Raw meat diet

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Choo

Choo

Member Since 2015
I've heard that some people have been able to reverse diabetes in newly diagnosed cats by switching them to a raw meat diet. Have any of you had any luck with it?

I switched my cat to a raw meat diet three days ago. I also stopped giving him Levemir shots twice a day. Before that, he had been on Levemir for two weeks but there was little to no improvement in his BG levels. Before switching to raw, he was eating one Friskies pate canned food everyday and no kibble. Before he was diagnosed with diabetes (he was diagnosed 5 weeks ago), he was eating one can of Friskies pate everyday and about 1/4 cup of Royal Canin kibble.

I notice he's been drinking a lot the last three days that he has not been on insulin. I don't know what to do. The vet was increasing his dose. He started at 5 ml and a few days later, she increased it to 6 ml and last Friday, she increased it to 7 ml. During the two weeks he was on Levemir, I also did urine testing at home and found out that his BG levels never improved.

I've also had tremendous difficulty doing the BG tests. His ears are frostbitten (he was a stray cat) and the vet tech told me that his vein is a few mm deeper than other cats. In other words, the sweet spot doesn't work for him. I'm extremely stressed and worried about losing my best friend. Any suggestions?
 
Hi. You need to post immediately on the LANTUS FORUM.
There will be more eyes over there to help you.
Taking your cat off of such a high dose of insulin suddenly is extremely dangerous.
Your cat NEEDS INSULIN. Home testing can also be done on the paws, but it must be done to know your friends levels. Maybe someone on Lantus will have more answers for you. You need their help right now.
Please don't delay, the excessive drinking is one sign of out of control diabetes.
The raw diet can be addressed later.
 
How much does your kitty weigh? Is that his ideal weight? Normally we start cats on the order of somewhere around 1 unit of Levemir, unless they are a larger cat or are on high carb kibble. Not sure what you mean by doses in ml, but if it's units, that's a very high starting dose. Perhaps too high. You can also use the paw pad for blood testing.

It's best to feed your cat low carb wet or raw food. Raw food isn't necessarily lower carb food than a canned food. I feed raw, but because that's the type of food I want to feed. Take a look at the website http://www.catinfo.org/ for a good description of feline nutrition. On that site. Dr. Pierson has a list of a lot of the commercially available canned and raw foods that you can buy in North America. Not sure where you are. Looks for foods with carbs under 10%.
 
Changing to a low carb diet is one of the keys to controlling diabetes, but no, ONLY changing to a raw diet isn't a miracle cure. As long as the food is low carb, that's the key.

Also, I think you mean your vet started at 5 UNITS...then increased to 6 and 7 units....that's a HUGE starting dose and was most likely way too much for your cat to begin with. We usually start our cats at somewhere between .5 and 1 unit and then very slowly increase in .25 unit increments. Too much insulin can look like too little!!

I strongly urge you to put your kitty back on his insulin but only start at 1 unit or less and then figure out which will work better for you in the way of home testing...ears or pawpad both work as long as you get a blood drop.

Urine testing is really not accurate enough to know what's going on inside your cats body. A good meter, like the Relion Confirm or Micro take a REALLY tiny sample (about a pin head will work) so if you can get even a tiny drop, that's usually enough to get a good test on
 
Chris & China said:
Changing to a low carb diet is one of the keys to controlling diabetes, but no, ONLY changing to a raw diet isn't a miracle cure. As long as the food is low carb, that's the key.

Also, I think you mean your vet started at 5 UNITS...then increased to 6 and 7 units....that's a HUGE starting dose and was most likely way too much for your cat to begin with. We usually start our cats at somewhere between .5 and 1 unit and then very slowly increase in .25 unit increments. Too much insulin can look like too little!!

I strongly urge you to put your kitty back on his insulin but only start at 1 unit or less and then figure out which will work better for you in the way of home testing...ears or pawpad both work as long as you get a blood drop.

Urine testing is really not accurate enough to know what's going on inside your cats body. A good meter, like the Relion Confirm or Micro take a REALLY tiny sample (about a pin head will work) so if you can get even a tiny drop, that's usually enough to get a good test on
Click to expand...

Thank you Chris so much for weighing in. I have so little experience! I was very alarmed and could only advise Choo to look further for help.
I hope I did the right thing.
Thank you again.
 
Thank you for all your responses and concerns. The Levemir that my cat is on is diluted 1:4 ratio so when I was giving him 5 ml, it was really only 1 ml of Levemir, the other 4 ml was saline. My cat weighs about 13 lbs. He lost one lb in one week when I came home from vacation five weeks ago. I've started him back on Levemir 5 ml and he is already feeling better, not drinking as much. I also bought a new glucose meter that requires only a pinhead drop of blood. Hopefully I'll have better luck getting his BG on Friday. My cat is still on raw meat diet. He loves Friskies pate but they have rice in it. I really am hoping to reverse his diabetes so he won't need insulin for the rest of his life.
 
