Chromium

[jerseycat]

Hi All,

My name is Stephanie I am new to the FDMB....We have 3 cats, my oldest Zoe (16)
has been diabetic for 6 yrs. She is getting insulin shots twice daily the entire time, but
as she is getting older I have been looking for additional supplements to give her, had
her since she was a kitten & want her to live forever!! Came across several recommendations for
giving diabetics Chromium....has anyone tried this or
heard of it being successful? Any other suggestions on what to give her? Thanks!!

 

[Wendy&Tiggy(GA)]

Never heard of it, however if you give us more information we may have other suggestions for you.. What are you feeding, what kind of insulin and so on..

 

[jerseycat]

Currently feeding her Fancy Feast wet classics only, vet said they didnt have gluten, and
Purina One salmon & brown rice dry....she is on Humilin N...her insulin went down by almost
1/2 last fall from 6 units twice daily to 3 1/2 twice daily

 

[Wendy&Tiggy(GA)]

hmm.. its up to you since she is doing well but you might be able to better control her blood glucose with the following changes

1. start home testing her blood
2. Stop feeding dry - but start testing blood first as her blood glucose could drop quite a bit... and so her insulin needs will change. You dont want to do this unless you are home testing.
3. Change to a better insulin like Lantus or Levemir or province. Humalin is rough on their systems.

After 6 years its not as likely these changes will cause remission (but they could) but it might make a bit of improvement to her blood glucose levels and thats always good for the cat.

Wendy

 

[jerseycat]

Tried home testing, but she is not an easy cat, so gave up, felt I was hurting her.....
Will speak to the vet about switching insulins, didnt know there were other options!
Taking away her dry food may be a tough one, Zoe loves, loves, loves her dry....Thanks for the advice!

 

[KPassa]

Welcome!

Tried home testing, but she is not an easy cat, so gave up, felt I was hurting her.....
Will speak to the vet about switching insulins, didnt know there were other options!
Taking away her dry food may be a tough one, Zoe loves, loves, loves her dry....Thanks for the advice!

We have quite a few tips to help you with home testing. Don't worry; it's more of an inconvenience for cats than it is painful (our own fingertips are more sensitive than a cat's ears). Please let us know if you're having any specific problems or issues with testing that we might be able to address directly.

If you want, you can print out the AAHA Guidelines for diabetes to take with you to your vet. It spells out the two best insulin options for diabetic felines are Lantus/glargine and PZI/ProZinc (not "province," as Wendy's ipad auto-corrected :lol: ). At the time that was written (2010), Levemir/determir hadn't been used extensively in cats yet, but since then, Levemir has definitely proven to be as good as (if not better than) Lantus in helping regulate feline diabetics.

As for food, Catinfo.org is a website written by a veterinarian and she's included an entire section for help in transitioning dry food addicts that might be beneficial for you and Zoe. If all else fails, there are some lower carb dry food options available out there that we could recommend that might help Zoe out further. (Most dry food is loaded with carbs, which is like kryptonite for diabetics.) A warning, however, is that if you choose to get rid of the dry, you will want to be home testing since dry food alone can cause a 100 to 200 points or more change in their BGs. If you're not monitoring and decreasing the insulin as needed, this could lead to a hypo.

And please feel free to ask any questions. We're here to help. :thumbup

 

[morrieb1]

Hi All,

My name is Stephanie I am new to the FDMB....We have 3 cats, my oldest Zoe (16)
has been diabetic for 6 yrs. She is getting insulin shots twice daily the entire time, but
as she is getting older I have been looking for additional supplements to give her, had
her since she was a kitten & want her to live forever!! Came across several recommendations for
giving diabetics Chromium....has anyone tried this or
heard of it being successful? Any other suggestions on what to give her? Thanks!!

I give chromium picolinate to my diabetic cat - roughly 250 mg once a day. I saw it mentioned in a number of places, including a reference paper here on FD http://www.felinediabetes.com/diabetes-in-cats.htm - and Jacquie Rand discusses it in her book "Feline Diabetes, An Issue of Veterinary Clinics: Small Animal Practice"...she reports that a research study on healthy cats given >300mg of chromium picolinate daily showed reduced blood glucose levels, but that further study was needed before definite recommendations could be made. (I haven't read the whole book, but there are excerpts available online if you google).

I can't say for sure that it works, but I do believe that my cat is better regulated with the chromium - I've been getting much more consistent preshots from the same dose of Lantus and even when I've had to settle for once a day dosing, her preshot BG levels have been within about 10% of what they are with twice a day dosing.

Em