Cost

Feline Diabetes can seem expensive when starting out:

    • Insulin, depending on what you're using. If you pick Lantus or Levemir, the pens will last till expiration date if not used. If used, they should last anywhere from 3-6 months refrigerated and some people have reported they can last even longer (they simply lose potency over time). With the Lantus Savings Card, you pay only $25 per pen for up to 6 pens. With the Levemir FlexPen coupon, you can also save quite a bit of money.
    • Syringes are fairly cheap since you only need to use two a day. (They run ~$20 for a box of 100) You do NOT want to buy the pen syringes for the insulin pens but actual regular insulin syringes, with half-unit markings is best.
    • Blood glucose testing equipment: ketostix are fairly inexpensive. Glucometers run about $10-15 and are sometimes given out for free with purchase of test strips. Test strips is where they make their money. There are some cheap options, like the ReliOn Prime glucometer test strips which run about $9 for 50 strips. Also buying online is always cheapest. Lancets for a lancet pen are usually more costly than learning how to test with just a lancet (however, they're easier to re-use). Some people feel more comfortable allowing the lancet pen to do the penetrating while other people like the control of using the lancet free-hand, so it's up to you with which you prefer to use.
    • Food: Low Carb, Wet food under 10% carbs. Over-the-counter brands like Friskies, Wellness, and Fancy Feast are all inexpensive, low carb foods

As to daily costs, here is an example:

    • Daily insulin for two shots a day, depending on how much your kitty might need per shot and when it expires, is fairly cheap. I first purchased the vial at about $120 for 10mL of Lantus (I didn't know about the pens), which equates to about $20 a month for 6 months (before it expired), or about .66 cents a day or .33 cents a shot. I purchased the pen for $25 for 3mL of Lantus, which lasted me till the last drop at a little over 2 months giving 2.5u BID (for newly diagnosed, you will usually start with just 1u BID). Or, about $12.50 a month, .42 cents a day, or .21 cents a shot.
    • Syringes for two shots a day at about $12 a month or .40 cents a day or .20 cents a syringe
    • Food-wise, Friskies is usually the cheapest at ~.50 cents per 5.5oz can. Most cats will eat two cans or more a day, depending on size. So, this is about a $1 a day per cat.
    • Lancets can be re-used. I bought a box of lancets when Michelangelo was first diagnosed and haven't needed to buy any more since. DO NOT RE-USE SYRINGES!
    • Do the "At-home disposal" of syringes and save on Sharps containers and disposal fees.
    • Test strips: At minumum, you want to test before each shot and at the peak/nadir (for Lantus, it's around 6 hours after the first shot). Using the ReliOn Prime at about .18 cents a strip, this means at the very least, you'll be spending ~.72 cents a day. For me, I test a lot and still only use up about 10-15 strips a day, averaging out to about $2/day. Even if you tested every hour for 24 hours straight, you'd still end up spending only $4.32 (not counting any failed tests).

Total cost: ~$5 per day or ~$150 per month.

Of course, there are even cheaper ways of doing things, but I figured it might help to get a rough estimate of what its daily cost is vs. the up front cost.