Diabetes Diagnosis

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catfanguppygirl

catfanguppygirl

Member Since 2017
Hi fellow cat fans. I'm new to this forum. Earlier this week, I took my cat, Megan, to the vet for vomitting. She's always vomitted quite a bit her whole life (she's 9) but this last week seemed a little excessive and she kept waking me up in the middle of the night while she was doing it. The vet decided to run some diagnostic tests such as a blood test and Xray. In the Xray, she found quite a bit of gas in Megan's tummy and in the blood test, everything looked good except the glucose level. I wanna say I thought I saw it say 256. The vet thought that maybe the elevated level was due to stress and so she did a urinalysis which confirmed there was glucose in her urine also. The weird thing about all this is that I haven't noticed any other symptoms. She doesn't eat a whole lot, is not dropping weight, doesn't drink a whole lot or pee more than normal.

Because she wasn't showing any symptoms, the vet decided against starting her on insulin that day and said to bring her back in a week or two to recheck. In the mean time, the vet said to fee her a high protein diet made up of preferably wet food. The problem is my cat prefers dry food. She will eat wet food but not much of it. I don't want her to starve because that can cause more problems so I bought a bag of Natures Variety Ultimate Protein dry food since the protein content was high. Also, I have 2 other cats that are young and healthy and one of them loves dry food also.

What do you folks think could be going on with my cat? Do you think what the tests show is legit even though she isn't showing any other symptoms? Also, as much as I plan to try and feed her mostly wet food, is the NV Ultimate Protein food alright to feed her if she decides to go on a hunger strike? Thanks in advance for your time. I'm just a worried cat mom trying to figure all this out.
 
If you want to go to the expense of buying a glucose meter (maybe the same one the vet has) and check at home then you could compare to what your kitty is reading at the vet's. My cat always runs higher when tested at the vet than when I test him at home. You could try sprinkling some Forti Flora or Pure Bites freeze dried treats that are all meat on top of wet food to entice her. My cat was a dry food addict and he is now eating just wet food. Never thought I would see that happen. He loves his single ingredient duck canned cat food now.
 
Up until 2 days ago and this possible diagnosis, I fed all my cats Fancy Feast and a mixture of dry food. The mixture I had been feeding was Hill's metabolic+urinary and Fromm's. I know the Hill's prescription diet has terrible ingredients in it so I was trying to offset the junk and high cost with Fromm's. I'm concerned that they found glucose in her urine too. It sounded like if it was stress related, it wouldn't have been in her urine also. To add to that, she's had blood work in the past at the vets and never showed a high glucose level.
 
If you live in the US, go to WalMart and get a Relion Confirm or Micro blood glucose meter, strips and some lancets (25-28 gauge are best for now)

By testing her at home, you'll be able to know for sure one way or the other.

There's no such thing as a good dry food for cats.....and in diabetic cats, it's even worse because all of it except 2 kinds are also high carb. Kidneys are the weak point in every cat, and dry food requires re-hydration before it's digested, so it pulls water from the body. To keep kidneys as healthy as possible, water is the key.

There are a couple of dry foods that are low enough in carbs for a diabetic if that ends up being what's going on, but again, you're going to be keeping all your kitties a lot healthier if you can break them from being kibble addicts now.

Lots of great information at www.catinfo.org
 
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