Not much eating

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Sylvia Sheaffer

Member Since 2019
Tonight is the 2and night I did not give George his insulin. He only gets 1U twice a day, of Lantus. He did have 1U this am. I didn't do it on purpose last night, but I don't think I got the insulin in his body. And, I wasn't going to give him an additional dose. He ate real well this morning, and I gave him 1U of Lantus. And, he was eating small amounts thru about 12noon. He came downstairs today about 2pm, and I just gave him a few (3) treats of the natural yums (friskies). He seemed hungry, but went back upstairs. He is not a lap cat. It is NOT LIKE GEORGE TO NOT COME FOR DINNER AT 7:15pm. I withhold all food from him from 3PM-7pm so he eats dinner, so I can give his insulin. Please help. Does anyone might know what's going on?
 
How is his other behavior? Does he seem alert? Is he drinking, preening, peeing, and pooping? Was it just today that he didn't seem to eat as much? If there are no other symptoms of distress, I'd just keep an eye on him for a few days. I've noticed that since my Billy has been on insulin, he has days where he just isn't as hungry, and days he eats like the little piglet he is.

What are you feeding him usually? I did look up those treats, and they are really high in carbs. You might want to look into something like freeze dried chicken for a treat. Are you feeding George a low carb wet food diet? Are you mixing up the flavors, or feeding the same thing every day?

Honestly, we need more information to help. A great place for you to start is New? How You Can Help Us Help You! It's a great way to start learning how to help George feel better, and a great way to get some good advice from experienced members of the group.
 
Juls and Billy said:
How is his other behavior? Does he seem alert? Is he drinking, preening, peeing, and pooping? Was it just today that he didn't seem to eat as much? If there are no other symptoms of distress, I'd just keep an eye on him for a few days. I've noticed that since my Billy has been on insulin, he has days where he just isn't as hungry, and days he eats like the little piglet he is.

What are you feeding him usually? I did look up those treats, and they are really high in carbs. You might want to look into something like freeze dried chicken for a treat. Are you feeding George a low carb wet food diet? Are you mixing up the flavors, or feeding the same thing every day?

Honestly, we need more information to help. A great place for you to start is New? How You Can Help Us Help You! It's a great way to start learning how to help George feel better, and a great way to get some good advice from experienced members of the group.
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I just got home from PETS EMERGENCY, which is only a few blocks away from me. George's BG was 471. It was about the same on Nov. 23RD, and that's when my Vet. (after his BG was 38) w/ 3U , lowered insulin to 1U twice daily. I have freeze dried chicken I give George, and he NEVER gets hard food (except for a few pieces of the Natural Yum Yums.). He eats Fancy Feast Classic Pate all the time. I am so glad he, and my other 2 cats, love soft food. George has always come for breakfast at 7:15am and dinner at 7:15pm. I gave George 1 1/2 at 11:45pm tonight, and Emergency Pets said to give the same tomorrow am at 9, and then I can go back to schedule of 7:15 twice daily, with 1. 1/2U. BG better than over 600, when he was first diagnosed this past Sept. 6th. George is an adoptee, along with my other two cats. He looks like Zoro. Lol. He looks good right now. I was scared.
 
You are awesome feeding the FF pates. I was lucky too that almost all our cats love wet food. We have one old lady that's a kibble addict--thank goodness she isn't diabetic. She spends most of her time in one room, so we just keep her kibble in there and away from Billy.

Now, I'm a newbie, so take any advice I give you with a grain of salt. I do know that one of the experienced members told me even just a few pieces of high carb kibble or treats can really raise a cat's BGL. You might want to think about ditching the Yum Yums. The freeze dried chicken is awesome, and I've also cooked some plain chicken breast and chicken liver, and Billy loves them for treats.

My vet also told me to feed twice a day. I know that people diabetics do better on several small meals a day, and I've read here that cats often do much better eating that way as well. You might want to try smaller amounts more often. You just have to pick up food 2 hours before test time. That makes sure he's hungry when you give him his shot, and gives you a more honest pre-shot BGL. You might want to consider it, especially if George isn't eating enough on the twice a day feeding.

Other things you can try are warming the food slightly, changing flavors, or topping with something like powdered up freeze dried chicken to get him more interested. I know my Billy gets bored with the flavors sometimes. For a couple weeks his favorite flavor was turkey and giblets, now he says it's poison! :D
 
Judy and Freckles said:
Glad George is looking better for you. I can understand why you would be scared as we want to keep our little ones safe. If you could get a spreadsheet up and start logging in your numbers, the experienced people on this board will be better able to help you. Click on this link to get started.

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/new-how-you-can-help-us-help-you.216696/
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I cannot prick George in the ear or paw pads 3-4 times a day. He is not that kind of cat. He WOULD NEVER come eat for me. I tried once (human monitor) and it said, "apply more blood". I tried to put the monitor on George's ear to get more blood, it failed. That will not work for George. George is at a great weight right now. I'm controlling his diet w/ extremely low carbs. George is always hungry. I feed him like 6 times a day. The FF he can eat all the time. The amount of food George eats, does not affect how much insulin he gets. I checked that out with my Vet.
 
