He's not eating enough!

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CoalsMom04

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Hello all, I am new to this message board but have been informed it's the best place to be to get answers and learn as much as possible about feline diabetes. A month ago, my little guy was diagnosed with diabetes and his readings seemed to increase each week when I took him to the vet. After switching vets and not like the new one less than the first, I decided to take things into my own hands in the matter of his diet. The first vet had me put him on Science Diet Active Longevity dry food, that I was told could sit out all day, and to feed him the SD wet when he got his shot. This lasted until one week ago when I just buckled down and read as much as possible and found that raw food is pretty wonderful for felines. So, this past weekend I dived into it. I started to ween him off dry food and only give wet last week, then Friday I gave him some raw chunks of chicken and he loved it! With that I decided to try the recipe for raw food from catinfo.org. He seems to love it, and yesterday afternoon his blood sugar was finally regulated! (I finally bought a glucose reader to do my own readings).

With all this said, I have to say I am slightly concerned with how much he is eating. On the Feline Diabetes facebook page I was kindly helped and told that with raw meat they feel more satisfied with less. But, I can't imagine that it's enough for him when he only is fed twice a day. I would say he eats about a tablespoon, maybe a tiny bit more, at each sitting.

Any help/advice/encouragement would be so appreciated! Thank you in advance!
~Liz
 
That may not be enough food. You don't have to feed twice daily only. You can feed smaller, more frequent meals. If he likes some of the commercial foods, you can supplement the raw diet until he gets used to it.

Can you share insulin/dose/bg level info with us? There could be something else going on. Regulation is a day to day adventure. We consider a cat in remission when their blood sugars range from 40-120 without insulin for 2 weeks. We consider a cat regulated when their bg levels are in the 200s at preshot and double digits to low hundreds at nadir.
 
My only concern with more smaller meals is that my husband and I are not home all day to provide it. His insulin is prozinc and he's currently on 4 units twice a day. Yesterday am he barely ate so I did as my vet instructed and cut the dose in half. That was 5am...at 2pm his glucose was at 112. Then before his pm feeding, at 5pm, he was 271.
 
We like to see new diabetics start at low doses and then increase as needed. We suggest .5 to one unit twice daily for ProZinc. Dosing is not by weight in cats like it is in dogs. We figure it is easy to raise the dose when needed, but if you give too much, it can be dangerous. The low numbers could reflect his eating so little; they could also be a result of too much insulin.

Are these numbers from home testing or at the vet? If at the vet, they are quite low. Being at the vet is usually noisy and full of strange animals and stressful. Stress raises bg levels; some cats test 100 points lower at home. We test at home so we can eliminate the stress factor. If you aren't hometesting, can we teach you how? It is the safest way to treat a diabetic cat.

We generally ask new diabtics not to dose if the preshot number is under 200, but to wait 20 minutes without eating and test again, to make sure it is a shootable number and to be sure it is rising.

Have you seen the PZI document? Big and full of links, but great info. http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=32799

You can freeze the food and leave it out for him - the canned food supplement to the raw would be easy to do this way. Many of us do that and many of us use automatic feeders.

If he were mine, I would start over at a lower dose and monitor carefully. Then you can see how the insulin is really working and whether he does need more or less.
 
I used the hockey puck method - freeze his normal portion of wet food in those little round containers. Pop one out just before you leave the house and he'll be busy licking it as it thaws.

I put my cat on nothing but canned food and he got off the juice. I hope you have as good luck.
He gets two cans a day now - 12 hours apart and seems content with it. No weight loss or gain.
 
You can use a timed feeder so your cat can eat during the day while you are not home. You can put low carb canned food into the feeder. I would not put raw food, frozen or not, in a timed feeder and let that sit for hours.
 
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