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Annemarie/Tigger(GA)

Annemarie/Tigger(GA)

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Hello, I'm new here and my cat was recently diagnosed with DM. Tigger is a 15 year old male who was recently dropping weight and not acting like himself. He was diagnosed with hypertension about a month ago, and then the diabetes diagnosis came just this week. His sugar has been high, around 450. And his fructosamine was 708. He started on Humulin insulin, 2 units am and pm. And I took away his dry food and started him on low carb canned.

My vet advised me to only feed him 2 times a day, after giving insulin. How does everyone else feed their cats? He lives with 3 other cats and they are free fed dry food, I took away the dry and put it were I thought he couldn't reach but he still managed to get up there. Any ideas for feeding in a multi cat household?

I'm glad I found this message board, I have a lot of questions!!

Thanks in advance everyone, Annemarie and Tigger
 
Welcome AnnMarie and Tigger,

Good for you for changing his diet to low carb. That may make a bigger difference downward in his blood glucose levels. Are you testing them at home? That is the best way to be sure that the dose you are giving is not too high, and to see how the insulin is working in his body. If you want, we can teach you how to test over the internet and get you started very inexpensively. Here is how we do it: Video for hometesting

Humulin is not a popular insulin here. In most cats, it acts harshly - taking the cat's blood glucose levels down fast and not lasting as long. Lantus, Levemir and ProZinc are all milder longer lasting insulins. You can try the Humulin for a while to see if it will work for Tigger. If you hometest, you can see exactly how it works for him.

Do lots of reading and ask questions. We would love to help you help Tigger.
 
I feed mine twice a day. I separate them as much as possible so I can monitor how much they eat. I would be careful about the 2 units twice daily since you changed to low-carb canned food.
 
HI Annmarie,

My vet advised me to only feed him 2 times a day, after giving insulin. How does everyone else feed their cats? He lives with 3 other cats and they are free fed dry food, I took away the dry and put it were I thought he couldn't reach but he still managed to get up there. Any ideas for feeding in a multi cat household?
Click to expand...

You can feed twice a day (that's what I did when Bob was getting insulin), or you can feed multiple small meals throughout the day. What I find concerning is the vet advising to feed "after giving insulin". The problem with that is what happens if after you have given the insulin, Tigger decides he doesn't want to eat? It is very important that food and insulin are both in his body at the same time.

Food raises his BG, and insulin makes it drop. If you give him only food, his BG goes up too much. If you give him only insulin, his BG goes too low. The best sequence is to feed first, and once you see he has eaten well, then give him his insulin.

With Humulin, which is a fast acting short duration type of insulin, it is even more important that food be in his system when the insulin starts to work.

As far as keeping him away from the dry food..... you have to make it impossible for him to get to the dry. Very hard to do as long as there is dry food in the house, he'll do his best to find and eat it. We call it "kitty crack" for a reason. ;-) The best plan would be to get rid of it and not feed it to any of the kitties, but that isn't something that you can do overnight most likely. All your cats would be best off long term with no dry food on the menu. For now, try to separate them at feeding time, and keep the dry food stash behind locked doors if at all possible.
Carl
 
When I switched my clouder to low carb canned food, the 2 obese cats each lost 2 pounds in roughly 4 months. Canned food is less calorie dense, and the moisture content is good for the kidneys.

Pop over to Cat Info to see more information about nutrition and cats. Dr Pierson has some convincing reasons why you won't want to feed dry food ever again.
 
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