was just diagnosed with diabetes. We"re still aquiring information to make the best decision for our cat. Does anybody here have any experience? Or tips? I am able to afford the insulin, I just want to know what's best for him. I don't want to elongate his suffering but it feels devastating either way.
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I cried when I found out my sweet little furball was diabetic. Now about four years later, she’s 15 years old, still happy and sweet as ever. In fact, she’s snoozing happily against my leg right now. I give her two injections a day, I’ve been able to find cat sitters who can (or can learn) how to give injections, and in general she’s doing great.
You’ll be fine and your kitty is more than capable of having a long and happy life beyond the diagnosis.
A bottle of insulin is about $130 but lasts ages, and I’ve had her on Hill’s Science Diet m/d glucose management food for years even before she was diabetic. My other cat had kidney issues and the easiest thing was to feed them both the m/d, particularly because the vet said it’s basically one of the best things a cat could be eating anyway since they’re obligate carnivores.
So we cried too, and the options being Insulin or making them comfortable was tough. We're still deciding but I think my partner is unable to afford it but I can, and I don't mind I just want to know if that would be the right decision for my boy. I mean the main question is how much the insulin is and how long does it last and they $130 you told me is like super affordable, when I was expecting $300
What we use is a 10 mL vial of Mylan Insulin Glargine, and her dose is I think 0.03 mL twice a day. That’s about five months or so.
The food is a lot more expensive, at $65 for an 8.5 lb. bag on Chewy. But she’s well worth it. Don’t make this calculation based on “reduced” suffering - your cat can be perfectly fine and happy. There may be some cheaper food options and such to limit the financial impact, but there’s no reason at all that you should give up on your kitty.
Okay that's good to hear, I know nothing about diabetes and what the animal would go thru and it's good to know they wouldn't be suffering the whole time which was my main concern. But I'm just here for more information so I can understand this better and provide for him
As long as they get their insulin on schedule, there’s really no suffering at all. Even the injection can be done painlessly through the scruff of the neck. All you’re doing is picking up their pancreas’ slack and providing insulin when it falls short.
There’s a little discomfort whenever you need to do a glucose curve/check, but it’s not too bad. You need a glucose monitor and test strips (not trivially inexpensive but not too expensive as a mostly one-time/rare cost). You use a lancet to prick their ear and draw a tiny drop of blood to test glucose levels and see if they’re stable. You may have to do it several times in a day to get a sense of peaks and variability, but you don’t have to do it very often once they’re stable. You get used to it and you can just give your kitty some extra treats after and you’ll be forgiven. My girl loves butter more than life itself, so I’ll often just rub my finger on a stick of butter and let her lick it off as a low-carb treat.