How many hrs can a diabetic cat go without food?

Status
Not open for further replies.
S

Skylin

Member
Hello. :)
What a wonderful place you have here!
We are newbies to all of this. We (me and kitty) are about 2 months in. The first few weeks were a nightmare. But I got rid of that Vet and staff and found a better Vet that knows about cat diabetes. (though she is horribly loud and dominating. Odd huh) :(

I have 4 kitties and for many various reasons I have had to stop free feeding about 6 years ago and feed a portion to them by hand every 4 to 6 hours, sometimes 3hr around dinner time if they insist. :) Now I had to stop getting up it the night to feed them about 2 years ago for personal reasons. To help ease my decision I heard among several things that it may benefit them because that in the wild cats go many hours without food and it was natural for them. Though being domesticated I feel that they should eat like a Kitty living with people. :-D Unfortunately my kiddos all have certain needs and some with endless appetites... so this is there schedule and we all seem to do the long nights 6 to 8 hours fine. I told this to my new Vet and she said this is not tolerable.

She says to feed her no later than 5 to 6 hours. Is this correct advise? Should I get up in the night and start feeding them again?



Another question I have is,
Is there a link somewhere with a "list" of cat food I can get? Dry? I am not seeing it anywere on the web.
...Is it a, you do the research and the math and figure it out yourself kinda thing cause I still cant find anywhere after many hours what kind of cat food I can give her. I have her on Fancy Feast can food for morning and night and the vet has me on this horrible prescription md diet, that I wouldnt give to a fly. But its my only choice right now. :/
(She cant have any Squash, potatoes, carrots ect) For various reasons I feed them all (well not her now) Health Wise and Life Abundance dry. For canned it's Natures Balance Indoor formula and Avoderm.
 
hi there and welcome

first, here's what you need as far as food goes. the catinfo.org site explains proper nutrition wonderfully and janet & binky's charts are invaluable.
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=115

janet & binky's charts have the breakdown you need as far as carbs go to pick out suitable foods for a diabetic. aim for foods under 10% in the carb column. it sounds like though that your kitties' may have some other dietary concerns so not sure how much weight you have to give to some of the other columns, i.e. kidney kitties need to watch phosphorous, pancreatitis kitties need to watch fat, etc....

now, as far as how long a diabetic kitty can go without food, well, that's a tricky question.

first, it depends on what their glucose levels are. let's say you were diabetic, you eat breakfast and skip lunch. about 3:00 in the afternoon you're not feeling well, a bit woozy or things are bending over that normally don't, like refrigerators or whatever :-), so you eat something and you feel better shortly. well, if you didn't eat that something and forced yourself to wait until dinner time, the question is, would you be functionable to eat dinner or would you be in a coma? same concept with the kitties. in the beginning, when first starting treatment and the diabetes out of control, i think food & it's availability are a bit more important than down the road when the diabetes is under control and you know your cat's reaction to insulin & food in out up & down :-)

mind you, there's no way you can know their levels 24 hours a day every day so what you will find is that in the next few weeks with the info you learn here, you'll kinda figure out what your kitty's body tends to need.

that said, some have found that their kitties do better with multiple small meals thru the day so as to help level the glucose levels thru the day rather than spiking up & down, while others have learned that strict twice a day feeding is what works best for their cat.

around these parts we like to say each cat is different (ECID), soooooooooo, the best i can tell you is start reading, asking questions, and get a glucose meter and start testing your cat's levels and in no time at all, everyone will help you figure out what works best for you and your kitty. :-)
 
Thank you for the reply. So I think what your saying is get up in the night and feed her and then further down the road I can go back a my normal feeding schedule? With the more strict feeding times of course. Im assuming that cause there are people that only feed there cats twice a day. (lol omgosh my cats would never leave me alone if I did that, they hardly do now!XD)
 
Skylin said:
Thank you for the reply. So I think what your saying is get up in the night and feed her and then further down the road I can go back a my normal feeding schedule? With the more strict feeding times of course. Im assuming that cause there are people that only feed there cats twice a day. (lol omgosh my cats would never leave me alone if I did that, they hardly do now!XD)
Click to expand...

If feeding during the night is a problem for you, there are other options. I have an auto-feeder: http://cgi.ebay.com/Qpets-Auto-Feed...038?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3a655fb81e

That's the one I have. Other people here have different ones that they like...I know this one is rather popular: http://www.amazon.com/PetSafe-5-Mea...WHNS/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1304018372&sr=8-4 I tried that one but Bandit thinks he's part raccoon and ripped it apart to get to the food ahead of time. He can't get into the one I currently have, so if you have some troublemakers I would recommend that one. I'm not sure how many cats you have but if you get one for each cat and they all gobble their food up, then it works great. I would freeze the food, put it in the feeder before I went to bed and set the timer to feed while I was asleep. You can set up to 4 feedings, so you can feed as frequently as you want.