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Sylvia Sheaffer said:
I cannot prick George in the ear or paw pads 3-4 times a day. He is not that kind of cat. He WOULD NEVER come eat for me. I tried once (human monitor) and it said, "apply more blood". I tried to put the monitor on George's ear to get more blood, it failed. That will not work for George. George is at a great weight right now. I'm controlling his diet w/ extremely low carbs. George is always hungry. I feed him like 6 times a day. The FF he can eat all the time. The amount of food George eats, does not affect how much insulin he gets. I checked that out with my Vet.
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Honestly, if I hadn't been home testing, I would have lost my Billy on day five. His pre-dose test was only 54, and he was on 2 units at the time. But I tested, and we skipped the dose and worked on getting his level higher. Yes, it took us time to get home testing worked out, but we did. Billy responds well to bribes. He doesn't seem fazed by the ear pricks, though he does get fidgety. so we certainly have to do multiple pricks on occasion to get a good drop.

If you aren't going to home test, have a hypo kit at hand and you'd better watch him carefully after each dose. A cat can fall into an emergency hypo event very quickly. You should print this out. And there's a good list of what to have in your hypo kit here.

To be very honest, members will be reluctant to give advice if his BGL is unknown, and with good reason. No one wants to give the wrong advice at the wrong time.

It isn't about eating or not eating. Billy was eating fine when his level dropped to 52. Sometimes, the pancreas decides to make it's own insulin, and there's no way to tell that without testing.
 
It's a struggle for sure but good on you for trying. A little trick that a member on this forum suggested to scrape up the blood droplet onto my fingernail or on a credit card then if the cat squirms, you still have that little precious drop of blood. You can also put a little vaseline on the ear so the blood forms more of a droplet.

When I first started this journey, the vet and 3 assistants couldn't get a blood sample from Freckles. She turned vicious and they had to sedate her. They tried to out muscle her, but instead they should have used psychology. Get George use to coming to his testing site by giving him a 0 carb treat when you call him. Then call him, and start rubbing his ears. Then call him, rub his ears and hold his ears. Give him a treat each time. Each time, stay a little longer at his ears and he will start to be 'conditioned' to it (remember Pavlov's dogs and Classical Conditioning - same thing). When I test Freckles, I crumble up a little freeze dried chicken treat and while she is eating it, I prick her ear and test her. No fighting, no squirming all because it's been done in small steps. Now I can test her by myself every hour if needed, she is very cooperative and the vet can't believe it.

Even if you post your preshot test for AM and Pm to start that would be helpful. Giving insulin without testing is very very risky.
 
I forgot to mention Sylvia that different human glucometers require different amounts of blood. I use the Freestyle lite which only requires a small droplet. Many USA members use the Walmart Brand - Relion I believe it is called - strips are reasonably priced. Home testing is very important - I can't stress that enough. Human diabetics should not give themselves insulin without knowing where their numbers are at because of concern to go too low... we need to do the same with our sugar babies. The people on this board will help you through this process if you want the help.
 
Juls and Billy said:
Honestly, if I hadn't been home testing, I would have lost my Billy on day five. His pre-dose test was only 54, and he was on 2 units at the time. But I tested, and we skipped the dose and worked on getting his level higher. Yes, it took us time to get home testing worked out, but we did. Billy responds well to bribes. He doesn't seem fazed by the ear pricks, though he does get fidgety. so we certainly have to do multiple pricks on occasion to get a good drop.

If you aren't going to home test, have a hypo kit at hand and you'd better watch him carefully after each dose. A cat can fall into an emergency hypo event very quickly. You should print this out. And there's a good list of what to have in your hypo kit here.

To be very honest, members will be reluctant to give advice if his BGL is unknown, and with good reason. No one wants to give the wrong advice at the wrong time.

It isn't about eating or not eating. Billy was eating fine when his level dropped to 52. Sometimes, the pancreas decides to make it's own insulin, and there's no way to tell that without testing.
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I know his BG. It was 471 at the Emergency Vet., which was probably a little high, due to nervousness. I know George well. I watch him 24/7. I have Karo, but George has not exhibited signs of low BG. Only that one time, when his BG was 38. And, I knew 3U was too much for him.He has always run on the high side. I'd prefer high (or at least a little high,) than extremely low. He's the love of my life. My mom is 92, and lost her husband of 71 yrs. Who comes first, my mother or George?
 
I hear you. I have to juggle caretaking myself. I'm the caretaker of my 80 year old mother, who is in very poor health. My fiance and I moved into my parents house to help them when my father went completely blind. He passed away several years ago and I miss him every day. He was my best buddy, other than my fiance.

Honestly, the reason I am so careful about our home testing with Billy is I can't afford to run to the vet every time he has a problem, and I don't want to put him through the issues that come up without at least a pre-shot test. I'm there to do the shot anyway, and the BGL test takes me about 2 minutes if I have to stab more than once to get a good drop, like this morning.

Every cat is different and every caretaker is different. Just be aware of the dangers.
 
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