Tell me about your Diabetic Cat

[RossiRoo]

My 11 year old boy has just been diagnosed with diabetes.

We're going to start insulin injections hopefully this week, and have our fingers crossed that it's manageable.

How have your cats tolerated insulin jabs? Are you rigid with their routine now? What do they eat? Are they happy and keeping well?

My boy is very much an outdoor cat and he's already grumpy that I'm keeping him in a bit more. I feel like he's not all that well at the moment, he's slow, sleeping lots, seeing far too much (and everywhere including his bed), he seems to have aged loads in the past couple of weeks.

All positive stories welcomed!

First few weeks is a bit tricky while the dosage is figured. Injections are easy as the skin is so thin but vet should tell you all about that. Prescription diabetic dry food. Ok once established on that and had the dosage under control. The insulin bottles are VERY thin glass so I'd recommend having it upright but in a little tub so it doesn't get pushed out and smash!

My cat was diagnosed when he was 5, which was 5 years ago. He never fussed about his injection, we do it twice per day. We did have to wean him from being a grazer to having 2 meals a day. But he tolerated that quite well. We needed a few appointments initially to get his insulin right, but he hasn't changed doses since then, just yearly check ups.

My old ginger boy had diabetes for his last few years. He got very manipulative on what he would eat when we did the injections. He knew we had to get him to eat before we jabbed him- so would hold out for yogurt, chicken, tuna rather than eat his cat food. He was fine on the injections though. This was about 20 years ago though and guess management has changed as he didn’t have a prescribed food.

I was just looking for a thread like this.
Doing a blood glucose curve today and his levels are way down. I've spoken to the vet, so not asking for advice, more like a hand hold, as I'll need to test today a lot more than I thought.

Anyway, it seems that my vet has given some different advice from what pps got.

She told me to give him some wet food and to inject the insulin as he eats. No problems eating or letting me inject him. In fact, he purrs as I stroke him to desinfect the area.

And I'm supposed to feed him four times a day, as he (they) get a glucose low 5 hours after the injection. Or leave out some food, but he's meant to lose weight, so controlled portions.

It's the blood glucose testing that I hate. He got too stressed staying at the vet to do it and I'm doing it at home. I'm pretty sure I suffer more than him.