Managing Advanced Feline Treatments

Advanced Feline Treatments for common diseases like feline arthritis and diabetes don’t have to be dramatic. Often the simplest, is the best procedure.

A personal note to vet nurses:

These cat’s health pages are also dedicated to you because they provide strategies and habits that will enable you to support the cat vet to pursue a feline friendly environment in the veterinary practice

Veterinarians:

Review these basic steps before examining my best feline health care practices.

Confronted with advanced cat’s health challenges?

Below are some simple guidelines, with links to a more in depth examination of the various consitions.

Feline Diabetes

With cats you don’t have to worry about cataracts, renal damage or arthersclerosis or any of the other things that afflict dogs and humans.  As a result, you only have to approximate the blood glucose, so you only need to adjust the insulin enough to get enough glucose to run the brain.

Cats’ metabolism is more like cattle than dogs and humans so they run on quite low quantities of glucose, although the blood level is about the same.

So the regime for insulin does not need to be nearly so precise. Overdoing the insulin is more trouble than under-doing it.

For some basic feline treatments for diabetes I recommend you start here… Treating Diabetes in Cats


Using Insulin to treat Feline Diabetes

Insulin is a powerful hormone, with important and wide-ranging effects, and it is wonderful to contemplate that its power can be harnessed to improve the lives of so many animals as well as humans.

Refinements are always being made, especially to the monitoring procedures, so that better metabolic control is achieved for more patients.  Maybe, soon the “switch” will be identified and then the animal’s own insulin regulation can be turned back on!

If insulin is required, the Human glargine (Lantus) insulin given twice a day is the normal starting point, but because it has such long lasting effects, and the ‘hypos’ are CATastrophic, I often prefer to use a Canine insulin (actually pork-based).  I mostly manage the cats as outpatients, bringing them in for regular weight checks (going up is good – to a point!) and have the owner monitor activity level and water consumption at home.

Each cat – owner combination varies, so every feline  diabetes treatment is customised!

Giving The Cat Insulin To Treat Feline Diabetes


Treating arthritis in cats

So – how do you tell a cat has arthritis? Simply – the toe nails are thickened and curl around because the cat no longer has the tendon strength to shred the nail off.  And the owner, when you ask, will tell you the can cannot jump a metre high – may never have been able to – or walks more slowly down the stairs.

If you have managed your feline clients in a cat friendly way you may have cared for them from kitten to now and so you will instinctively know how they are

I have a page on the treatments but I have found that Fluffy’s wellbeing significantly improves with Aquapuncture.

Using Aquapuncture To Relieve Feline Arthritic Pain

Choosing and using the drugs to treat feline arthritis

What the drug companies recommend is not necessarily the most appropriate treatment for you.

Treating Feline Arthritis with Cat Friendly Drugs

Why removing teeth will change a cat’s life

In ancient times human teeth used to be removed to ensure good health.

The same principle applies to cats but it is definitely an advanced and intense operation.

Removing Feline Teeth (video)