Digestive enzymes and diabetic kitties

[Consorte_bella]

Hi everyone,

My other cat luna is having some digestion issues and I am going to be putting her on salmon oil and digestive enzyme powder. I read on a few sites that digestive enzymes may affect a diabetic cat, but I am having a hard time finding concrete evidence. I would ask our current vet, but to be honest, I don't really trust the vets in my new town beyond really basic stuff. FYI, my sugar cat Nigel did show some pancreas damage in the last X-ray we had done, which was sent to internal specialists to look at. I was told there is nothing that can be done for this, but I know the pancreas deals with enzymes, so I thought I'd throw this out there. I am also going to try and get some input from from my vet in my hometown.

I'm jus trying to figure out if I need to keep luna separate from Nigel when she gets the enzymes. Thanks!

 

[IttyBit]

We'll be seeing an IM vet tomorrow where I'll also be asking this. I have 4 cats & it seems they'd all benefit from it. A couple posted on some of mine that they give their sugar babies enzymes. I just bought the Mercola one for mine. Which one are you planning to use?

 

[BJM]

Chronic pancreatitis may cause damage to the enzyme producing portion of the pancreas.there are specific tests for this which should be done fasting, unless your vet is OK with an empirical approach (treat based on symptoms consistent with the diagnosis). Doing that may help if you've guessed right; there is the potential to treat incorrectly when you guess wrong.

I've seen noted that too much of the enzyme supplement may cause digestive upset, so if you do this, start low (1/8 teaspoon maybe), go slow, mix well into food.

Probiotics may provide additional digestive support. Intelliflora, Forti Flora, or a reasppon or so of plain rogurt with active cultures (if OK with dairy) may be used.

 

[Wendy&Tiggy(GA)]

My Bailey is diabetic and also has exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI) which is probably under diagnosed in diabetic cats. It means he needs enzymes with every meal in order to digest his food. He doesn't get them he has diarrhea (or large pale smelly puffy poops) and loses weight. We had him tested for it as BJ said - his TLI was 6. (norm is 12-82)

He gets 1/4 tsp of enzymes per can of fancy feast but we had to build up to that gradually and very slowly over a month because he would get an upset stomach. Even though we followed instructions to mix it well and let sit for 20 minutes before feeding. And its still less than the vet wants but any more than that he hunches and stops eating and drools from nausea.

We also give hime 1/4 pepcid a/c every couple of days as he is prone to throwing up as part of the issue. Famotidine is supposed to help the condition in general.

He also needs weekly vitamin B12 shots.

Wendy