Feline Diabetes

My lovely Lucy was diagnosed with feline diabetes in September 2004. Initially we were told to give her 1 unit of Humulin L every 12 hours. Between September 2004 and March 2005 she had 4-5 UTIs and lost 4 pounds. She had complete workup done in April and came home limping badly. The bloodwork was another $300 and told us nothing. So I started looking for a new vet. Before I was able to make a well-cat appointment, something happened, I don't know what, but Lucy developed a huge abscess on her belly and nearly died. She has very thick fur and has always hated having her belly touched so it took several days to figure out that her malaise and inappetance was due to something other than the diabetes or another UTI.

Fortunately, I was able to get an appointment with one of the vets I had on my list; she found the abscess and rushed Lucy into surgery. She spent the next 3 weeks recovering. But she didn't really recover. By big, funny, pesky girl was wasting away. She stayed curled up in a ball sleeping 24 hours a day. If I picked her up, she just laid there--didn't try to bite or get down, very abnormal behavior. Every morning I expected to find her gone. Everytime I left the house I was scared to come back in. Nothing helped. She had a very odd, intermittent twitching in her head and her eyes were scarey looking. She just looked at me like I was failing her. I was miserable.

All this time, we followed the vet's advice completely. We had bloodwork whenever we were told, and I fed Purina kidney formula (dry) for CRF. My friends were all telling me to let her go, but I had to try one more time. I found a vet who would come to the house and hoped that she would see something different since Lucy wouldn't be as stressed out if we went to a clinic. Lucy was doing the twitching thing right in this vets lap. Another big bill with no advice other than making the end of her life as comfortable as possible.

That's when I took charge. I found the Feline Diabetes Message Board (FDMB) where I was told to begin hometesting. Why didn't I think of that before? No physician would ever allow a human patient to take insulin without a blood glucose check. In retrospect, I believe the twitching was a result of low blood glucose. I'm not sure if she ever had a full-blown hypo, I was too ignorant to recognize it if she did. We also switched to a high-protein, low carbohydrate canned food (Fancy Feast) and then to Wellness. That change along brought almost normal BG levels. Following the recommendations of the folks at Phydeaux and some FDMB members, we then changed to a raw diet (Nature's Variety frozen medallions). Within a week, Lucy was off insulin.

Within two months, due to dietary changes, Lucy went from near death to being a diet controlled diabetic, the twitching ended, and her eyes took back their normal mischievious glint. She's gained her weight back, along with her fractiousness. Her neuropathy is gone (methyl-B12); she runs, she plays, she growls at the mailman and neighborhood cats who come into her yard. My old friend once again helps me type and read the newspaper. She demands her breakfast as soon as I open my eyes every morning. I can't believe I waited so long to take charge.

I've offered to show the vet how we do the hometesting and share my data with her, but she's not interested. I've written to the North Carolina Veterinary Medical Association to encourage them to stop prescribing dry food and to start expecting owners to hometest. No one, human or feline, should have to settle for the uninformed care Lucy had for the first year of her diabetic life. Vets are professionals who should be more willing to work with us than to demand that we put everything about our cat's health in their hands. I'm still hoping to find someone with the right attitude; I will never again be a passive caregiver.