Steve,
I wanted to thank you here for your help. We finally got Matt stable though we almost lost him in August while we were away for 2 weeks. We hada vet tech dosing him 2x daily and had purchased an automatic feeder for a mid day meal....
Up until the trip he had been doing well ...gaining weight again and actively playing. ..during the trip he went down hill. stress may have been part of the problem. His ketones shot up. The honest fact is He may have been doing better but not enough. Our vet kind of dropped the ball and even admitted it to us . I came home to a lethargic cat that could not even stand let alone eat. We were faced with the animal hospital which probably would have killed him in his poor state,euthanize ,or take him home and nurse him best we could. We took him home. I stayed up with him all night for 2 days and gave him water by syringe and dm soft food ... It was pretty bleak. We said our goodbyes and the next morning were going to take him to the vet to be euthanized. That night.he got up, shaky and sat up.
It was a slow road that took almost 2 weeks....but he finally recovered.
Matt gets dm now 4 times a day.1/4 can each feeding. Morning and night with his insulin (3 unit x 2 times), mid day and mid night. Being a food junky that worked best.. twice a day and he crashed. He gets a few treats when he needs it to get him by. Freeze dried turkey and salmon works great. We have to feed him and his non diabetic sister in separate rooms. Its a royal hassel, but thats partly why he crashed before we separated them at feeding...he would eat his then muscle her out of the way and eat hers!
The Dm has worked wonders. Its costly but with Matt its best. Fancy feast classics is a close but his levels are still a tad high though many feed it. We feed fancy feast to his sister though just incase he sneaks in and eats some. Dm is expensive, and man so is the insulin and syringes. I feel for anybody thats got diabetes.
My biggest take home is I think vets should out right say that if your cat is diabetic you have to have a monitor.Ours didnt.
He said we could get one if we needed...thats where he dropped the ball. They had meant to check Matt regularly and see if 2 units worked... we were guessing and goind by behavior. Being new to a diabetic cat we didnt know better. Theres absolutely no way I can see dealing with a diabetic cat without using a glucose meter ...taking them to vet to do it is just not enough. I wish my vet had stressed that. I think they worried about us not wanting to keep the cat alive if we had to test its sugar levels with a meter.
When he crashed this last.time I bought a meter and we check regularly and if we see him looking off. We have even got him to the point where we can go away for a few days and not worry .
Thanks to you and your advice it helped get him back on track and helped us figure out how to deal with him. I appreciate you taking the time to post in this thread and offer help.
Al
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