Jo's Cafe

Trelaina sent me an e-mail the other day about her mother-in-law’s cat:

I was talking to my MIL last night, and she told me an interesting story. She has two cats — big, furry, pretty cats, but not the type that you can cuddle (as she’s been able to with some of her other cats). However, she pets them whenever she can. The other day she rubbed one down his back and felt bone….and knew that wasn’t right. He wasn’t showing any other signs of illness.

He’s at the vet for the weekend, getting initial insulin shots and being monitored to see how much he’s eating. MIL is not sure what will happen next. She’s not looking forward to possibly giving two shots a day to a cat though!

Now you’d think that since I have diabetes and love animals I would have done more research on this. I know this happens – gal a work told me she use to have to give her cat insulin shots. I did ask how she monitored the cat’s glucose – I just can’t see someone doing a finger paw stick once or twice a day. She told me they watched how much she used the bathroom and her water intake.

So — off to the net I went to find out what I could about diabetes in pets.

I found this website Pets with Diabetes first shot out of Google. There are sections for Diabetes Education, Resources for Information and Support, and Personal Management Techniques and Surveys. There is a ton of information on this site, from information on testing supplies, record keeping, to complications pets go through (some very similar to the human form of diabetes).

Next I found Pet Diabetes which has a lot of the same information, but there is also an e-mail list you can sign up for. Great stuff here.

I dug further and found this page Diabetes in Cats, a sub-section of VetInfo.com

There is a lot of information out there for pet owners — but of course the most important information should be gotten from your vet.

I have added the above links to the Diabetes/Thyroid Links page too.