Homemade diet questions

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justpj

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Hello again everyone,

I have been lurking around here since my young kitten (now a year old) was diagnosed as having a congenital pancreatic defect. We have been trying to control her blood sugar levels with her diet but alas we seem to be failing. Her last bloodwork eallier today still has her sugar levels at over 300. What ever diet I go with for her, I also will be providing to my other 2 healthy kitties, so therefor, I am wondering if anyone has a good website or perhaps some recipes for homemade diabetic/healthy cat food. The vet is reluctant to put her on insulin for 2 reasons. One because she is so young and also because he knows we are having a hard time financially when it comes to pets because our 12 yr old dog was just diagnosed with liver cancer and thyroid problems. We are currently feeding the kitties a canned food diet of fancy feast varieties that are below 3% carbs...they like that but it is costly for 3 kitties.

Thanks in advance for any help you might be able to offer.

our vet has not suggested that we do at home testing yet by the way.
 
Hi and welcome :)

I'm sorry to read about your kitten...sure is young for diabetes!

I have a couple of things to suggest here...

1. I disagree that postponing insulin will save you money. A sick cat will cost you money, and not treating those numbers (over 120 is diabetic) puts her at risk for complications like diabetic ketoacidosis, inappetance which can cause hepatic lipidosis, etc. Question - did he ever run a fructosamine test or just blood glucose tests? I ask because bg tests can be skewed if there is stress, but a fructosamine approximates what the average bg was over the past 2 weeks.

2. hometesting - not necessary yet to test blood glucose levels, but I would darn well be testing her urine for ketones daily.

3. food - some cats with pancreatitis seem to be sensitive to fat levels. So you have to balance that and carbs. The good news is, whatever is good for this cat will be good for the others, in fact, an improvement over what they've been eating. http://www.catinfo.org is run by a vet and is a good place to start.

4. pancreatitis - here's a good link by one of our two 'resident' vet techs - http://www.felinediabetes.com/phorum5/r ... 722,876722

hope this helps

jen
 
I would not wait for your vet to suggest that you home test; my vet office never even mentioned it but if I did not test, I don't think my two cats would be alive today.

I can't afford to feed my cats fancy feast; it's too expensive for me. Why not try the friskies or 9lives as you can get large cans of the friskies that is quite low carb. I get the 12oz or whatever they are of turkey & giblets and they love it.

I am not sure if it's a good idea to hold back insulin, but then I don't know how you are getting the 300 numbers for BG for your kitty. If it's at the vet office, it's not a true number because of stress. Most animals are stressed at the vet office so you would be better off to get your own meter and test at home. Find out what the real numbers are and then think about whether you should try to use some insulin.

If the numbers are always above 300, then the kitty is open for many health issues because of the high numbers. At the very least, I think you want to aim for keeping numbers under the renal threshold of 240 or thereabouts. Also, you would be wise to test for ketones, and you can pick up a container of the strips at any pharmacy to test the urine.

Giving insulin does not have to be all that expensive, especially if your kitty is better on a very tiny dose.

Anyways, I am sure others will be along shortly with more replies for you.
 
Thanks folks for all the sage words of advice. I am thinking that I need to start testing her somehow because the vet REALLY stresses her alot. On the way there today she not only threw up in her travel carrier but she peed too which is not in her charcter at all. She has been hiding under my bed all day since we got home this morning. I do not know what type of test the vet did only that her blood glucose level was over 300 today and was 266 last time we took it about 6 months ago.

I use a clumping cat litter can you still test urine with that?

I have been on the phone to every major canned cat food supplier I can think of trying to get them to send me nutritional analysis for their foods. Most are pretty good but not all are helpful. I tried the EVO brand cat food but she wouldnt eat it. The other two non diabetic kitties love it...but not miss fussy hehe

They all like fancy feast but wow feeding all 3 on that food is pricey and if she will need insulin at some point i want to keep the prices down.

I looked at the homemade diet and that looks like more cost, although probably a better diet.

Thanks for all your help so far. :smile:
 
the fructosamine test will be accurate and won't be affected by vet stress. no point in hometesting unless she's for sure diabetic...at least, that's my opinion.

are you looking for info for foods not on Janet's charts? FF is expensive after awhile, which is why many move to friskies, etc. or wellness in the large cans, but it can be high in fat...

Jen
 
justpj said:
I use a clumping cat litter can you still test urine with that?
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Yes :smile: What people do is either stalk the cat to the litter box and stick a long handled ladel under the cat to catch the urine or temporarily replace the litter with something non-absorbent (fish tank gravel, etc) and then tip the box to puddle up the urine and put a test strip in there.


justpj said:
I looked at the homemade diet and that looks like more cost, although probably a better diet.
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There's also commercially available RAW pet food if you don't want to make your own from scratch.

