Help with food for newly diagnosed cat!

[tipper11]

Hello,

New to this board and need help with food choices for our newly diagnosed cat.
We have removed all her Science Diet dry and started with Science Diet kitten (wet).
She does not like it at all!! Any other good food choices for a finicky eater. She is a
tiny 8lbs and can't afford to lose any more weight.

 

[Jana+BK+Chester(GA)+Wilbur]

Janet & Binky's food chart is here: http://www.felinediabetes.com/diabetic-cat-diets.htm. There are alot of low carb canned food available (Friskies, Fancy Feast, etc.), for your kitty.

 

[Sue and Oliver (GA)]

Hi and Welcome,

There are lots of great lo carb wet foods you can feed. Most of us feed Fancy Feast, Wellness, Merrick or Friskies, under 10% carbs. One of our members made up a food chart that lists foods with the carb level: Janet and Binky’s chart HOWEVER, we are careful to warn new members that if you switch to wet lo carb and are not hometesting, your cat can suddenly have a much lower blood glucose level. When we switched from dry to wet, Oliver's numbers went down 100 points overnight.

Can you tell us more about you and your cat? What kind of insulin? Dose? Hometesting?

 

[tipper11]

Tipper was a barn rescue 9 years ago and she still remains very shy and semi ferral. We are attempting a diet change before we try the insulin because we will have to crate her. We are in the process of acquiring a large cat crate so we can monitor her more closely but as you can imagine this is very stressful for her. If anyone has been in this situation before I can use all the help I can get.

 

[Sue and Oliver (GA)]

We do have people who have dealt with very difficult and feral diabetic kitties. Hopefully they will be along to help.

One thing that does seem to work with difficult cats is the Clothespin trick It mimics the way the mother cat picks up her kitties by the nape of the neck. I don't know if that might be an option for you.

Sometimes, but rarely, diet does the trick. If you try that, I wouldn't try it for longer than a week before starting insulin. Is there any way you can check her urine? You can use the ketostix that human diabetics use. Because Oliver would not pee when someone was around, we would put aquarium gravel in a litter box and leave him in the room with it for awhile. Urine testing is not nearly as good as home testing, because you are seeing what is happening hours later, after the urine has gone all the way through the cat. It is better than nothing.