Newly diagnosed senior

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zerovector

zerovector

Member Since 2022
My 18 year old cat Black was just diagnosed today with diabetes. His BG was 380 at his last vet visit (3 weeks ago) and the glucose strip was positive, so she wanted to see him again to verify that it wasn't stress induced. Well today, his BG was 500 and the urine test was very positive.

The vet immediately suggested that I put him on a low carb diet, which of course I agree with but I'm not sure *where* to cut the carbs. He currently eats boiled chicken and Royal Canin Renal Support D wet food, around .4 to .5 oz per "graze" as he's always been a grazer and he absolutely won't tolerate set meal periods. He also doesn't eat dry food anymore, and he eats a total of 6-7 oz of food daily.

So, she initially tried to prescribe Vetsulin, but I lobbied for Lantus, as I've read cat owners having success with that particular insulin formulation. I was showing how to administer it with a saline test by a very understanding and knowledgeable vet tech, and he seemed to tolerate it well (he's a very nice and agreeable cat)

I've yet to pick up the Lantus (we got out of the office late), but I just wanted to get a feel for how to manage this as best as I can for him.

- How do you manage this when you're out of town? Due to work, I frequently have to be on site to manage certain projects and I absolutely wouldn't be able to drop everything to go back and administer insulin (I even have to be out of state at times). I asked the vet if there's any way to pay for techs to come and do insulin shots and they seemed to say that it's something that can be done...i'm just not sure how reliable that is? Or, how you even go about scheduling.

- How has everyone organized their social lives around this? I'm not the most social person, but i'm anxious about essentially always having to be home, every day.

- How does this interfere with his ongoing kidney disease? I managed that with an all wet food diet, and at his Aug 21' visit, his BUN had gone down, but his creatine creeped up a bit. This time, his creatine was down, and his BUN was up. I imagine diabetes is masking or changing these readings.

- After talking to the vet about his diet, she didn't seem to think we should change it, since there didn't seem a lot to be gained since he's already been on a low carb/species appropriate diet.

Overall, I'm really anxious about all of this and I just want to do what's best for him so he's happy and healthy.
 
The Renal Support D wet food is listed as 16% carbs, which we consider high carb food. Low carb food is considered under 10% carbs, most people feed around the 3-6% range. How are his phosphorus numbers? You might be able to find some commercially available foods that are low phosphorus and suitable for kidney disease. My cat had CKD and I gave her a raw diet made with a premix that was low phosphorus. This food chart is a little out of date now, but you can find a number of low carb/low phosphorus foods on it that are still available. Some of our member may stop by that have compiled a list of current foods that work for both condition.

Lantus is a good choice and you might be able to get it cheaper by buying a generic glargine insulin. Other alternatives are Basaglar and Semglee.

As for being out of town, people have found petsitters, neighbours, or relatives that can come and do shots. Some vet clinics will board, and I've seen catteries that do shots too.

As for social life, with Lantus you should give shots as close as possible to 12 hours apart. So you need to find a shot schedule that works for your work and things you like to do. And based on learning how your cat uses the insulin and when his low points are, you learn when you need to be around and when you don't. I found a schedule that allowed me to do workouts in the AM before shot time and go out for later dinners. We have a great set of friends who "get it" and I would sometimes go there for appies and dinner, zip home for feed and shot time, then back for dessert as they took a break for after dinner coffee. Another thing that really helped was an automated feeder, I used the Petsafe 5. Once I knew when Neko's lows tended to be, I could program the feeder to open and offer her food, which is the way to keep them safe.
 
Hello and welcome to you and Black. Good job on lobbying for insulin glargine (Lantus/Basaglar/etc) it is way better for cats than Vetsulin.

I am pretty new to this whole ordeal myself so just saying hi and welcome to the club. I hope you find a solution to your challenge of not being home to give the insulin, maybe hire a vet tech or something I guess, would be my only thought.
 
