Seafood & elevated sugars

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Meya14

Meya14

Member Since 2015
Hiya,

Max has been well controlled since january, falling nicely in the greens most of the time. I had been feeding the 2 cats Chicken soup for the Soul kitten food (1 - 5.5oz can) in the AM, and 3/4 of a cup of dry grain-free food in the PM. Max will eat and eat until he pukes, so we can't free-feed. Jane (she's old) eats SO SLOW that she looses weight on wet food. He was very stable on this regimen, and was taking 3 units of lev twice daily.

I order my food online, since I don't drive, and it's hard for me to carry cases of food on the bus. My supplier was out of the chicken soup kitten food, but had this great deal on natural balance salmon formula. I stupidly bought 4 cases.

Now, Max is back to the 300s and above, and we are up to 4.5 units BID. Yesterday I found some stray cans of the old food in my pantry and fed only that, and this AM he had a great BS (maybe a little on the low side).

The salmon food probably has less carbs than the chicken soup food, so this suprised me. But then I saw messages that some of you had similar things happen? It's not the carbs (even the dry food doesn't shoot him up so high), so is this some sort of inflammatory response?
 
I did a food trial with Saoirse recently and sadly I found that human tuna spiked her BG. (It's her favourite treat. :( )
 
Meya14 said:
so is this some sort of inflammatory response?
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It could be, Meya.
Fish is a common allergen for cats; and some cats can tolerate some kinds of fish but not others. Salmon is quite a common allergen. And there was someone here who, not so long ago, had to change her insulin (Prozinc) because it had an ingredient that came from salmon.
But there are also cases of cats' BG being affected by tuna; and as you've seen from Aine's post, her Saoirse is one of those.

Has Max shown any reaction to salmon before?
Any chance that this BG spike was a coincidence? (Any other possible causes you can think of...?)

Are you able to give the food to a local cat shelter, maybe...? You could consider it a donation on Max's behalf...:cat:
 
Never noticed a problem before, but I didn't pay attention as much to what he was eating before the diabetes. I ruled out other stuff (bad glucometer, insulin). No s/s of infection. Mouth looks great where his extraction had been (2 months ago). Not getting into any secret stash of sugar cubes.

Nothing's changed but the food. So yeah, I'll probably be donating. Next time I'm gonna try a case before I buy 3. It's just that they were like $20 a case of 24-6oz, which is a steal. I'll go out today and see if I can get my kitten food back. I think the cats are getting sick of it though. It sits in the bowl until they are REALLY hungry.
 
Not to hijack your thread, but rather to add to it, can the food cause a sort of delayed spike in blood sugar? I had cut seafood out of Bud's diet for a while and last night fed him some Friskies Mariner's Catch. His preshot was in the 400s, at +3.5 he was 111 and at +4.5 he was 159. So he had quite a drop with the insulin, but this morning his preshot was in the 500s, the highest it's ever been since I've been testing in November. I realize it could have been a bounce, but I'm questioning the seafood, too. When exactly would you see the elevated blood sugars from a food?
 
I'm seeing them through my whole cycle (not like a typical food spike). Don't know what others have experienced.
 
The tuna trial left Saoirse's BG elevated for several hours. Saoirse's BG tends to lower after feeding (provided the carbs are high enough for her), so it was definitely not a typical food response for her.
 
Stacym20 said:
When exactly would you see the elevated blood sugars from a food?
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Hi Stacy,

Regarding 'when you'd see elevated blood glucose from a food'; that would depend on what it is in the food that's elevating the glucose.
Some examples: Simple sugars (karo, glucose etc) should raise the glucose fast.
A dry cat food would raise glucose more slowly (usually) but could remain in effect for a relatively long time.
But BG can also be raised if a cat is intolerant to a food, or allergic to a food...

The difference between a food intolerance and a food allergy, I think, is that an allergy involves some kind of inflammatory response. And the effect on blood glucose would depend on what response the kitty had to that food. What I'm guessing is that if a kitty is intolerant to a food and suffers a GI upset, then the time the BG might be raised is by that 'period of discomfort' plus the time it would take for that discomfort to settle out.
But an allergic response is something else. When the body senses an allergic response it can release several substances including corstisol (a steroid) which can raise blood glucose....

And allergic responses aren't always immediate. Sometimes there's a time delay. For example, I have a serious allergy that doesn't show symptoms until about 4 hours after it's triggered. This is uncommon though. Most allergic reactions are pretty swift...
.
 
