THE STORY OF DUNKEL

For all of you that one day discover that your cat is diabetic and feel that the world falls apart, I assure you that this is just the first feeling. Then, you discover that the problem is not as serious as it looks, and as in humans, diabetes has a solution. I explain my case: 

When we lived in Belgium, we discovered that our 8 years old cat was running skeleton despite eating in quantity. We also noticed that he was drinking lots of water, in fact, on some occasions he left his bowl completely empty and from each faucet where water was running, my cat was always ready to put his mouth under it. Gradually, the ribs were visible, he was losing strength and finally we noticed that he had trouble walking, had no energy at all and stopped cleaning himself. 

Finally, we took him to a veterinary where, based on his physical appearance, before even doing any test, they told us that he was diabetic. Diabetic? But diabetes is not a exclusively human disease? Well obviously not. In the clinic, they made him a complete urine and blood analysis and we found out, to our surprise, that his blood sugar was 580. Of course, we were told that to save his life we had to inject him insulin every twelve hours, but at first, I refused because I thought naively that the cat would attack me at seeing the needle, but when we finally decided that if we wanted to save him, we had no other choice that to start giving him insulin, we realized that he didn't notice anything at all. Furthermore, when he saw me with the injection in the hand, he stood very still until he got his dose. 

The nightmare begins 

However, to reach to this point, we lived a nightmare with all sorts of incompetent vets, because if one vet was bad, the next one was even worse. In our case, we surfed a lot on the Internet looking for information on diabetes in cats and I must admit that my cat was alive thanks to the information we got from this great invention, the Internet, and especially the experiences of other people who explained their cases. It is for this reason that I want to record our experience, in case someone can benefit from it. 

From veterinary to veterinary and from insulin to insulin. 

Belgian veterinarians began giving Dunkel an insulin called Lantus that was great, I could see the improvement, but soon we had to change the veterinary clinic and although, in the new clinic we insisted that Lantus was working perfectly, they ignored us and changed the insulin to another called Caninsulin, more designed for dogs, than for cats, and in fact, my cat felt even worse. Although we explained to the vet that this insulin was not working, she insisted in continuing with it, so we decided to move to another clinic where this new veterinary told us that the reason that insulin did not work was that the dose we were giving him was too low. She insisted on giving him 6 units in the morning and 6 at night, which surprised us because we had read online that 4 units every 12 hours was the top for a cat, and we told her so. Her immediate response was "I'm the veterinary and I am used to treat diabetic cats. I know what I'm doing." 

Not surprisingly, three days later my cat suffered from low blood sugar. He urinated and defecated on himself so I had to bathe him. When I was taking him out from the bath I realized that something was wrong. He looked at me as if he didn't know me and shook his head sideways very quickly. His eyes reflected pure panic, as mine too when I saw him like that. Then, thanks to the Internet as I say, I knew he was suffering a hypo and as I read, I rushed to the kitchen to grab the jam and I put a little bit into his mouth. Quickly, Dunkel began to react and stopped moving his head and behaving normally, so I put a towel around him and called the veterinary on my way to visit her. The vet responsible for causing him the hypoglycemia refused to see me because in that moment, it was lunchtime. I insisted on seeing her because my cat was dying in my arms and I did not know what to do, and then, this wet, with a high degree of professionalism, told me that I should wait two hours to see her until the mealtime was finished. Obviously, we had to find another clinic, randomly chosen, where they could save my cat. 

To my surprise, this other vet told me that she had no idea of diabetes in animals. Unbelievable but true. I had no time or inclination to look for another clinic at "lunch time", so I told her to help me treat my cat. She was more scared than I was, and to tell the truth, I was getting really "pissed" with the lack of professionalism of those vets that seem to play with the lives of our pets. Then, from a drawer, she pulled out a box full of dust, containing a glucometer and gave me the instructions to start reading how to use it while she checked my cat, so when she finished I could explain her how to use the glucometer. No comments. Finally, the vet gave my cat a sugar paste from a tube, similar to the toothpaste, what made him revive and normalize his blood sugar. 

Given that this woman knew nothing about diabetes and I was not willing to return to the old vet, we were forced to change again to a new clinic where this new vet gave him a lower dose of... Insulatard, again a new insulin. This new insulin did not appear to improve my cat in any way and to top it off, two weeks later he suffered a new hypoglycemia. He was sleeping on a chair and suddenly, he screamed very loud, looked up at us and he urinated again, defecated and vomited, all at the same time. He began to pant and stood stiff, with his legs fully extended, the eyes and mouth wide open and the tongue out. He wasn't breathing. My cat was dead. Quickly, I prepared water with sugar, and with a syringe (without needle) I injected the liquid to his throat. Instantly, like a miracle, he closed his mouth and began to blink. He had returned to life. 

The vets are over

My cat gradually recovered again from the second hypoglycemia in less than a month, but we finally decided not to visit any other clinic because after visiting five different clinics, we realized that each vet had his own version of how to treat the cat, they didn't agree in the dose or the brand of insulin. We were really tired of inept and incompetent vets so we decided to go to the vet who knew nothing about diabetes (so we made sure she would not try to treat our cat), only to make us the prescription of the insulin. We also decided that Lantus was the only insulin that really worked with Dunkel. Besides, we had been reading about the miracles of this insulin with cats, so we visited this clinic (without the cat) just for the prescription what she did without asking anything else.

The diabetes controlled under our criteria. 

We also decided that if we wanted our cat to survive, we had to control his diabetes ourselves and forget about the veterinary clinics. To do that, we simply observed the amount of water he drank a day (we always used the same bowl and the same amount of water). The consumption of water told us what dose we had to give him. Besides, we gave him only the special food for diabetic cats, in this case, Hills m/d. There are also humid food in cans of the same brand and Royal Canin has a similar food for diabetic cats. To the left you will see a section where I explain the different meal options for diabetic cats that exist in the market. 

My cat was diagnosed with diabetes when he was 8 years old and lived until he was 15 years old. During these years, his behavior was completely normal: he ran, played and jumped as if he were a youngster, although his preferred position was the one you see here. So do not despair that this disease, as in humans, has a cure.

Unfortunately, due to renal failure, Dunkel died at the age of 15. His death left a huge void in my house. Dunkel was always a very special cat: affectionate, cuddly, obedient to the fullest …

I am glad that his experience helps other people to better understand this disease and although he is no longer with us, I would like to keep this blog alive, so I will continue to respond to anyone who asks me for advice about feline diabetes.

In case you have questions, you can write here or send an email to: migatodiabetico@hotmail.com