Greetings! New diabetic kitty

Status
Not open for further replies.
Noel-Mischief’s mom

Noel-Mischief’s mom

Member Since 2023
;)Holy overwhelmed batman!

Hello you lovely folks here at FDMB. I have been reading post behind the scenes for a few weeks now trying to acclimate to this new world of all-things-diabetes. I am a teacher and off for summer break and taking advantage of this time of less work demands to ramp up my care for my diabetic kitty, Mischief.

I am blessed to be 8 minutes away (in real life) from "Jan Radar" (Radar [GA]'s momma). She has been guiding me through some of the best get-started steps and helping me maintain my confidence instead of losing my mind.

I adopted Mischief at 9 weeks from a local shelter 11 years ago. She was on glaucoma eyedrops for 2 years from age 9 month till almost 3 years old to manage a high pressure issue. It's never come back. Initially it presented as symptoms similar to feline herpes, but it was NOT that. Then, she got colitis and had three flares of yucky poops and issues within a year which prompted the vet to put her on Hills z/d prescription diet. I've had mixed feelings from the start about this food and I HATE how it smells. Because the smell was so gross Mischief was on Royal Kanin Hydrolyzed protein dry kibble for her AM meal and the z/d for her pm meal (z/d did NOT come in a dry). She has been measured fed since 2017. We have another kitty in the home, Zowie, who is a medical champ with no issues. Zowie is 14.

Mischief was recently diagnosed with diabetes on April 30, 2023. We took her to the vet after she looked me dead in the eyes and peed on her favorite scratcher and then her favorite bed on Friday night, April 28. Saturday morning we got her in for a full senior blood panel and some expensive gravity urine test. So, $700 later, the vet called on Sunday to confirm that Mischief absolutely had a Urinary Tract Infection... and... also... diabetes. Some time later I asked the vet for glucose numbers and he said pre-insulin she was 430 from this test.

Back to the vet we went for a strong antibiotic shot and an insulin script. The vet gave the prescription of feeding first and then giving 2 units. After reading information here and taking years of guidance in Jan's brain, my husband and I decided to SLGS and put Mischief on 1 unit pre feed. We also switched her to ALL WET. She is on prescription diet (Hills z/d) and has been since Dec. 2017 for colitis management. I'd like to move her to a protein forward wet food, but the vet is REALLY hesitant on this, so right now we are just in a holding pattern and staying on the z/d until I get started on testing. We ordered a meter, strips, and lancets today so testing and spreadsheet data will begin as soon as the delivery arrives.

Edit: I can not get Mischief's Spreadsheet to post in my signature.
 
Last edited:
You seem to already have a lot of good info which is great. A few questions:
  1. Did you order a human or pet meter?
  2. What insulin are you getting?
  3. I can’t find Hills z/d in the food chart but all of the prescription foods are typically high in carbs. I wonder if there are other colitis friendly foods that are low carb. Minnie was on a human colitis probiotics that was helpful. It’s called Visbiome
tagging a few others here @Bron and Sheba (GA) @Sienne and Gabby (GA)
 
Hi and welcome to the forum Noel and Mischief.
Great you have been getting help from Jan Radar.
You are on a great insulin for cats and 1 U bd is a good starting dose.
The z/d dry food is 38% carbs so is not at all suitable for any cats, let alone a diabetic cat. The wet z/d is 10.9% carbs
The Royal Canin Hydrolyzed protein dry kibble looks to be even higher in carbs than the z/d dry food.
Just have a look at the ingredients on all the prescription foods. There is hardly any meat..it is mostly carbs and other things.
Once you start hometesting the BGs I would start reducing the dry and start on a low carb wet food which will almost certainly drop the BGs by at least 100 points. So dont do any swaps until you are hometesting.
As far as the food goes, I would look at trying a novel protein that Mischief has not had before. You might like to think about doing a home made diet where you can control what goes into the food, and use a supplement to make it a complete meal. If you are interested w can help you with that.
UTIs are common in diabetic cats because of the glucose in the urine.
 
Thank you so much for all the info!

1- I ordered a human meter. It requires a 0.5 sample size. It’s by Arkray. I could not find a model number, but I will post that once it arrives for better info.
2- Mischief is in Lantus
3- I will see about getting some colitis supports. My vet never brought up a human colitis probiotic support, but that makes sense as a good option!