Another option is using your own store-purchased raw meat and adding in a pre-mix such as Feline Future. The pre-mix has all the vitamins and minerals your cat needs.
 
I am in the process of switching Merlin to a raw diet. I buy Instinct raw chicken. It comes in frozen medalians that get defrosted overnight before feeding. If you are looking to save money - this isn't cheap. Making your own food may be cheaper depending on the ingredients but you will have to buy supplements (as someone else mentioned) to add to the food because plain or raw meat isn't considered nutritionally complete. It would also be more work for you with 3 cats.
 
I just put another litterbox liner on top of the litter. She can see the litter and did not mind at all. It left a nice little puddle to test . ( I use keto-diastix ) I found some liners that were 40 for $8. But now I am kinda cheap and cut up a walmart bag, lol, and put that smoothed out on top of the litter. I was thinking maybe to try a clear piece of saran wrap, but I have not yet.

I had no luck with Fancy Feast, even the "approved" varieties. Spiked up her urine glucose. Since my cat , like yours was not on insulin, I tried different kinds till she had no glucose in her urine ( id say try each kind like 2 days...and you will also know by how she acts....drinking alot, peeing alot, etc ). She has been negative for over a month now. ( Frutosamine test 516 initially ) But they say raw is best....anyone know the start-up cost of that, and I would think it would be cheaper in the long run?

~J and B~
 
honestly, from what i've seen, if you make your own cat food the best you can do is about equal the cost of fancy feast for your cats.
i do a homemade cooked chicken diet for my cat harry because of IBD and chronic diarrhea, but pricing chicken at the grocery store i'm sure you know it's a lot more expensive than store-bought cat food if you buy it at discount places or on sale.
you're probably better off with 9 lives or friskies if you need to save money on food. BUT my cats are healthier on slightly better food, and you can really tell by how their coats respond. we all do what we can, tho, and many people here use cheaper low carb canned food varieties. you do not have to buy premium food.
 
Thanks everyone. I am going to get some urine test strips and start that and also as the vet about what test he uses. I am so grateful I found this board , because if i have a question I know where to come.

Thanks again
 
Traci and Boomer said:
Making your own food may be cheaper depending on the ingredients but you will have to buy supplements (as someone else mentioned) to add to the food because plain or raw meat isn't considered nutritionally complete.
Click to expand...

I saw one general RAW pet food info site that claims that RAW meat alone is perfectly fine. Supposedly varying nutrient intake daily is better :?: Not sure if that is true or not.

Making semi-homemade RAW doesn't seem that expensive. A small bag of the Feline Future pre-mix is around $12 and it is enough for 20 days of half cup meals. The bigger bag is around $49 and is enough for 100 days of half cup meals. There are other brands of pre-mixes out there.

Making RAW from scratch uisng a recipie does seem more involved and complicated and you have to buy all those supplements which can be costly.

Just my thoughts :smile:

Edit: Wild Kitty has a RAW kit: http://www.wildkittycatfood.com/catfoodkit.html But it doesn't look suitable for diabetics:

Clams, Chicken Liver, Rice Bran, Wheat Germ, Chicken Hearts, Lecithin, Coral Calcium, Steamed Bone Meal, Dried Yeast, Spinach, Chicken Broth, Peas, Broccoli, Beets, Apples, Mushrooms, Carrots, Dried Kelp, Oysters, Dried Egg, Sea Salt, Cod Liver Oil, Wheat Germ Oil.

Clam isn't a natural food source for cats, IMO.
 
I used to be a maker of my own food. It was a pretty cool system. It was more like a food improver. So I could change the flavor of it by mixing it with other foods. Ths link is in my sig. If you are interested in making you own I highly recommend http://www.knowwhatyoufeed.com and reading Small Animal Clinical Nutrition 5th ed. chapter 21 for normal cats and understanding the AAFCO guidelines.
http://www.markmorrisinstitute.org/inde ... &Itemid=82

Not that hard really.

Also IMHO a lot of the raw with bones has too much phosphorous. But that is just my opinion.
 
WOW I used my mom's blood glucose meter today to test my Pasha. At the vet ealier this week she was over 300, this morning she is 75 at 8 am after her kitty canned food breakfast. I will take it once a week at different times to see how her sugars are running at home where she is calm. I never would of thought that stress could make it jump THAT much. I will see perhaps she dosent even have the congenital defect my vet thinks she does. I have her and my other kitties to an all canned food diet now so ill keep my fingers crossed and see ....perhaps things are not as bad for her as i thought. :smile: :roll: :!:
 
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