Dec 18 New Member

[Tim Drukker]

One of my cats, Mini was diagnosed with diabetes a couple of weeks ago. Mini is 7 years 3 months old and was adopted along with his mother from our garden. Mini comes and goes as he pleases, he is not kept indoors.

A couple of years back Mini had a liver problem when one of his enzymes went off the scale and after a week in the Royal Veterinary College Hospital we were instructed to move him to a hypoallergenic diet. This consists of Royal Canin Hypoallergenic dry food, together with Royal Canin gastrointestinal wet food pouches and Hills I/D wet food pouches.

Mini is refusing to take the Hills I/D so we are effectively left with the Royal Canin wet and dry. There is no other wet food that appears to be available other than Specific FDW (a pate) which he refuses to eat.

The vets advice is not to change his diet. I suspect that this is because we cannot find a hypoallergenic food that is specific for diabetic cats. Taking him off hypoallergenic food is simply not possible as the likelihood is that he wouldn’t survive.

If I take out the dry food one suspects he might get a tad bored with what he’s being fed.

I guess the question really is, is are there any cat diabetic foods that to your knowledge are also hypoallergenic.

I am of course grateful for any assistance.

Thanks in advance
Tim

 

[Bron and Sheba (GA)]

Hi Tim and Mini and welcome to the forum.
I can’t really help you with the food but I will give you a couple of links to food charts we have here and you might be able to find what you are feeding and see how many carbs they have. Ideally having carbs under 10% is best for diabetic cats.
It might be worth contacting the RVCH and asking them what they think about keeping Mini on the hypoallergenic food amd if they have any suggestions. The dry food will be higher in carbs than the wet food. Here are two food charts.
FOOD CHART

FOOD CHARTr

If it is essential to stay on the hypoallergenic food, you will just have to adjust the insulin dose.
I would recommend you think about hometesting the blood glucose so you know exactly what Mini’s blood glucose is doing. Otherwise it is guesswork with curves at the vet every few weeks. And cats blood glucose changes several times a day. It is not as scary as it sounds, Mini will not hate you and he will get used to it surprisingly our quickly. We have a spreadsheet which you can upload and enter all the data. We can give you more information if you are interested.
Mini is still young so getting what’s best for him is essential, and feline diabetes is a very treatable disease.

If you can show us what you are feeding at the moment. Maybe take a photo of the ingredients, we may be able to tell how many carbs. Our ‘upload a file’ link is not working atm, so you will need to copy and paste the photos.
I won’t be online much longer but @Bandit's Mom may be able to help you.
Bron

 

[Sienne and Gabby (GA)]

Tim --

A lot may depend on what you mean by hypoallergenic. Many cats have sensitivities to certain proteins. The common proteins, beef, poultry, and fish are often a source of GI issues along with gluten, gums, and carrageenan. Feeding your cat novel proteins may be worth a try. This is a common strategy for cats with inflammatory bowel disease. Many of us with IBD cats will feed our kitties a raw diet or a combination of raw and canned novel proteins. I have an IBD cat who gets a combination of raw plus a premix that adds all of the nutrients for a balanced diet and ZiwiPeak venison or rabbit and lamb.

The difficulty with the foods you're currently feeding Mini is that they are quite high in carbohydrates. Royal Canin is typically very high in carbs. Given that Mini is an indoor/outdoor cat, have you started giving insulin? If you can't change your cat's diet to a low carbohydrate alternative, it's likely that insulin will be needed. If you're going to be giving insulin, will you be able to home test in order to ensure Mini is in safe numbers?

 

[Sienne and Gabby (GA)]

I also came across this post from @Butters & Lyla:

Just came here to say that I have been feeding Butters z/d since around August and officially started a food trial (z/d and NOTHING else) in September due to her having suspected Triaditis and also she experiences pruritus (don't yet know what is causing that). I did a consult with a boarded nutritionist who said that the studies show that hydrolyzed diets have a higher success rate for cats with GI inflammation and allergies or hypersensitivities (i can't remember which one) versus novel protein. So the nutritionist narrowed her diet choice for Butters down to z/d or the Royal Canin Anallergenic. Ultimately went with z/d because it comes in canned and not just dry. Butters's GI issues have been so much better since then. Yes, I've had to give her more insulin. Her numbers are a little more difficult to control but after seeing how painful Butters was when she had a flare up, I'd rather give her a high carb food and more insulin any day.

 

[Red & Rover (GA)]

Welcome, Tim. Waving from Canada.

Here is the link for diabetic friendly UK food: UK Cat Food List
Scroll down to Air-Dried Meat Food and Dry Kibble Type Food.

 

[Butters & Lyla]

Additional info regarding what I have learned having to juggle Butters's diabetes and suspected triaditis/IBD and confirmed chronic pancreatitis and CKD:

One other suggestion from Butters's nutritionist that I'll share with you is to use a hypoallergenic dry food but soak it before you feed, or blend a day's worth of it with water to make it into a pate, so it is like wet food. I've done it with z/d dry and Butters loves it. She had me buy a new blender carafe that is only used for her food, because she said plastic can be contaminated by whatever has been in it previously.

Hills z/d is a hypoallergenic, hydrolyzed food so that could be another option. Butters was eating the wet food okay as long as I crushed up some dry food and sprinkled it over top, like one might sprinkle parmesan cheese over a plate of spaghetti. She only wants kibble right now, though. I soak the kibble until they swell to almost 3x their original size, by my estimate. Plus I leave the soaking water on the plate or in the chilled autofeeder with the swollen kibble to make sure she gets enough water.

Unfortunately, when you're dealing with a cat with multiple health problems you're going to have to prioritize. So here I am feeding my diabetic CKD cat high-carb kibble. I stand by what I'm doing because the GI flares were the most high priority issue, even higher than the diabetes, and they seem to be under control now <anti-jinx>.

The nutritionist vet I saw will also in certain cases recommend a homemade novel protein diet. She puts together the recipe using a novel protein and novel fibre source, like zucchini, and then the correct supplements blend which can be ordered from balanceit. I believe that balanceit also offers consults with nutritionist vets.