Common practice - no, at least this is the first time I've heard of it on FDMB. It is possible though, unlike with Lantus.
 
Regardless of whether it has been diluted or not, please report use on insulin in units, not mL (milliliters) as this is the common reference term for dosing insulin.
And although the package insert says not to dilute Levemir, I believe I have read somewhere that it may diluted on a short term basis (as in, not stored that way). I'll see if I can find the reference.
 
From the 2013 article entitled "Management of Diabetic Cats with Long Lasting Insulin" by Roomp and Rand:

Detemir is a relatively stable insulin and can be mixed with other shorter-acting insulin (eg, lispro or neutral protamine Hagedorn [NPH]). A special diluting medium is also available from Novo Nordisk; but in some countries (United States and Australia), the company will not supply veterinarians. Detemir can also be diluted with sterile water or saline (Shaun O’Mara, 2012 Novo Nordisk, personal communica- tion). However, diluting with saline or water also dilutes the antimicrobial additive (metacresol). Therefore, because of the risk of bacterial contamination, it is recommended that the dilution be done just before the administration of insulin. Having said that, veterinarians in the past have previously diluted other insulin in the bottle and kept it refrigerated and discarded it in about 30 days. Based on experience with other insulin, with time, stability and action seemed to be adversely affected. Therefore, because of the risk of bacterial contamination and unknown changes in time with efficacy, diluting detemir in the bottle is not recommended.
 
I don't know what to say. My veterinarian told me why it was diluted but I cannot remember why. I'm having difficulty giving him injections. He felt the needle twice today. I know because of his reaction. I gave him his shots while he was eating. I think it may be better for me to give him his shots after his meals, maybe 20 mins after while he is resting. He is becoming wary of me when he is eating. He darts looks at me this way and that and I hate to spoil his meal time with an injection. How many of us would like to receive an injection when we're having our meal? Once, he walked away from his meal when I was hovering around trying to give him an injection.
 
Wendy&Neko said:
Therefore, because of the risk of bacterial contamination, it is recommended that the dilution be done just before the administration of insulin. Having said that, veterinarians in the past have previously diluted other insulin in the bottle and kept it refrigerated and discarded it in about 30 days. Based on experience with other insulin, with time, stability and action seemed to be adversely affected. Therefore, because of the risk of bacterial contamination and unknown changes in time with efficacy, diluting detemir in the bottle is not recommended.
Click to expand...
Choo said ". I also stopped giving him Levemir shots twice a day. Before that, he had been on Levemir for two weeks but there was little to no improvement in his BG levels." Maybe the dilution caused the insulin to no longer be effective since it appears the insulin has been diluted two weeks previously
 
The vet said she diluted the Levemir to make it easier to dose. For example, if it's 1 unit of Levemir, that's no problem but if it's 1.75 units, it's more difficult so she dilutes it and makes it easier. I purchased Levemir from Costco, the straight, undiluted stuff last week. I'm wondering if I should switch vets and switch to PZI because the Levemir has had very little effect on his BG numbers and he's been on it one month already. And Bangkok is on a raw meat diet so he is on a very high protein diet.
 
His back has been twitching like crazy when I run my hand gently down his back. This has been happening since I started giving the shots. Also, he has been flinching and tensing when given shots recently. There doesn't seem to be any spot on his body that is not tender and where I can give shots. I'm out of my mind and close to a nervous breakdown.
 
We suggest that people give a particular insulin 6 months before switching to another one. I personally would try the straight undiluted Levemir. With magnifying glasses, lights and half unit marked syringes, those .25U changes can be done.

Could you create a spreadsheet showing your blood sugar test values? Here's a post that describes how to use the spreadsheet format we use here. Some of the people in the Lantus and Levemir forum might be able to read that and give you dosing suggestions to help get Bangkok better regulated. It could be that you just haven't gotten to that good dose yet.

Where do you give the shots? I use the shoulders, just below the scruff. And after I load the syringe, I hold it between my fingers for a little bit, to warm the insulin up. Question, are you currently using the BD Ultrafine II syringes? The 31 gauge needle is pretty fine and my Neko often purrs through her Levemir shot.
 
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Pretty much everybody here measures .25 dose increments pretty effectively....either by eyeballing it (it doesn't matter if it's EXACTLY 1.75 as long as it's consistently the same dose that you are calling 1.75) or by using calipers to dose with. Here's a great post on Dosing with calipers

We use insulin syringes with half unit markings to get at least as close as possible to having a "mark" to compare to.

