Hello All!

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roobot5000

Member Since 2013
I'm currently digesting all of the information I have obtained from my vet, felinediabetes.com, and the AAHA diabetic management guidelines for felines. Our 13 year old cat, Bubby, was just diagnosed with diabetes after doing a senior blood panel to determine his dramatic weight loss. Tonight he begins the DM diet and on Monday I begin insulin injections with him (1 unit twice a day). I look forward to perusing the information contained in the forums here and getting to know you all. If there is any advice you can give a newbie, hit me with it!

Thank you!
Lee
 
Welcome! There is great info for diet, hometesting (under the Health thread) and other miscellaneous things on the Forum page.
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/

As you will see, we like a mild long lasting insulin like Lantus, Levemir or ProZinc so hope your vet will prescribe one of those (if not, I would ask why and be prepared with some info on the best ones). We like to start low and go slow, beginning with one unit and increasing by .25 or .5 units as the home numbers indicate.

Purina DM wet is an okay food, but expensive and with ingredients no better than the regular pet store brands. It is heavily liver based and most cats will not eat it after awhile. Purina dry is too high in carbs for a diabetic cat. A vet explains why here:

Www.catinfo.org

And we test at home. More accurate (less stress on the cat which raises bg levels), less expensive and desperately necessary of the kitty is acting funny in the middle of the night and you aren't sure if they are too high or too low.

Read all you can and ask lots of questions. Everyone who answers you is paying it forward for help they received in the beginning.
 
See my signature link Secondary Monitoring Tools for some supplemental assessments you can make to see how your cat is doing. In particular, pick up some KetoDiaStix so you can monitor for ketones and excess glucose in the urine, 2 cardinal signs of uncontrolled diabetes.

Ketones are a by-product of fat breakdown for calories. Too many may indicate diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA), a potentially fatal, expensive to treat, complication of diabetes. It is more likely to happen when there is infection and the cat is not eating.
 
A diet change to a low carb food, like the canned DM, or the Fancy Feast classic pate style of the Friskies pate style foods, can drop the BG (blood glucose) levels 100 points. You might try the diet change alone for a week and get new BG readings.

Vet stress can raise the BG levels 100-180 points mg/dL. Home testing in a more familiar, relaxed environment gives you a better idea of the true BG levels.
 
Thank you for the warm welcome and information. I was reading about testing BG levels at home and really like that idea since he is a very shy cat. His levels were pretty high even with stress factored in, 484 and over the two week period of blood/urine comparison was over 660. Also, he has lost a lot of weight cumulatively, but it was about the last 3-4 pounds that dropped really quickly that had us concerned there was something more going on than just the aging process. Hope the diet change and insulin will make him much more comfortable and back to his old self.

We also have a younger cat in the house and they were free fed prior to the diagnosis and implementation of the new dietary regime. Anyone have any experience with keeping out a moderate amount of dry diabetic food during the day for free grazing with the younger cat having access to it too? Concerned both cats will get hungry between the morning and evening feedings. Is that an unreasonable concern?

Thanks again,
Lee
 
Lee,
We also have a younger cat in the house and they were free fed prior to the diagnosis and implementation of the new dietary regime. Anyone have any experience with keeping out a moderate amount of dry diabetic food during the day for free grazing with the younger cat having access to it too? Concerned both cats will get hungry between the morning and evening feedings. Is that an unreasonable concern?
Click to expand...
There are only a couple of dry foods available that are low enough to consider giving a diabetic cat. Don't go near the prescription "diabetic" dry foods your vet might suggest.
This is from the catinfo site:
Dry food addicts: I do not support the feeding of any dry food to any cat for many reasons (water depletion, high in carbohydrates, high in plant-based proteins, bacterial and fungal mycotoxin contamination, cooked-to-death which destroys nutrients, very calorically dense, etc.), but while you are working on the Tips for Transitioning Dry Food Addicts to Canned Food, please substitute your cat's high carb dry food with either EVO or Young Again
Click to expand...

Young Again is only available by ordering online. You might be able to find EVO locally.

