Help ! a very finicky diabetic cat

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Mustafa Sheir

Member Since 2020
my cat is about 16-17 years old , she is thyrotoxic (controlled) and lately diagnosed with breast cancer

she is also diabetic for like 5 years but not the whole time , she had 2 episodes of exacerbations in which the 1st one was controlled by diet changes and lantus injections , and the second one was controlled by diet changes only , each was about 3 months duration where she enetered periods of remission in between

now she suffers her 3rd exacerbation and her blood sugar level reaches 350 mg/dl despite she is on diabetic royal canin dry food and her portions are already limited, she also stopped eating the only low carb wet food i could find here in egypt , she is a very finicky eater and even meals like shredded chicken , rabbits , turkey , cheese and fish she refuses to eat them anymore on regular basis , she only eats them when she likes

the problem here i cannot regulate her insulin injections since her food is not regulated !! i mean if i put a bowl of dry food she might take a nibble , she might finish 1/4 or 1/2 or even the whole bowl so fixed insulin injections is not working and i cannot measure the blood sugar all the time ?! also her blood sugar needs very fine adjustments in term of quarter units while the lantus pen and u100 syringes have coarser adjustments as single whole units , and smaller syringes is not available in my country

i also tried before raw/semi raw protein food but she refused

she has been on 1-2 units of lantus twice daily for like 5 days and blood sugar dropped from 350mg/dl to 118mg/dl, blood sugar was measured every 4 hours the whole 5 days

now if she could eat proteins only there will be no problem but she doesn't

so the problem now i cannot quit the royal canin diabetic dry food since that is the only food that she still eats , and if i gave her a bowl of dry food she is a finicky eater and might eat only a small portion so fixed insulin injections won't work and yesterday after the insulin injection she refused to eat tge dry food and her blood sugar reached 70mg/dl and i kept giving her treats till the lantus peak passed

i thought that when the cat feel hypoglycemic she would be hungry and inclined to eat her dry food ?! but she still refuses

so it is a mess

and any advice would be appreciated

thanks
 
Hi Mustafa,

Welcome to the board. I do not have a lot of experience with finiscky cats, sorry. But I didn't want your post to go unanswered.

Is there any canned foods in Egypt that are low carb? I have heard that many cats that are "addicted" to dry food can be slowly convinced to eat some canned foor with some pacience. Some had success with sprinkling broken up treats or the food that they like over the new food you are trying to give her.
 
Hercule's mum said:
Hi Mustafa,

Welcome to the board. I do not have a lot of experience with finiscky cats, sorry. But I didn't want your post to go unanswered.

Is there any canned foods in Egypt that are low carb? I have heard that many cats that are "addicted" to dry food can be slowly convinced to eat some canned foor with some pacience. Some had success with sprinkling broken up treats or the food that they like over the new food you are trying to give her.
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thanks for the reply, appreciate it

5 years ago i searched the egyptian market and i found a list on the internet for low carb wet food , the only 2 types were fancy feast which was something like 3-5% carb content and friskies natural classic wich was 5-10% , she used to love them but as time passed she rarely eats them anymore

i guess in the next couple of days i will try to search the market again but i doubt i will find any since exporters here tend to bring the low quality products instead to increase their profits
 
Max would only eat dry food and canned food in slices before becoming diabetic. Then I tried various fancy feast pates and found some he would eat. The diabetic dry foods are pretty high in carbs unfortunately.
 
Scroll through this UK list. Under the UK list, are EU specific foods. You might find something that is also available in Egypt.

Tagging @rawia who lives in the Gulf. She may know of some options.

How to Calculate the Nutrient Content of Commercial Cat Foods
  • Dr. Lisa's Cat Food Data Base Calculator - Type in the percentages of minimum protein, maximum fat, maximum carbs, and maximum phosphorus you're looking for. You also have the option to choose a specific cat food company. This tool will automatically list the cat foods from the Food Chart created by Lisa Pierson DVM list that meet your specifications.
 
JaxBenji said:
Do you have access to calipers? This would help with fine dosing (half and quarter units). Here's info on them in case you haven't seen it - https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/dosing-with-calipers-updated-w-videos.79851/
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interesting , actually i have a mitutoyo caliper which is very fine and accurate , anyway for now i decided not to give fixed doses and wait till she finishes her daily dry bowl then do a glucose blood measurment if it is under 200 nothing will be given, 200-250 i will give 1 unit , if it exceeded 250mg/dl i will give 2 units

if this scheme didn't work , i will try using the digital caliper on my u100 syringe

tiffmaxee said:
Max would only eat dry food and canned food in slices before becoming diabetic. Then I tried various fancy feast pates and found some he would eat. The diabetic dry foods are pretty high in carbs unfortunately.
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yes i know by trial , if she could eat just the proteins i gave her but then she wouldn't be called a cat after all lol

Red & Rover (GA) said:
Scroll through this UK list. Under the UK list, are EU specific foods. You might find something that is also available in Egypt.

Tagging @rawia who lives in the Gulf. She may know of some options.

How to Calculate the Nutrient Content of Commercial Cat Foods

  • Dr. Lisa's Cat Food Data Base Calculator - Type in the percentages of minimum protein, maximum fat, maximum carbs, and maximum phosphorus you're looking for. You also have the option to choose a specific cat food company. This tool will automatically list the cat foods from the Food Chart created by Lisa Pierson DVM list that meet your specifications.
Click to expand...

i will look into these articles , thanks

Red & Rover (GA) said:
https://petsegypt.com/shop/product/...cken-adult-cat-wet-food-85-g-6095?category=19

I think this one is low carb. Can someone double check please?
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i will check it , thanks for the tremendous help
 
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Hercule's mum said:
Isn't crazy that cats are carnivores, and yet is hard to find food that doesn't have lots of grain?
I must say I own cats my whole life and never stopped to think about this until hercs got diabetes....
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i agree , i think they tend to produce the cheap stuff so they can achieve bigger profits , but the problem cats aren't designed this way and eventually if they lived long enough they will turn diabetic

i think this also might reveal that average life span of indoor cats is getting pretty low , it is an index for how ppl not caring for their cats in some way , since no one (big cat food brands) pretty cares about diabetic cat's food
 
almost a month passed with my cat on wet food , and blood sugar returned to normal range

the problem now i introduced over 10 types of wet food and she ate them all at first with great appetite , but after a month she returned gradually to her finicky behaviour and she refuses all food now and linger to eat it

and she is hungry all the day

the cat is perfectly fine medically and eats normally when she desires , it is just the finicky behaviour and always hungry attitude ????!!!!

any advice ?!
 
Mustafa Sheir said:
just spent the whole day calculating carb content of infinite cat food products and found some products finally

the carb content numbers aren't exact for sure but i think it is an index at least

if she didn't like them am gonna give her a bath lol


carb content percentage by mustafa811, on Flickr
Click to expand...
Mostly all the Fancy Feast Classics Pates are low carbs
Beef
Chicken
Chicken & Liver
Beef & Liver
Beef & Chicken
On the food chart these are either 2 or 3 percent carbs

https://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/dr-pierson-new-food-chart.174147/

Take a look on the food chart, the fancy feast classic pates
also list the fish flavors, but we do not like to feed them every day, maybe twice a week or so
 
Hi Mustafa.

Is great to hear that blood sugar is looking good! Is it possible to keep rotating foods, so there is always something "new"?

With regards to hunger and finickness, is hard to judge.... I think the important thing is that the cat is not loosing too much weight. Could you monitor its weight? I usually do this by stepping into my own scale with and without the cat each week. It will bounce around a little bit, but if it is not continuing going down, I'd assume it has enough food?
 
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