Garc: Diabetic Cat in Remission and Off Insulin

GARC (Croatia): Lantus

It is never a good time to discover your cat is diabetic, but our timing was particulary a troubled one- I was packing myself to go on the seasonal work, everything already planned out in detail, when we noticed that Garc started drinking and peeing a lot more.

He is 12 years old male, prone to various kinds of health problems ever since we took him from the street in the age of 4 month. He have had very heavy mange when we found him, became very obese right after the castration, consequently ‘earned’ arthroses in the age of 5 (ever since was on RC dry ‘Obesity Management’ food), had constant immune problems…as he always tended to drink a lot, we checked his blood glucose twice before, but it was perfectly normal then. All his life visiting various veterinarians, no one told us of a possibility of a FIV virus- we had no idea that it exists, and when we finally came across that information, our vet told us that it’s useless to test him as there’s nothing to be done about it anyway, so we didn’t.

When we took him to see what was going on, it turned out that his blood glucose is very high, around 20. Our vet sent us to the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine to an ‘expert for diabetes’ who will be able to find an optimal dose of insulin for him. We also confirmed our suspicion that he is FIV positive there, as their vets told us that we should know that for sure. He started of with 0,5 units of Lantus insulin every 12 hours (by that expert the smallest dosage possible), with the warning that it’s highly possible this won’t be enough and that we’ll have to increase it for half a unit every 3-4 days untill he reacts and his BG drops to normal numbers. He was also switched to diabetic dry food immediately. As my husband’s mother with whom we live is diabetic, I was already acquainted with more then the basis of that condition as well as with the testing equipment. Also, as I’ve been told that we’ll get more accurate values at home then in the stressed situation at the vet’s, I learned to do home testing, but did it relatively rare and always with great discomfort (the expert told me that I shouldn’t do it often cause it will ruin his ear blood vessels). My husband couldn’t be much of a help in any of these cause he really has kind of a problem with the needles.

In this point I was more worried how will I reorganise my staying while on the seasonal job than for Garc’s health- I’ve been told, and also thought myself, that we’ll find a right dosage for him to stay at low BG numbers, and that it will allow him to live a perfectly normal life only with the addition of insulin injected twice a day.

So somehow I managed to reorganize my staying and I moved to the coast with Garc. Only my expectations completely let us down- his BG was constantly rising, now often reaching the number 30 (twice going even over it) no matter the fact I was gradually increasing the amount of insulin given and pretty quickly came to 4 units. I was taking him to the vet in the new home town of ours, this vet swiched him from Lantus to Humulin, but nothing happened. I couldn’t get an explanation why therapy is not working, vets were saying that it might has to do something with him being FIV positive. Garc started looking more and more ill, and I fell into panick. I was searching the internet in desperation and came across one Serbian forum. A lady there was telling a similar story with her cat whom she suceeded to bring into remission, emphasizing the importance of a low carb food. I was thrilled, it really made sense and I became too optimistic. I ordered propper food by her advices and while waiting for it, started giving Garc only cooked meat. I was thinking that only with the change in food his BG will drop, but that did not happen. Finally, I decided to join the DCI forum as my new Serbian friend adviced, and one month after him being diagnosed with diabetes we started TR.

Due to the nature of my job I was lucky to be able to dose him every 10 hours. Immediately after introducing low carb food his BG started to drop from time to time, but still mostly stayed at very high numbers. When I saw that he is jumping again very high after a nice drop and staying high for several days, I started being anxious and discouraged, even though I was warned on the DCI forum that this ‘rebound’ is expected to happen. Only later I realised how impatient I was- around 20th day of TR, the proportion of the values changed, the low numbers showed more frequently; in the next few days he started prolonging his shots and than, 28.06. in 22.00, exactly 30 days after starting TR, he received his last shot!!! I couldn’t believe it, every next testing I expected high number, and it just didn’t show again!

I’m so grateful and always will be to the ladies on the forum for their warmth, patience, everyday guidance, optimism and commitment to what they do, as well as for all the important things I learned on DCI site. Above all I’m grateful for having my Garc back to us- we’ve lost a beautiful young male just in February due to the kidney problem and I really wasn’t ready to loose another of my friends yet. And I’m afraid that, if there weren’t for the DCI and TR, it would happen by now.

At the end, what seemed to be a death sentence was a blessing- if Garc reacted to insulin as expected, he would be injected twice daily to the rest of his life, and I would never discover the whole new world of what is good for cats and what isn’t!