Tiger here: You know, there are a bunch of things the vet doesn’t tell you when you’re a cat diagnosed with feline diabetes. No knock on vets, they just don’t know enough yet. In this column I’m going to outline some of the things my people have learned through trial and error, which can help control costs while managing feline diabetes with ease.
First things first: You’re gonna need shots--lots of them. We started with one per day, but progressed to two per day. Shots don’t have to be traumatic. As a matter of fact, they’re one of my favorite times of day. My people set an alarm for 7:30 a.m. and p.m. When that alarm goes off, it’s feeding time. They usually give me a shot when I’m eating, but I hardly notice so they must be doing something right. Here’s what they’ve learned.
Needle selection is important. While my vet recommended ultrafine needles, he didn’t know anything about extra short needles. For that matter, the people at the pharmacy often don’t know they have extra short needles. Short needles are awesome. They’re just long enough to go through my skin and that little bit of padding I have (I’m Garfield sized), but just short enough that they don’t accidently poke into the muscle tissue below my skin or worse yet poke right through the tented skin and out the other side. Extra short needles 3/16ths of an inch are just perfect. Because so few vets and pharmacists knew about short needles when I was diagnosed, we had to learn the hard way. And by “we” I mean me!
Now my people always save the box top from the needles we use so they can get exactly the right size needle and syringe when we need more.
This is what the box looks like. Notice it says "short needle" in the circle? Also these needles have half unit marks that make half and quarter unit does much easier to measure.
As for controlling costs, the vet suggested using a needle two or three times. We use each needle twice. Hey, I’m busy eating when I get my shots and don’t hardly notice. Keep in mind the needle manufacturers don’t recommend this. The tip of the needle is tapered and when it pierces skin that tip looses some of its sharpness. Apparently it can be seen when magnified. You know those needle manufacturers are in the business of selling more needles and I don’t notice any difference between the first use and the second. In this case we went with the vet’s recommendation and cut our needle costs in half.
Stay tuned for more information on food choices, insulin, insulin pens, fructosamine tests, glucose testing meter & strips, glucose curves, urine testing, sources for diabetes supplies and other things we’ve learned.
Next time we’ll take a look at using Lantus insulin.
