Cat w/ diabetes--costs?! Please help

[MKCP5]

Our nine year old cat has been diagnosed w/diabetes. He is healthy otherwise. The vet says shots 2x a day, so the costs of meds and an occasional extra vet visit.

Has anyone dealt w/ this? Trying to make the right decision, for our cat and our finances

what have your experiences been?

Thanks so much!

 

[kent285]

I have a dog with diabetes and she gets 2 shots a day, too. We buy her insulin from Walgreens and it costs $53. Each bottle lasts around 3 weeks. It depends on how much your cat needs as to how long the vile of insulin will last-our dog takes 15 units each shot. There is also the cost of the syringes-can't remember how much they are, but they are not too much. I buy a box of 100 syringes at a time. Hope this helps.

 

[everylastbreath]

I also have a dog w/diabetes - I know it get's expensive, my dog get's 43u 2x's a day, vet said we can use syringes 2x's before disposing. We go thru a vial of insulin every 2-3weeks, I found Target has the cheapest prices ($42) and rite-aid the highest ($57) same brand/size. There is no generic for Hummulin N that I know of so can't save anything there- also buy syringes by the 100.

subscribing to thread, curious if anyone has any good suggestions to reduce cost- I've been dealing w/this for 3 years so I haven't found any....

 

[stefnik]

I am pretty sure that for a cat you won't use that much insulin at all. We only used 5-10 units each shot so the insulin lasted much longer. Good luck!

 

[acmeyer]

Our 13yr old cat was diagnosed in Novemember. She gets the smallest dose twice a day so we are still on our first bottle of insulin that we bought in November (thank goodness) as it wasn't cheap (100 as she is on a special cat only insulin) but at the rate it is going it will last us another 3 or 4 months. We do not reuse the syringes but we do get them from the pharmacy at 28 for the 100. She does have to eat wet food now instead of dry food which is a little more expensive $1.00 a day and she has to go in once every 3 months for a blood test. But so far so good.

She has gotten along really well. She is in LUVVV with the wet food and will nip at my feet in the morning if i don't get up quick enough to feed her. The down side is she knows the shots come right after the food so you have to sneak up on her to get her for her shot,

 

[Linda in sunny SC]

My cat is almost 13 years old and has been diabetic for nearly 5 years. This is the site you need to go to for all the information that you need: http://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/
People there are very welcoming and eager to help. You can even learn to test your cat's blood with a human glucometer and save money instead of taking them to the vet for tests frequently.

 

[Claire&TheBoys]

My kitty was diagnosed with diabetes at a fairly young age; he was only 7 years old. He did not respond to the regular human insulin and I had to special order some from the vet that was fairly expensive and lasted approximately 6-8 weeks. Then, yes, the syringes, which I got at Walgreens for around $18/100. He ate a special food from the vet, $14/3 lb.

He still developed neuropathy in his legs and lost the ability to jump and walk properly; the vet called it walking on his "ankles," up to the second joint in his back feet. After many months of treatment, he began to walk some better, but eventually went into kidney failure and had to be euthanized. He was able to live about 18 months after his diagnosis. He died in June 2006; I have just now felt able to love another kitty as I did him and we adopted a kitten last month.

In retrospect, if I had known that the diabetes would be so resistant to treatment and he would have the related neuropathy, I'm not sure I would have started the treatment to begin with. At the time, I thought, "oh, diabetes is so treatable" but it just wasn't for him. I wish I could say that his quality of life was still good, but I'm not sure it was. He couldn't do "cat" things like jump and play and run about. He got plenty of lovin' but day to day life was not easy for him. He was such a sweetie and holds a special place in my heart and I will always wonder if I treated him for those 18 months for HIM or for ME.