Ideally, you'll be able to convince all your kitties that dry food is yucky and low-carb canned is what they were waiting for all their lives. :-D

I might have missed it, but which insulin did your vet prescribe?
 
Friskies canned pates are mainly low carb. Its okay to feed all of them that and leave it out for grazing.

If you're not yet using insulin, start swapping out the food about 20-25% different per day. This helps avoid digestive upset.

If you are already using insulin, focus on testing first,as food switches may drop the glucose around 100 mg/dL.
 
Carl & Bob (GA) said:
Lee,
We also have a younger cat in the house and they were free fed prior to the diagnosis and implementation of the new dietary regime. Anyone have any experience with keeping out a moderate amount of dry diabetic food during the day for free grazing with the younger cat having access to it too? Concerned both cats will get hungry between the morning and evening feedings. Is that an unreasonable concern?
Click to expand...
There are only a couple of dry foods available that are low enough to consider giving a diabetic cat. Don't go near the prescription "diabetic" dry foods your vet might suggest.
This is from the catinfo site:
Dry food addicts: I do not support the feeding of any dry food to any cat for many reasons (water depletion, high in carbohydrates, high in plant-based proteins, bacterial and fungal mycotoxin contamination, cooked-to-death which destroys nutrients, very calorically dense, etc.), but while you are working on the Tips for Transitioning Dry Food Addicts to Canned Food, please substitute your cat's high carb dry food with either EVO or Young Again
Click to expand...

Young Again is only available by ordering online. You might be able to find EVO locally.

Ideally, you'll be able to convince all your kitties that dry food is yucky and low-carb canned is what they were waiting for all their lives. :-D

I might have missed it, but which insulin did your vet prescribe?
Click to expand...

Hi Carl & Bob,

The insulin that was prescribed was Glargine. I don't mind switching both cats to wet food entirely, as they both had morning and evening feedings of it already with the dry to snack on during the day. I've read several places that the DM dry, which I bought, is not great for Bubby. That will be good for my wallet in the future. I will look for the EVO locally or just rid the house of dry cat food all together. Thank you for the link, off to read more on catinfo now.
 
BJM said:
Friskies canned pates are mainly low carb. Its okay to feed all of them that and leave it out for grazing.

If you're not yet using insulin, start swapping out the food about 20-25% different per day. This helps avoid digestive upset.

If you are already using insulin, focus on testing first,as food switches may drop the glucose around 100 mg/dL.
Click to expand...

Hello BJM:

I have been doing the gradual transition as to not upset Bubby's stomach. That's the last thing he needs to deal with on top of everything else.

I begin the insulin dosing on Monday and the following Monday he will be having his BG curve done at the vet to see if the medication is working and/or needs increasing. Having read a lot of material over the past few days, I'm now concerned that since he is already a very shy cat that his nerves will just elevate the numbers while he is being tested. I plan to discuss this with the vet prior to his appointment. This all reminds me that I need to buy a glucose monitor today in order to begin checking his BG prior to and while he is on the insulin.

Thank you for the hint about the Friskies canned, I will look into that.
 
Good insulin, and good starting dose. You'll see it called "Lantus" here, which is the "brand name".
 
My little token of advice would be, watch your kitty carefully on DM. Mine started eating less, and we didn't really realize how much less he was eating until we had a close call with a hypo. My kitty won't touch DM anymore, and so we use the food list now. :smile:
 
If you do the glucose curves at home, you will get better numbers. Vet stress may raise the glucose from 100 to 180 mg/dL and using stressed numbers may result in too high a dose being recommended.

Also, it will save your wallet :smile:

You'll need an inexpensive human glucometer such as the WalMart ReliOn Confirm/Confirm Micro (a branded version of the Glucocard 01/01 mini available at ADW (link at top of page), test strips, 27-28 gauge lancets to prick a small hole in the ear, some Neosporin ointment with pain relief (reduces annoyance of testing and helps holes heal), and some cotton balls or tissues to brace the ear and blot after testing.

Avoid meters with True or Free in the name as they don't work well in cats, giving falsely lower numbers than accurate.
 
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