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So chances are the high number this morning wasn't due to the seafood, correct? I have 6 cats and 3 of them jump on the counter while I'm feeding and get first choice of offerings. Between Bud and the other 2 counter cats, the Mariner's Catch was devoured within minutes and they were left with Turkey & Giblets to graze on through the night.
 
The allergic response to a foreign protein is to release histamine which causes the symptoms of allergy. This is why humans take antihistamines for allergy; they block the effects of histamine.
 
KPassa said:
Tagging @bsmith, whose kitty also experiences a BG spike with seafood.
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I have definitely seen a relationship between high BG and feeding my cat fish. Before testing I had never noticed him acting differently after eating fish, but as soon as he was diagnosed diabetic and I started home testing it was very apparent.

The first few days on Lantus and testing I was feeding Friskies chicken and ocean whitefish canned, and Hill's dry k/d (kidney issues), and his numbers were decent. I opened a can of Friskies whitefish (no chicken), gave him the usual amount (1/4 can), and his blood sugar spiked. @KPassa suggested it might be seafood spiking, so I went through all my canned food and took out the ones that listed fish in the ingredients. With no fish in his canned food, Edwin's BG numbers came down and his Lantus dose went from 0.5 u to 0.25 u. I now, when feeding canned, only feed Friskies special diet that is low carb and has no fish. I did mention the BG spiking from fish to my vet and she had never heard of such a thing. I assume it's fairly rare and am so glad @KPassa had heard of it and suggested it to me.

(Also, thanks again @BJM for reminding me about Friskies special diet for Edwin's kidneys. I started feeding my previous CKD cat special diet when she was diagnosed with kidney failure, but that was 20 years ago and in the meantime I guess I forgot about making that change.)

The next step is to get Edwin off the Hill's dry k/d, which, aside from being high carb at 44%, also contains fish meal. I had been looking at the Young Again Zero Carb Mature Health, but, while waiting for my sample, I decided to try to at least try to step down his dry food carbs. I went with Hill's Science Diet Senior 11+ Indoor Age Defying, figuring that it was fairly close to the Hill's k/d, low phosphorus, and 30% carbs (not great, but better than 44%). It didn't have fish meal, but it did have fish oil.

Anyways, big mistake. 1/8 cup of Hill's age defying later and Edwin's BG was higher than ever before. It stayed that way for days and he started have stomach pain and bloating. I went back to the k/d and I think things are almost back to normal now. I called Hill about the ingredients in the k/d and the age defying food. According to them, both the fish meal in the k/d and the fish oil in the age defying are "ocean sourced anchovies, herring, and mackerel." I'm not sure that it was the fish oil that caused all the issues, but I think I'll stay away from it just in case.

The good news is that the Young Again Zero Carb Mature Health does not contain any fish (per phone call to Young Again). I've received my sample and, as soon as I'm sure Edwin's stable, I'll be giving that a try. As for all the canned food containing fish and the dry age defying, the kitties at the shelter will be getting a nice donation.

Meya14 said:
Max will eat and eat until he pukes, so we can't free-feed.
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Edwin has a binge and purge issue himself. I'm currently using a slow feed bowl and that helps greatly. If the bowl is not enough to slow Max down I've also used the SlimCat ball.
 
I love that slow-feed bowl idea. It might stop him from inhaling all his, then moving on to my other cat's bowl. As for the ball, I can see my other cat having lots of fun with that, but Max has the patience of a 2 year old when it comes to food. I can just imagine the angry howls, or he'd push it down the stairs. I tried a toy like that once with my parrot, and my parrot just smashed it against the wall until it broke. It was something to watch.
 
Meya14 said:
I love that slow-feed bowl idea. It might stop him from inhaling all his, then moving on to my other cat's bowl. As for the ball, I can see my other cat having lots of fun with that, but Max has the patience of a 2 year old when it comes to food. I can just imagine the angry howls, or he'd push it down the stairs. I tried a toy like that once with my parrot, and my parrot just smashed it against the wall until it broke. It was something to watch.
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A parrot flipping out on a toy would be something to watch. I'll adapt the quote from the movie Elf, "oh, you're an angry little bird."
The ball can actually be set to have the openings of whatever size you want, from easy to hard. On the easy setting you only have to barely tap the ball to get some food out.
 
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