r/FelineDiabetes

Went to his regular vet for not eating a week prior and the vet suggested he may be almost (pre?)diabetic and suggested a diet change. He went nuts for wet food /pate when offered to him and he seemed great. Fast forward a week plus some days to Friday afternoon and he's laying on the floor, his eyes unfocused, very weak.

Regular vet said they were too busy to see him and to take him to a Veterinary ER. We took him to the closest place which is 45 minutes away. After some tests they determined he has feline DKA. They presented me with a 10k estimate and I hesitated and asked them to take it to the next 24 hours and see how he does. On Saturday he wasn't much better so I said ok to the 10k estimate.

Sunday morning the ER calls saying they talked to a more specialized ER in town and think he will do better there and he won't cost much more money. I settle out at over 8k and take him to the other ER.

Upon admission at the other ER I am asked to approve an estimate between $7.9k and $13.2k. I didn't know what else to do, so I approve it. I'm sick over this, his annual max on his pet insurance is $5,000.

Today he is doing better, still not eating on his own yet. I told them I am maxed out at 10k with them and they are acting like that might not be enough. I feel like I've been beat up, this cat is my best friend, are they taking advantage of that? I know many of you have been through this, any advice is welcome.

Screenshots of the final invoice from the first place and the estimate from the current place.

Has anyone’s cat started out with a diagnosis of diabetes, but it ended up being something else entirely?

I’m extremely worried about my cat. He’s been hospitalized for 6 days now for uncontrolled blood sugar and he is very, very sick. At first they thought it was diabetes, but now they’re saying they don’t think diabetes is the main issue.

They did a glucose curve yesterday on Prozinc and his numbers actually responded well and came down. He had been improving for about 5 days, but today he suddenly declined again. Now they’re saying his electrolytes look bad, especially his potassium, which is very low.

I’m honestly so lost and scared. The bill keeps increasing, but he’s too sick to leave the hospital or even see an internist right now.

At one point they were considering Conn’s syndrome because of the low potassium, but his blood pressure has been running low, which apparently doesn’t fit. They also said hyperthyroidism seems unlikely because they don’t feel anything abnormal around his thyroid.

I guess I’m just wondering if anyone has gone through something similar or had a cat who looked diabetic at first but ended up having another underlying condition. I know nobody can diagnose him online, but I feel desperate for answers right now.

hi! I posted a few weeks ago about my angel baby who was diagnosed with diabetes March 8 of this year. the first few weeks of diagnosis, he ended up hospitalized with pancreatitis. I finally got him mostly regulated on 1.5 units of ProZinc twice a day, with nadir being around 120 everyday and the highest being about 250-270. He started gaining some weight back (he had lost 4 pounds in March) but seemed to gain almost a pound back. He’s about 8 pounds so not overweight.

However since 4/20, his blood glucose has skyrocketed again, with the nadir being around 240-260. My vet increased his insulin to 2.0 units twice a day. Since then, it’s just steadily gone up. Over the weekend, he started showing signs of pancreatitis again (nausea, diarrhea), and this morning I gave him 1/2 tablet of cerenia for nausea. He is eating and drinking fine as of now, no glucose or ketones are in his urine as of now, but the urine strip shows his PH, protein, and leukocytes elevated. He also has lost all the weight he gained again.

He already had another glucose curve scheduled for tomorrow which lucked out and I’m planning to tell the vet of all of this info tomorrow so she can maybe check for infection or give him medicine.

My question to you all is- if you have experience with this, how to manage diabetic kitties that seem to have chronic pancreatitis that is making it nearly impossible to regulate their diabetes? And maybe how to prevent it from happening so frequently? He gets fancy feast chicken pate everyday and that’s it.

My poor angel’s blood glucose was in the 400s this morning :(( I feel so sad for him and just want him to get better. He’s only 9.

Hi r/FelineDiabetes — long-time lurker, posting once.

I've been building FurNote (pet health journal) and the population I most want to serve well is families managing diabetes. This sub has taught me a lot just from reading.

What's already in it that might be useful for diabetic pets:

- Time-stamped logs for insulin and oral med doses, with per-medication schedules

- Reminders so missed doses are rare

- Weight tracking with monthly trend chart (since weight changes dosing)

- Symptom log — where you can note BG readings, hypos, food refusal, etc. as free text (no structured BG field yet — see questions below)

- One-tap PDF of the past 30 days for vet appointments

- Family sharing so partner/sitter can record the dose they gave (avoids "did you give him insulin?" texts)

I'm not here to sell. The free tier covers one pet's full tracking forever. I'm here to ask:

What is the 1 thing a tracking app could do that no app currently does well for diabetic pets?