I am trying to remember back to 2017 when it all happened with the food switch. I had mischief on high protein wet food, but her labs came back with something high… I’m thinking it was protein/kidney related. Now I’m learning that it’s “normal” for some levels to be high when cats are on high protein/all protein/raw diets. Even on the z/d I’ve never been a no-treat regimented momma. So mischief has still had other proteins especially when we had our previous dog, Meko. The cat and dog would both sit for chicken and steak treats. And this has never caused a colitis issue since 2017 ‍♀️
Ale & Bobo & Minnie (GA) said:
You seem to already have a lot of good info which is great. A few questions:
  1. Did you order a human or pet meter?
  2. What insulin are you getting?
  3. I can’t find Hills z/d in the food chart but all of the prescription foods are typically high in carbs. I wonder if there are other colitis friendly foods that are low carb. Minnie was on a human colitis probiotics that was helpful. It’s called Visbiome
tagging a few others here @Bron and Sheba (GA) @Sienne and Gabby (GA)
Click to expand...
 
Thank you!
Since the Dx Mischief has been on all wet z/d. I knew carbs in the dry had to be too much but i never imagined almost 40%! Yikes.

We just got a chip-reading feeder so that Zowie cat’s dry food will be inaccessible to Mischief. Zowie refuses to eat anything except kibbles.

I will look at the food links this weekend to see what other options might be a good fit for Mischief. Would a novel protein be like beef or lamb or something like that since she has been on the z/d which uses chicken liver as the protein source?

Bron and Sheba (GA) said:
Hi and welcome to the forum Noel and Mischief.
Great you have been getting help from Jan Radar.
You are on a great insulin for cats and 1 U bd is a good starting dose.
The z/d dry food is 38% carbs so is not at all suitable for any cats, let alone a diabetic cat. The wet z/d is 10.9% carbs
The Royal Canin Hydrolyzed protein dry kibble looks to be even higher in carbs than the z/d dry food.
Just have a look at the ingredients on all the prescription foods. There is hardly any meat..it is mostly carbs and other things.
Once you start hometesting the BGs I would start reducing the dry and start on a low carb wet food which will almost certainly drop the BGs by at least 100 points. So dont do any swaps until you are hometesting.
As far as the food goes, I would look at trying a novel protein that Mischief has not had before. You might like to think about doing a home made diet where you can control what goes into the food, and use a supplement to make it a complete meal. If you are interested w can help you with that.
UTIs are common in diabetic cats because of the glucose in the urine.
Click to expand...
 
A novel protein is one that he has not eaten before. eg Pork, venison, turkey, rabbit...there ar eothers but my brain won't tell me !
There are freeze dried foods that are low carb put out by Ziwi Peak and and Stella & Chewy that are suitable. Your other kitty might like them as well.
If your other kitty is eating only dry food and wont change, I would look at getting a low carb dry food which is available in the US.
There is Young Again Zero Carbs which is 5% carbs and Dr Elseys Clean Protein. Feeding only high carb dry food to a cat is not only bad for the pancreas, it is bad for the kidneys which needs lots of fluids running through them.
 
Noel-Mischief’s mom said:
am trying to remember back to 2017 when it all happened with the food switch. I had mischief on high protein wet food, but her labs came back with something high… I’m thinking it was protein/kidney related. Now I’m learning that it’s “normal” for some levels to be high when cats are on high protein/all protein/raw diets.
Click to expand...
Are you able to get the lab results form 2017 from the vet and post them?
 
Noel-Mischief’s mom said:
Edit: I can not get Mischief's Spreadsheet to post in my signature.
Click to expand...
Hi Noel I don't know if you missed Bhooma's reply to this about linking your spreadsheet to your signature You can just put Mischiefs SS to shorten it :cat: By the way she's adorable

Just paste the link to Mischief's Signature as a second line in your Signature. There may be a limit to the number of characters per line in the Signature. Let me know if this works.
@Noel-Mischief’s mom
 
Last edited:
Duck is also a novel protein :cat:

The great thing about probiotics is that if it doesn’t help, it won’t hurt either and you don’t need a prescription. Minnie was taking 1/4 capsule of Visbiome once a day. I just mixed it with some baby food for her. Her vet didn’t mention it either, but her nutritionist did! You can order directly from their website.
 
Regarding which proteins, a great deal may depend on what you had been feeding Mischief. I have a kitty with IBD. Thinking that poultry would be a good choice, I was feeding my cats either chicken or turkey. As it turns out, chicken, turkey and beef are common food sensitivities for cats and an all fish diet isn't particularly good for them either due to the potential for mercury. When Gizmo was diagnosed with IBD, the vet recommended that I don't feed him quail or duck since the molecular structure is too similar to other poultry. My guys are fed a partially raw diet (I rotate pork, venison, and bison) along with ZiwiPeak venison and sometimes their rabbit and lamb variety, and Stella and Chewy's rabbit morsels (which are freeze dried raw). Gizmo does well on this combination.
 
My 2 cats had IBD too and it’s a process of trial and error. Luckily I figured out that beef was a no no for both of them and once I removed beef from their diets, they both did much better!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top