Welcome! Black is beautiful! I also have a senior cat who has kidney disease which makes diabetes a little more challenging because all of the kidney friendly food are typically higher carbohydrate. I have found this website to be incredible helpful http://felinecrf.org/canned_food_usa.htm

I also suggest having a second caretaker in your cat's life. Someone who can fill in if needed. I have heard of people finding good care on http://www.meowtel.com

I may have missed if you said this, but please also consider buying a blood glucose test kit for you at home. The Lantus board will have greater detail on all this. I myself have a cat who gets late nadirs. If I didn't read her and just gave insulin, she would not be OK.

Wishing you the best. This website is so supportive and the people are so smart!
 
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Welcome
Kitties with diabetes and kidney disease
Weruva foods
With weruva foods
You want the metabolizable energy profile percentage of carbs to be less than 10%, and the phosphorus which Weruva lists in Minerals to be less than 250 mg per 100 cals. So you have to look at two different places in the Weruva charts.
https://weruva.com
You can feed them both the same food
When you go to the weruva site and click on one of the pic of the food , click in Detailed Nutrition information

Also here is a list of foods for diabetics/kidney disease that was posted by one of our members
Here is a list of some of the food
As far as the food goes
For kitties with kidney disease and diabetes



. First number is carb percentage, second is mgs of phosphorus/100 cals, all less than 10% carb and less than 250 mg phos:

Weruva Truluxe Steak Frites can 6% 118
Weruva Cats in the Kitchen La Isla Bonita can 3% 166
Weruva Cats in the Kitchen Pates Meowiss Bueller pouch 7% 174
Weruva Truluxe Glam 'N Punk can 0.6% 180
Weruva Cats in the Kitchen Fowl Ball can 4% 180
Weruva Classic Pates Jeopurrdy Licious pouch 4% 187
Weruva Classic Pates Family Food pouch 0% 191
Weruva Cats in the Kitchen Pates Cattyshack pouch 9% 211
BFF PLAY Tuna & Salmon Shhh... pouch 3% 223
BFF PLAY Tuna & Turkey Totes! pouch 2% 226
BFF PLAY Tuna & Chicken Chill Out pouch 2% 226
Weruva Cats in the Kitchen Pates Cat to the Future pouch 8% 235
Weruva Cats in the Kitchen Pates The Breakfast Cat pouch 9.7% 235
Weruva Classic Pates Meal of Fortune pouch 8% 236
Weruva Cats in the Kitchen Lamburgini can 8% 236
Weruva Cats in the Kitchen Double Dip can 8% 248

YOU WANT CARBS UNDER 10% AND PHOSPHORUS IDEALLY LOW 200's OR LESS



Here is another list posted by one of our members
Weruva slide and serve pate foods Family Food (.97 phosphorus and 0 carb).

Jeopurrdy Chicken (0.97 P 6.1 carb)

What a Crock 0.71 phosphorus and 8 carb lots of gravy so she loved it.

Goody stew shoes 0.71 phosphorus, 8.5 carb. This one was a big hit

Weruva Steak Frites (0.57 phosphorus 5.5 carb although I take out any big pieces of potatoes to try to limit the carbs just a bit)

Weruva LA isla Bonita - phosphorus 0.77 carb 4.5 (used to like, not a favorite anymore)

Glam and punk 1% carb, 0.93 phosphorous.

Weruva paw lickin chicken 3.3 carb 0.82 p

Press your lunch 5.9 carb. 0.82 phosphorous

Bff play Laugh Out Loud chicken and lamb 7.7 carb, 0.82 phosphorous

BFF play destiny (chicken and duck) 0.87 phosphorus 7.7 carb

Bff play chicken cherish 0.71 phosphorus 7.6 carb

Bff play best buds chicken and beef 7.9 carb 0.9 phosphorus

Bff play chicken Checkmate. 7.7 carb 0.7 phos

On the Cat Wok 3.8 carb 0.74 phos
 
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Thank you all so much for your input. Is the boiled chicken fine? He loves it enough to ask for it by name 3x before noon usually. There's really no way to stop him from grazing which is why I wanted the Lantus, to prevent any medical emergency should he not eat, wait to eat, etc. He's 18, there's no changing habits with this one. As for testing - are Human testing kits okay? Covid impacted my family somewhat hard so I have TONS of diabetic meters and testing strips, probably a few years worth. I would like to start getting his curves (not sure when the Lantus will get here but ideally will want him going by or on Monday)

As far as wet food goes, he loves wet gravy/bits food - i will try the Wereuva and see if I can get him to eat it. He's very picky.
 
