Ms. Extra Life
Member Since 2022
Hello, my name is Enn, and my 9-year-old cat’s name is 1-Up.
1-Up was diagnosed a diabetic on 12/28/21 and is currently taking 2 units Prozinc. She’s a tiny cat who was originally between 7-8 lbs and now is at 6.6 lbs (last I weighed her yesterday). It’s been a hectic few months since her diagnosis, and she’s currently seeing another vet (long story short, my old vet who took care of 1-Up for years had their clinic closed at the end of 2021 and all staff moved to their sister location. The vet who owns the sister location became her new doctor, and I wasn’t pleased with the experience whenever I interacted with them so I switched).
My cat was fed Wellness for years (dry during the day, wet food at night), and the old vet had prescribed Purina Pro DM (dry and wet), and I’ve tried that for a while before learning that dry food is the cause of cats being diabetic. I switched to Tiki Cat After Dark/Luau since I heard this food has zero carbs and is good for a diabetic cat, but it didn’t seem like she was improving even with insulin treatment.
A few weeks ago, new vet has prescribed that I fed her Royal Canin or Hill’s W/D to treat her diabetes. I could only get the dry for RC and bought W/D canned food at a PetSmart. I was hesitant to get the dry food, but decided to try it doing the same routine of dry during the day and wet food at night. I gave her just a little amount of RC in her Tiki Cat food to gradually get her used to it, it looked like things were looking up. Whenever I’m able to test her before her morning meal, it looked like it was down in the 100s, stools looked solid and a healthy brown color, her fur felt soft and her belly is growing fur again (when previously it was totally bare after she was diagnosed), so I thought we were on the right track. But the moment I switched to both RC and W/D full time, numbers were in the 300s-400s, so I stopped RC while feeding with a small amount of W/D combined with Tiki Cat (as I later learned from the cat info chart that even prescription canned foods have high carbs). W/D isn’t helping much for 1-Up, other than making her stools look more solid.
Also, because of my new job, I feed her/give shot at 4 AM, and come home at almost and feed her the rest of her food/give shot at 5:30 PM (work from 5 AM-5PM every Sun-Tues and e/o Wed, with family members giving a meal at around 11 AM and a portion of her dinner right at 5 PM), so trying to be consistent with insulin and feeding is very difficult (despite still living with my fam, I’m the only one who could give the shots).
Currently, I’ve been gradually feeding 1-Up Weruva Paw Lickin’ Chicken to see if she’ll improve with a new food with just a small percentage of carbs. I’ve also tried to do a BG curve at home, and the vet told me I shouldn’t feed 1-Up more than twice during that time because it’ll affect the curve, but I end up feeding her a little after 6 hours anyway since I’m worried about her losing more weight and she was so used to that routine ever since she was diagnosed. I’ve read about stories when people found that right food for their diabetic cat, their BG numbers drop and end up going on remission, yet even with the low-carb foods I’ve picked, it doesn’t seem like there was much improvement and I’m worried that 1-Up will be on insulin treatment for the rest of her life.
So a few questions I have:
Does it take time for a cat to get used to their new low-carb canned food diet to show results? Am I perhaps just too hasty to see the results right away?
When doing a BG curve at home, do you refrain from feeding your cat during the day so it wouldn’t affect their numbers?
I want my cat to gain more weight, what would be a good feeding routine for her and how much food should I give her throughout the day?
I really hope that it’s not too late for 1-Up’s diabetes to go on remission, and I’m doing my best to earn the money needed for her treatment, while trying to keep a job with a new work schedule (though I have considered looking for another one with a M-F, 8 hour schedule so I can monitor my cat better especially on weekends), and most importantly, trying not to stress out with everything happening since I know my cat will feel my stress, too. I’ve held off on joining this forum and lurking for info from time to time because of bad experiences with social media, but I’m here now because I feel like I’m losing all hope. Any help/advice is greatly appreciated.
