Several years ago, one of my beloved rescue kitties came down very ill and we couldn't figure out what was going on until the veterinarian diagnosed her with feline diabetes. At first I was simply in shock that this was the case, secondly angry at one of the vets who felt we should just give up on her and put her to sleep, and then I got determined to learn how to care for her fully and to the best of my abilities.
The first veterinarian did not give me much information on it, and the only good thing she did was to tell me to home test, but she wanted to sell me a glucometer just for pets that was mucho bucks. So, after a quick vertical learning curve on diabetes in cats and possible causes, I found that human glucometers work just like the pet ones and they really are the same. My mom was diabetic so she had an extra meter that she gave me to use. And I set out learning how to use it with the help of some amazing people at felinediabetes.com. I also knew that her diabetes had an underlying cause and when I brought it up to the vet she told me I knew nothing basically and to just keep bringing my girl in for them to manage the insulin etc.
To put it lightly, I got mad then, I knew there was an underlying issue and that the diabetes was a secondary issue. So I changed veterinarians. I learned about diet and how important it is to sugar kitties, and I learned all about insulins, dosages, and how to manage it at home. WOW. I also spent time with my friends in the healthcare ed business and friends who teach anatomy and physiology to learn as much as I possibly could about all of their systems. And what I learned helped me to manage it as best I could while the vet and I figured out what was the underlying cause.
I learned that diet to begin with plays a very big part in feline and pet diabetes. Alot of the initial causes are by improper diet. Most animals cannot digest certain grains, and cats especially are obligate carnivores, not "carb"ivores. Diet can cause pancreatitis, which if it goes on long enough will cause a malfunction of the insulin producing part of the pancreas creating diabetes.
It turned out that pancreatitis was my girl's underlying cause. And what we didn't know when we switched her to a longer acting insulin was that she was also developing cancer in the form of pancreatic and adrenal. We found later that the synthetic insulin the vet had put her on, accelerated the cancer growth.
My main gripe about the way veterinary care is still today about care of pet diabetes, is that it is long behind how we treat ourselves for diabetes. Most (not all) vets do not want you to learn to manage it at home. They want your money, they want to sell you awful prescription food that is worse for them than plain old purina. And the list goes on. It is the owners who are determined to care for their animal who make the connections and breakthroughs in the care of diabetes.
My usual lament is why oh why are they almost 10 yrs behind how humans approach and care for themselves with diabetes and their doctors. I get it that not many people really have or want to take the time to care for a diabetic animal, but if they truly cared for their companion why wouldn't they care for it like their own child? It isn't much different. But Veterinarians just seem to refuse to teach and encourage the pet owners to at least test before dosing their pets with the insulin. It is so simple to do, and you develop an amazing bond with your pet while you care for them. Just like with a person though, dosing insulin blindly without knowing where the bloodsugar levels are, can put them into a coma or kill them by bottoming out their sugars. And can cause irreparable brain damage. Why would a vet subject any animal to this possibility by lack of educating the owner? Human diabetics adjust their insulin dose based on their blood sugar level, and we need to do the same for our pet. And many vets discourage us from doing this, and instead say oh bring them in each week for a fructose test (which only will give an average of the levels, not tell you if they had a hypoglycemic episode). Or the vet clinic wants to run a curve which is useless data, simply because the most stressful place for a pet is the Vet's office and stress sends their numbers way up. And is very very costly to us the owner and in some cases rather than face those costs, many animals are put to sleep because the owner cannot face the cost. Home care is so much cheaper and so much easier to do.
Caring for you pet as you would your child if they had diabetes, with diet changes, and monitoring is the least stressful and best way to heal your pet. And YES they can go into total remission, cats more so than dogs.
They give us unconditional love, shouldn't we care for them in the best way possible?
If you have a pet with diabetes, please go to one of the info links I have posted on diet, and diabetic sites. Learn about it, realize it isn't as scary to deal with as you might think. And you really will develop a bond with your pet that is beyond words. And YES pets if properly cared for at home can go into remission and off of insulin.
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