Day 2… not great

[MonkeysMom]

Today was our second day of our new diabetic reality with our cat Monkey. We did ok with morning shot but tonight was not so good. Monkey is a very nervous kitty… especially since I had to start pilling him… he is often wary. So he would not eat tonight. We didn’t know what to do so this is what we did:
We gave him about two spoons of his “old” food, Fancy Feast gravy lovers and some cooked chicken. I also gave him 6 temptation treats which he’s technically not supposed to have anymore. We were desperate to get him to eat so we could give him his evening jab. He didn’t eat very much of any of that so we decided to reduce his insulin from 3 down to 1. So I’m wondering how bad did we mess up? Was reducing the insulin ok? Was giving him some higher carb old favorites the right thing to do? We switched him yesterday… his first day home with us as diabetic… we switched him to Fancy Feast pate and for a few treats DrElseys Clean Protein kibble.

Also… are diabetic cats expected to go the whole 12 hour day with nothing to eat?? Monkey was used to free feeding dry food between his canned meals. Do we need to make these changes slower and not all at once. We are so stressed out.

 

[Mary & Jude]

Welcome to the forum! And welcome to feline diabetes, which, as you said, is a new reality (sadly). Hopefully, you'll find a lot of helpful resources here.

Did you gradually switch him to the new food? Sometimes it's best to do that for a couple of reasons: 1) to avoid tummy upsets and 2) so that their blood glucose doesn't drop too much, suddenly, when introduced to a lower carb food. Some cats actually go into remission with simply a food change to lower carb. I guess I could add a third reason: gradually introducing new food by mixing it with the old can sometimes help with the adjustment.

Typically, it's best to feed diabetic cats several smaller meals throughout the cycle, with the exception that you want to withhold food at least two hours prior to their a.m./p.m. preshot tests.

Please help us to know a bit more about Monkey by completing your signature. The instructions for completing the signature are located here: Sticky - New? How You Can Help Us Help You!.

What insulin is he on?

Are you home testing? And are you keeping a spreadsheet on Monkey? The link above offers instructions for setting up a spreadsheet--if you have any problems, let us know and we'll be glad to help. You'll want to keep track of Monkey's blood glucose numbers and his dosing on the spreadsheet. When folks step in to offer guidance, they'll need to see that information.

 

[Connie & Parker & Moonie]

Mary provided a lot of great information above! The only thing I'd add is that there are a lot of LC carb options (below 10% carbs) so you may want to keep experimenting with Monkey's food if he doesn't like his new LC one.

This is a good list - www.bizave.com/foodlists/Main%20List.pdf

Moonie was a previous Meow Mix / FF gravy fiend and I used to really struggle to get her to accept LC food. We started out with 0-3% carb food (Tiki Cat, FF pates) - a lot of cats like them, but Moonie really struggled with the texture, and we ended up going to a 7.5% carb mousse food, which she loves. 7.5% is on the high end of LC but still a lot better than her old diet and it's been working well for us.

 

[Wendy&Neko]

Another good topper that is low carb is freeze dried all meat treats. Many cats go nuts for crumbled freeze dried chicken, Purebites is one such brand,

3 units is a large dose of insulin to start, we typically start with 1 unit (depending on diet), unless there are medical issues like ketones or DKA at diagnosis.