Boiled or baked chicken is fine as a supplement, it's what many people here use as test treats. It's not a complete meal so he can't survive on just it. The Weruva is chunks with what looks like gravy. Do look at the calorie count on the different flavours, some are lower calorie than others so you'd have to get a lot in him to get him to gain weight.

And a big YES on human testing kits. That's what the majority of us here use and what everyone used before the companies that made pet meters started heavily marketing it. Look for a kit that needs the smallest blood drop. It'll make it easier for both of you.
 
I don't think I'll have any trouble getting him to eat as much as he needs, he's always been highly foot motivated. Thank you for the tips.
 
Good news, although his Lantus isn't here yet, I decided to start working him into lower carb wet food. I started with sample can of Weruva Paw Lickin Chicken, and well he does seem to enjoy that he didn't even let me finish serving it on the plate to start eating.
 
I am curious however - since he is both a CKD cat and now diabetic, is the tradeoff on the low phosphorus of his current food (16% carbs, 80 phosphorus)) to Weruva (3% carbs, 196 phosphorus) worthwhile?
 
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Can you post his lab results please?. There is a place for it in the spreadsheet.
We can then see where the CKD lab results sit.
If the CKD is not all that advanced, the Weruva brand has several options for phosphorus that is under 200 mg phos/100kcals which should be fine to use..

If he is not yet on insulin, I would be testing daily for ketones in the urine. You can do this by buying a bottle of Ketostix from a pharmacy and following the directions on the bottle.
 
The vet didn't send me the lab results, so I only have his results up to last August, but I'll enter those just to give a baseline.

As for insulin, he will be starting as soon as the shipment arrives, which i hope is this weekend.
 
zerovector said:
he vet didn't send me the lab results, so I only have his results up to last August, but I'll enter those just to give a baseline.
Click to expand...
I would email the vet and ask him to send you the lab results. They are yours as you paid for them. It is always helpful to us if we can see lab results.
 
Wendy&Neko said:
Boiled or baked chicken is fine as a supplement, it's what many people here use as test treats. It's not a complete meal so he can't survive on just it. The Weruva is chunks with what looks like gravy. Do look at the calorie count on the different flavours, some are lower calorie than others so you'd have to get a lot in him to get him to gain weight.

And a big YES on human testing kits. That's what the majority of us here use and what everyone used before the companies that made pet meters started heavily marketing it. Look for a kit that needs the smallest blood drop. It'll make it easier for both of you.
Click to expand...
My guy Joe is a total boiled chicken addict. Because it is not a complete meal, I add this https://www.foodfurlife.com/store/p4/EZComplete_Fur_Cats_450g_-_Makes_24.2_lbs_of_food.html#/
Joe loves it and eats very well now. His other favs are Steak Frites and Glam and Punk both from Weruva and I keep a case of each on hand but he would eat his chicken with completer for every meal and be happy. He has gained all his weight back this way. His phosphorus levels have dropped from like 5.4 to 3.8 from a year of eating this way
 
Susan Pomo said:
My guy Joe is a total boiled chicken addict. Because it is not a complete meal, I add this https://www.foodfurlife.com/store/p4/EZComplete_Fur_Cats_450g_-_Makes_24.2_lbs_of_food.html#/
Joe loves it and eats very well now. His other favs are Steak Frites and Glam and Punk both from Weruva and I keep a case of each on hand but he would eat his chicken with completer for every meal and be happy. He has gained all his weight back this way. His phosphorus levels have dropped from like 5.4 to 3.8 from a year of eating this way
Click to expand...


I will pick up a bag of this, thank you for the suggestion!
 
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