A few specific things I'm wondering — feedback on any of these welcome:

1. Is BG curve plotting (multiple readings over the day, plotted) something you'd actually use, or do you log BG elsewhere?

2. Would "compare today's curve to last week's" be useful, or noisy?

3. Do you want to share with vet directly (like a magic link they can view in browser), or is PDF download enough?

4. Is hypoglycemia warning (e.g., flag when a reading drops below your threshold) something you'd want, or feels paternalistic?

Genuinely grateful for any thoughts. I want to build what's needed, not what I imagine.

(For context — iOS: https://apps.apple.com/en/app/furnote/id6762322726, web: https://furnote.io. Free for 1 pet.)

To anyone managing a diabetic pet right now — I see you. The discipline this takes is something most pet owners never understand.

— Ming-Hsiu

Received an official diagnosis today. Cat will be put on Senvenglo Monday. I bought urine ketone testing strips at her Vets suggestion to do daily testing. Her labs at the vet were negative for urinary ketones. Her BG was around 480. Normal kidney functions. Slightly out of range pancreatic functions. Waiting on fructosamine test results. At 9yrs old, she has good body condition with weight at 10.5lbs. Already has been on a low carb wet food diet (FF Pate) for around 1.5yrs now.

I'm looking for others experience on Senvelgo.

Did it help?

Side effects that your fur baby experienced?

If they converted to insulin, how long were they on Senvelgo before it happened?

And of course any advice or tips that you wish you had known when you started this journey with your fur baby.

Hello Everyone,

A few weeks ago I posted about Panda being diagnosed due to her weight right before we were going on a trip. Quick update, the vet tech who watched her was absolutely amazing and so helpful, so thank you to everyone who commented.

Since we’ve got the news on April 10th our vet has told us to check her glucose levels twice a day before she eats and if it’s above 10 (mmoL) to give insulin after food.

We’ve been tracking since then using the Contour Next and her levels have been dropping pretty steadily. The first week she did require some insulin but the last time she was even above 10 (mmoL) was April 21st, and she’s now sitting consistently around 5 to 6. She’s on Purina OM and we feel she is responding well to the diet.

Every week we would send our vet an update with the readings, and after the trip we sent the most recent ones and asked if twice daily testing was still necessary at this point since she’s under 10 all the time. The vet basically said no change and told us exactly what she said in the beginning, twice daily before meals and insulin if she’s above 10.

We wanted to hear the communities opinion because we feel if she’s consistently under 10 is there a need to be checking her glucose twice a day? She hates the test but we think she’s starting to understand it has to be done. We just want to make it less stressful for her if possible.

https://www.reddit.com/r/FelineDiabetes/s/cRM4CFg4ma

link to my last post

Eli has unfortunately passed away. He fought so so hard, he is such a good boy. He gave us 6 extra weeks with him, I don’t think he was ready to leave us yet, and that’s why he was able to rally as hard as he did. My poor baby was ready yesterday.

Thank you to this community for making me feel less alone.

I cannot believe this is real life. I’m devastated. He’s been with me for more than half my life, idk where to go from here.

I wanted to share some of my favorite pics of him.

Rest in peace to the goofiest. kindest. calmest. goodest boy fucking ever. I will never stop talking about him. He gave me the best 12 years.

I hope there's an unlimited amount of biscuits to make, stuffed animals to sleep on, laps to nap in, and shoe boxes to squeeze into in kitty heaven.

I woke up to her vomiting all over the house and being very lethargic/drooling, FREAKED OUT and drove her right to the vet. After a long day and many tests she was diagnosed with early stage diabetes. The vet said since we got it so early she MAY not need to be on medicine for forever, so that gives me hope!

BUT I live alone and I am SO SCARED to do the injections. I am waiting for my pharmacy to get the insulin and syringes in stock so I didn't start the injections just yet, but I am just looking for hope/tips that doing the injections by yourself is possible.

I have the strong feeling she will fight it/run away and squirm etc, and i don't want to have to chase her everyday twice a day stressing her out! I just want to be prepared to whatever I can do to keep her calm.

Any tips from other ppl who do this alone and have a nervous kitty would be so appreciated! thanks so much! ❤️

My almost 15 year-old Neko was diagnosed with diabetes in late December 2025. I took her in because she had been feeling bony, but there had also been a lot of urine in the litter lately (I also have her sister, Isis). She’s also a little thing, was a bit over 6 lbs at the time, now she’s a little over 8.