Are you now using the Levemir without diluting it? Just want to clarify that...if you are, you might want to change the info in your signature line.

Levemir is a very gentle insulin so I'm surprised your kitty is acting like it hurts...are you rotating your shot placement? A lot of people here that started on Lantus (which is also a great insulin) have switched to Levemir when their cats got to higher doses because Lantus can sting, but they haven't had that problem with Levemir

One more question...you say you're feeding a raw meat diet....are you ONLY feeding raw meat or is it a nutritionally complete raw diet for cats? You mention Friskies awhile back too. A LOT of us feed Friskies!! As long as it's the pate's, the tiny amount of rice that's in it doesn't seem to cause any problems...it's still considered low carb (less than 10%)

The spreadsheet that Wendy suggested will really help us to help you with dosing...1 month is really quite early to expect too much, but I'm sure the people here who have years of experience to share with you will be able to help you with your extra sweet kitty
 
Are you still using the diluted Levemir? I am only speculating here but I do wonder whether the diluent might be causing the discomfort and not the Levemir itself (or whether there might be some chemical change in the mixture that might be the cause?). As the ladies above have said, undiluted Levemir doesn't seem to cause reactions like Choo is having. I'd recommend contacting your vet discuss this problem. It's obvious from your posts how distressing this is for both of you. :bighug:


Mogs
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Thanks for your replies.

I switched to using undiluted Levemir last Thursday and Friday and they caused similar negative reactions in Bangkok. Tensing, flinching. Definitely no purring. Once he even snapped his head back as the injection went in. I've been rotating injection sites from the fatty area behind his shoulder bones to the base of the scruff of his neck to either side of the fatty area behind his shoulder bones.

The raw meat diet I'm feeding is nutritionally complete for cats and dogs. It's a brand called CARNIVORA. I'm trying to get Bangkok down to as little carbs as possible, in order to try and induce an earlier remission. That's why I took him off Friskies even though he loves it. It breaks my heart to take him off a food he loves but the twice daily shots are so extremely stressful for both of us and if a raw diet can work much better for him to get him off insulin, then that's what I want for him.

I ordered an INJECT EASE to help me. Have any of you used it?
 
Are you home testing yet?

A lot of cats actually do BETTER having a few carbs than having zero or 1%....the only way to know how Bangkok does is to test and experiment to find out

As for the Inject Ease...if it helps you and Bangkok, that's all that matters!
 
Some kitties do better with a low carb diet, instead of a no carb diet. I've seen some that have done better on 7-8% carbs instead of 2%. I have heard of the Carnivora, it is supposed to be good.

I haven't heard of the Inject Ease before. When you do the injections, do you make sure that the bevel side of the syringe is up? Maybe there is something to help in this post on Testing and Shooting Tips.
 
CHRIS AND CHINA: My veterinarian only requires home testing once a week. Thank goodness for that. I'm going nuts enough already!

WENDY AND NIKO: Well, my Bangkok would prefer to have his Friskies or Fancy Feast, for sure. I did give him a tbsp of Fancy Feast Classic pate (grain free) tonight. He was so happy he meowed with great delight. I got tired of looking at the raw meat. Ugh! I don't buy meat for myself as I'm not a meat eater so you can imagine how difficult it is for me to look and smell raw meat. I received the Inject Ease today. I haven't used it yet. The veterinarian will be coming to our house on Friday. I'll ask her about using it then. I think it will be very helpful for me as I'm utterly needle phobic.

LARRY AND KITTIES: No additives. It's a whole animal meat (complete meal) called Carnivora. Bangkok is eating llama meat and beef.

Thanks, everyone.
 
Choo said:
My veterinarian only requires home testing once a week. Thank goodness for that. I'm going nuts enough already!
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If the cat is not yet regulated, testing only once a week is unsafe. You could give insulin when the cat was already low, potentially causing a hypoglycemic attack, which can be fatal.
If blood testing is difficult at present, please consider using some of the Secondary Monitoring Tools in my signature link, especially water consumption, thirst, urination behaviors and volumes, and dehydration checks. There's a sample spreadsheet for recording those linked in that document. Some data is better than no data.
 
BJM: I do run daily keto diastix tests on Bangkok. Sometimes I do them twice a day, if the opportunity presents itself. I do have the Smart Cat Box but it was so stinky after a week that I no longer use it. I'm able to easily collect his urine when he is squatting. His ketones are always negative but his glucose is always high (1/2 % to 2 %). I do write a log of his water consumption and urine behaviors.
 
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