New to the group, diabetic furbuddy.

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Lance Rambow

Lance Rambow

Member Since 2018
Hello everyone!
I took my cat (Clyde) into the vet this week because he looked like he had difficulty going up and down the stairs for the past few weeks. I told the vet that I noticed about twice the amount of urine in the box as normal (we have 2 cats) that started about the same time. Come to find out, the difficulty with stairs are ligament problems in one of his knees, but they tested his sugar (due to the amount of urine) and came back over 500 (yikes). They retested later in the day and came back around 325. After another test the following day, results were around 400.

The vet suggested changing his diet for a month and retest to see if there was improvement. They had the Hills Science Diet MD dry which I bought a bag. After reading some posts here, it sounds like the wet MD is recommended over the dry. I am encouraged that the vet wanted to try to change the diet rather than go right into insulin injections, but I have a couple questions that I'm hoping to get some guidance on:

1) Where is a good place to buy either the dry or the wet food and is reasonably priced? Are there online coupons available?

2) HOW IN THE WORLD DO I FEED 2 CATS 2 SEPARATE MEALS twice a day??? Prior to the vet visit, we just had a feeder that got filled once a week and both cats could eat whenever and however much they wanted. Now, it needs to be 1/4 cup of food for each cat, twice a day. The other cat is younger by a few years, but what I would classify as a little overweight so cutting back on his intake isn't necessarily a bad thing. The easiest thing to do is feed both cats the diabetic food, but the other doesn't need it and I would essentially be doubling the cost of the expensive food when I don't need to be. Both cats had been eating Purina's urinary tract dry food exclusively prior to this diet change. In any event, any tips you can give to feed the cats separately is greatly appreciated.

Oh, and most importantly.....
This site looks like it's chock full of information with caring cat owners.
I'm glad I found it. :)
 
Welcome! Please post on the main health forum to get more eyes on it. Some quick answers to get you started:
  • re food: wet low carb food is best, including for non diabetic "fluffy" kitties. Many of us feed Friskies or Fancy Feast pate style foods because they're low enough in carbs (under 10% is what you want)
  • re feeding two cats: if they both eat the same thing and one doesn't move in on the other's food, no problem. If that won't work they can be trained to eat in different rooms at set meal times. I have three that are trained that way. :)
 
Welcome! The Hill's Science Diet m/d dry food is really too high in carbs. I know that is confusing when you have a vet telling you it is the best choice. If you have not already made your way there, I suggest you check out catinfo.org. It has all the info you could ever want about feline nutrition.. and then some. It also has a cat food database that can help you select foods that are appropriate (link to that in my signature). I have a bag of that dry food that the vet who diagnosed Mia sent home with us. On occasions when Mia's glucose has dropped too low, I was able to use a small amount of it to steer her glucose up. So, I have seen the direct impact it has on glucose and would never recommend feeding it to your cat for meals. Besides the carbs they normally contain, there are other reasons to avoid dry food... catinfo.org will tell you all about it. Your best option for both cats is a high-protein, low-carb wet food.

I also have two cats, and when I switched one, I switched both. Also, according to the AAHA guidelines (link in signature) and several other sources, you can feed multiple small meals a day rather than just feeding twice a day. That can help keep glucose levels even throughout the day. As long as you are feeding the appropriate amount of calories for the cat's weight/activity level, it does not have to be given to them only twice a day. I feed four times a day, 6am/pm and 12am/pm. A lot of people use automatic feeders to do this.
 
Welcome Lance and Clyde.

Every one of your concerns can be managed. It will take an active role on your part but can be done. I have 4 cats only 1 diabetic. It seems they all want different food or eat at different times. We manage though, for the most part they do eat at the same time it's just when one decides to be on strike, it throws everything off. You can do this.
 
Thanks for the well wishes everyone!
With our schedule, anything more than 2-3 feedings a day just isn't possible.

In regards to the vet's MD dry food, he was upfront and said if Clyde didn't eat it or it just wasn't working DON'T THROW IT OUT. I can return the food (as long as it's in the original bag) and get a refund as Hill's reimburses them. I need to go to the grocery store today, so I'm going to pick up a couple cans of the FF pate.
 
Lance Rambow said:
Thanks for the well wishes everyone!
With our schedule, anything more than 2-3 feedings a day just isn't possible.

In regards to the vet's MD dry food, he was upfront and said if Clyde didn't eat it or it just wasn't working DON'T THROW IT OUT. I can return the food (as long as it's in the original bag) and get a refund as Hill's reimburses them. I need to go to the grocery store today, so I'm going to pick up a couple cans of the FF pate.
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Good plan. I feed all my cats ff.
 
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