Thank you all for your time, and I hope you guys have a great day!
1-Up was diagnosed a diabetic on 12/28/21 and is currently taking 2 units Prozinc. She’s a tiny cat who was originally between 7-8 lbs and now is at 6.6 lbs (last I weighed her yesterday). It’s been a hectic few months since her diagnosis, and she’s currently seeing another vet (long story short, my old vet who took care of 1-Up for years had their clinic closed at the end of 2021 and all staff moved to their sister location. The vet who owns the sister location became her new doctor, and I wasn’t pleased with the experience whenever I interacted with them so I switched).
My cat was fed Wellness for years (dry during the day, wet food at night), and the old vet had prescribed Purina Pro DM (dry and wet), and I’ve tried that for a while before learning that dry food is the cause of cats being diabetic. I switched to Tiki Cat After Dark/Luau since I heard this food has zero carbs and is good for a diabetic cat, but it didn’t seem like she was improving even with insulin treatment.
A few weeks ago, new vet has prescribed that I fed her Royal Canin or Hill’s W/D to treat her diabetes. I could only get the dry for RC and bought W/D canned food at a PetSmart. I was hesitant to get the dry food, but decided to try it doing the same routine of dry during the day and wet food at night. I gave her just a little amount of RC in her Tiki Cat food to gradually get her used to it, it looked like things were looking up. Whenever I’m able to test her before her morning meal, it looked like it was down in the 100s, stools looked solid and a healthy brown color, her fur felt soft and her belly is growing fur again (when previously it was totally bare after she was diagnosed), so I thought we were on the right track. But the moment I switched to both RC and W/D full time, numbers were in the 300s-400s, so I stopped RC while feeding with a small amount of W/D combined with Tiki Cat (as I later learned from the cat info chart that even prescription canned foods have high carbs). W/D isn’t helping much for 1-Up, other than making her stools look more solid.
Also, because of my new job, I feed her/give shot at 4 AM, and come home at almost and feed her the rest of her food/give shot at 5:30 PM (work from 5 AM-5PM every Sun-Tues and e/o Wed, with family members giving a meal at around 11 AM and a portion of her dinner right at 5 PM), so trying to be consistent with insulin and feeding is very difficult (despite still living with my fam, I’m the only one who could give the shots).
Currently, I’ve been gradually feeding 1-Up Weruva Paw Lickin’ Chicken to see if she’ll improve with a new food with just a small percentage of carbs. I’ve also tried to do a BG curve at home, and the vet told me I shouldn’t feed 1-Up more than twice during that time because it’ll affect the curve, but I end up feeding her a little after 6 hours anyway since I’m worried about her losing more weight and she was so used to that routine ever since she was diagnosed. I’ve read about stories when people found that right food for their diabetic cat, their BG numbers drop and end up going on remission, yet even with the low-carb foods I’ve picked, it doesn’t seem like there was much improvement and I’m worried that 1-Up will be on insulin treatment for the rest of her life.
So a few questions I have:
Does it take time for a cat to get used to their new low-carb canned food diet to show results? Am I perhaps just too hasty to see the results right away?
When doing a BG curve at home, do you refrain from feeding your cat during the day so it wouldn’t affect their numbers?
I want my cat to gain more weight, what would be a good feeding routine for her and how much food should I give her throughout the day?
I really hope that it’s not too late for 1-Up’s diabetes to go on remission, and I’m doing my best to earn the money needed for her treatment, while trying to keep a job with a new work schedule (though I have considered looking for another one with a M-F, 8 hour schedule so I can monitor my cat better especially on weekends), and most importantly, trying not to stress out with everything happening since I know my cat will feel my stress, too. I’ve held off on joining this forum and lurking for info from time to time because of bad experiences with social media, but I’m here now because I feel like I’m losing all hope. Any help/advice is greatly appreciated.
Thank you all for your time, and I hope you guys have a great day!