Right away I switched her to Fancy Feast pate and Dr Elsey’s protein kibble (they previously free fed kibble with twice weekly wet food). She was given vetsulin. Fructosamine started at 751. We started on 1/2 unit, 3 week fructosamine down to 516, then 1 unit and down to 480, then 1.5 units back up to 509. Based on this sub, the bounce back, and my cat being a grazer, I asked to switch to Lantus. Started at 1 unit, up to 554, so we’re going up to 2 units tomorrow.

After failing at the Alpha Trak, I went to try a Libre 3+. 2 failed, one stayed on for just 30 hours but aside from some dips down to 295, she was mostly over 400/out of range. While a friend was helping me with the Libre, because of the way I was holding her, sitting up and facing away, I felt a lump on her mammary I would not have had a reason to feel. Has a cytology and it came back carcinoma with necrosis. The vet is saying to remove the mass with wide borders and get histopathology.

Doing some googling tonight and it looks like the cancer could be a cause of insulin resistance.

So I’m curious-have any of you had a cancer diagnosis proximate to diabetes diagnosis? Which did you discover first?

As a separate thing, I’m realizing that unless it’s small with no metastasis, this is probably not going to go well for my sugar baby. 😿

UPDATE: a couple hours after I left for work, my family found him unresponsive at home. They rushed him to an emergency vet, but the doctor there was in surgery and told us to go elsewhere immediately or he might not make it. He is now at another emergency vet. His temperature was very low (95°F), and they’ve placed him on a Bair Hugger for warming and have him on oxygen/ventilatory support while running more tests. The team said they’re concerned this may be more than just diabetes.

Original post: Hi everyone, I’m really worried about my cat and could use some advice or shared experiences.

My cat Toki is 10 years old (turning 11 in August) and was diagnosed with diabetes last November. It started with weight loss and excessive drinking. We initially tried Vetsulin for about two months, but unfortunately saw no improvement despite dose adjustments, his blood sugars stayed in the 400s.

We then switched to Lantus, starting at 2 units every 12 hours, later adjusting to 3 units in the morning and 2 at night. At first, things seemed slightly better (down to the 300s), but last week he stopped eating and became noticeably weaker. I brought him to the vet, and his blood sugar was in the 500s. They hospitalized him for two days, gave IV fluids, and did a glucose curve with checks every 2 hours. They were able to get him down into the 100s on Lantus, but the next morning he spiked back up to the 700s.

The vet did mention that he was eating while hospitalized, which makes it even more confusing why he’s now refusing food at home.

They discharged him once he stabilized into the 300s with instructions to increase Lantus to 4 units twice a day and to order ProZinc so we can try switching insulin types.

The problem now is that since coming home yesterday, he still isn’t eating much and is barely drinking. He just seems really off, and I’m scared we’re missing something or that his diabetes is out of control.

Has anyone experienced something similar with their diabetic cat? Especially with these kinds of swings or poor response to insulin? I’m also worried about him not eating, how urgent is that in this situation?

Any advice, insight, or even reassurance would mean a lot. Thank you so much.

Has anyone used this brand for U-100 half unit marks? Is it any good or any problems with consistency ? Or any other brands recommended without issues?

I’ve been using Embecta (formally known as BD) 1/2 unit syringes and every box I get has a shit ton of mis-marked syringes. Some more than others. Very inconsistent. I’ve called the company multiple times to complain.

Is this a problem with all brands? Or are some better!

Please assist! TYIA

Hi everyone 🥺 just looking for some good wishes for my baby girl Pretzel 🥨 who will be having a couple teeth pulled out in a few hours. She’s diabetic and 14 years old. I’m really nervous, but I know she will feel so much better after… I’m mostly worried about the anesthesia and her being a senior cat 🥺

Hi everyone! This is my babygirl that was diagnosed last week on Wednesday. She is only 5 😔 we started her off on bexacat per the doctors recommendation….wrong move! She didn’t react well to it at all and went into DKA state and had to go to the emergency room where they also found a UTI. My girl has always had a goal of getting her weight down, when she lost a couple of pounds I was happy! We’d been trying different things for years. Then she started to be picky with her food and that was unlike her so we set up an appt and boom- diabetes! I was actually shocked. I left the emergency room with a $4000 bill. Now she’s been home for a day and she’s on 1/2 unit (.5) of Lantus. I gave it to her this morning and felt crazy bc it was so little of an amount but it went smooth and she was so good. She is also on this antibiotic for the uti and her appetite really still isn’t there. I have anti nausea meds that I gave her and her glucose dipped down to 85 this late afternoon so I made sure she ate some treats mixed with her kibble. Doctor said wait until morning to give her another dose. How do people do this with a full time job?? I’m so scared about monitoring her but also just hoping for a place to dump all this with anyone who cares and can offer some words of encouragement or advice on food options their picky ones like! She has the freestyle libre on btw.