Advice needed! Feb 17, 2024 new member

[Monsieur Meow]

Our cat (10.5yrs) has just been diagnosed with diabetes.
Some backstory:
He is neutered and 10.5 yrs old. About 3 years ago he was diagnosed with lower feline urinary tract disease. Vet put him on hills prescription c/d urinary care. Meow (our cat) has always not liked the food. He was around 16 lbs for most of his life and recently dropped to 12lbs within the last months. He has also not wanted to eat anything other than wet food and drinking lots of water.
About 6 months ago he started having random seizure-like behavior. (Drunk walk, stary-eyed, etc.) But only for about 1-2 min and would be fine after laying down and having a treat.
We took meow to the vet 5 months ago for this and they did urinalysis, cbc and said his thyroid was in "the grey area" . They also thought he might have hyperthroidism and pushed us to start medication without a priper diagnosis. They also said the seizures could be from epilepsy and they could start medication for that as well. We declined both. He also had a uti. Other than that he was healthy.

Today we took him to the vet and found he has glucose in his urine and his glucose level was at 28 mmol. They started him on insulin and switched his food to their wet food but cut back the amount he eats daily by almost half.

Our worry is that this is preliminary and can be fixed with a higher quality food. We are hesitant to give him insulin and make him dependent on it when from what we have read online that this is at a manageable level through diet.
What are your experiences/thoughts?

 

[Sienne and Gabby (GA)]

Sorry to hear what you've been through. From what you've described, it seems like your vet is quick to jump to diagnoses. The best way to confirm the diagnosis is with a fructosamine test. In all honesty, given how high your cat's blood glucose level was, I think it's likely your cat is diabetic.

The quality of the food is less of a concern than the amount of carbohydrates in what the vet recommended. Just to make it more challenging, unlike in human food labeling, pet foods are not required to display the carbohydrates. However, this is a chart that lists most of the canned foods that are available in the US and has information regarding carbohydrates. We consider low carb to be under 10% although most people here feed their cat a diet that is around 5% (give or take) carb. Also, cutting back your cat's food makes no sense at this point. When food is metabolized, it's broken down into glucose. Insulin is what helps to transport glucose into the cells. In a yet to be controlled diabetic, glucose continues to float around in the blood and nutrition isn't getting into the cells. This is why diabetics are hungry all of the time, eat, and lose weight. Until you know if your cat's blood glucose is under control, your cat is going to be ravenous.

In order to know what's going on with your cat's blood glucose, we strongly recommend home testing. You can get a human meter at any pharmacy. I'm assuming you're not in the US given that you referred to mmol/L. (We have some different choices for glucometers in the US.) If you want to know the effect of a change in diet, testing your cat's blood is the best way to do so. We have resources to help you with home testing. It's also even more important to home test if you start using insulin.

What insulin did your vet prescribe? The American Animal Hospital Assn guidelines for the treatment of diabetes recommend either Lantus (glargine) or Prozinc for the treatment of feline diabetes. The other more commonly prescribed insulin (Caninsulin/Vetsulin) does not have adequate duration given a cat's fast metabolism.

 

[Larry and Kitties]

They started him on insulin and switched his food to their wet food but cut back the amount he eats daily by almost half.

What specific insulin? What does and dosing interval (twice daily)
Changing to canned is good
However, cutting back is not good. At high BGs the cat does not process food efficiently and a lot of food is required to main weight. When BG gets better food needs should decrease. Best way to determine amount of food is to frequently weight the cat and adjust amount accordingly.

Our worry is that this is preliminary and can be fixed with a higher quality food. We are hesitant to give him insulin and make him dependent on it when from what we have read online that this is at a manageable level through diet.

Sometimes remission can be obtained by diet alone first but a lot of time remission can be obtained by both duet and insulin and reducing insulin as necessary

Most of us here check BG@hoe using a human meter. That way insulin dose can be adjusted as necessary.