As for food, I would ditch the DM and stick with the Fancy Feast. Here is a link to the grain-free low carb flavors: http://www.felinediabetes.com/glutenfree.htm . None of these have any vegetables so they should be fine for your cat. I would not feed dry food. Even lower carb dry food is still too high in carbs for a diabetic cat, and it can cause all sorts of other health problems.
 
possibly :-)

fwiw, there's ways around the having to get up in the middle of the night or being home in the middle of the day. alot of people use timed feeders. you can get them online or at a pet store. others, like myself, freeze canned food and put out frozen food cubes before leaving in the morning or before going to bed. by the time they thaw, enough time has passed that it all works out to multiple meals thru the day/night :-D
 
Cindy + Mousie said:
others, like myself, freeze canned food and put out frozen food cubes before leaving in the morning or before going to bed. by the time they thaw, enough time has passed that it all works out to multiple meals thru the day/night :-D
Click to expand...

I'm jealous this works for you. :mrgreen: I tried that with Bandit and he sat there and licked at the frozen food for hours until he got it thawed enough to eat. So we use the auto feeder now. :-D
 
Skylin said:
Thank you for the reply. So I think what your saying is get up in the night and feed her and then further down the road I can go back a my normal feeding schedule? With the more strict feeding times of course. Im assuming that cause there are people that only feed there cats twice a day. (lol omgosh my cats would never leave me alone if I did that, they hardly do now!XD)
Click to expand...

You did not say if you are getting the dry food out of ALL of your cats' food bowls....but I sure hope that is the road you are going down.

Also, NB Indoor Only is not a very good choice given the carb content. Whenever you see the word "indoor" it is going to be high in carbs.
 
Awwe, Bandits eyes are soo cute!

Thank you for the suggestion about the food timer! Im not sure it would work considering all 4 cats have extremely different appetites... Hmm, Though my diabetic girl could use to gain some weight (now) so maybe letting her over eat isnt a bad idea. (my situation right now wont let me section off the cats either, but here soon I will be moving into a nice place)
I am not giving her anymore dry food, just the Fancy Feast. :) (and keeping an eye on her BG levels)

Lol I can see the Mom of my bunch now gnawing at a frozen block of food. :-D (too cute) -She chews on the oddest things, cereal boxes are her favorite to drag around the house... untill she found a block of frozen canned food that is. ;D <3 Neat idea though.

---> How much food do you give your kitties at a time?
And how many times a day? - Im assuming "something" like 4 times a day? With the insulin, and then again at the half way point?
 
might make a difference what kind of insulin you are using . . .

punkin is on lantus and i feed him

7am - 1 can fancy feast, give him insulin
10am - 1/2 can fancy feast
7pm - 1 can fancy feast, give insulin
10pm 1/2 can fancy feast

he's 13 and weighs 14.3lbs - is pretty inactive.

i have another kitty, about 1/2 the size! she eats on the same schedule but i put her food down in the laundry room and punkin's in the dining room with a door closed in between. otherwise punkin would eat all of her food and the poor girl would starve!

my personal opinion is that i wouldn't even consider getting up during the night to feed my cats, although i do get up to test if i'm worried about punkin going hypoglycemic. seems to me that cats always object whenever you change The Feed Me Contract, but after a few days when they realize there is a New Feed Me Contract, they adjust to it. my cats were free feeding on dry food before the diabetic diagnosis in December, and they adjusted to the change.

i fed punkin 7am-noon-5pm-11pm when he was first diagnosed, but it was really too late in his insulin cycle when the insulin was weakest and his numbers were higher on that schedule. changing to the 7-10-7-10 schedule has been better.
 
I have my Blackie on a 4x a day feeding schedule, and she's now been put on Fancy Feast's Tender Beef Feast, which is 42 in protein, 94.4 in calories, and 3 in carbs. However, looking back at Binky's page, I'm going to put her back on the Beef & Liver Feast which is 2 in carbs. I don't know what I was thinking when I picked up 24 cans of Beef. LOL Plus, she gets some raw meat with her meals, also.

I, too, have her on a feeding schedule, which is 6 a.m., 12 noon, 6 p.m. and then about 10 p.m.-ish. The last meal varies depending on when I retire for the night. I thought about feeding several small meals a day, but I'm still thinking about that.
 
Skylin said:
Awwe, Bandits eyes are soo cute!
Click to expand...

Those are his "feed me, i'm soooo starving" eyes. He uses cute as a superpower to try and get more food. Doesn't work with the food...but maybe it does with his low-carb treats. :smile:

Skylin said:
---> How much food do you give your kitties at a time?
And how many times a day? - Im assuming "something" like 4 times a day? With the insulin, and then again at the half way point?
Click to expand...

I just have Bandit now, and he gets 2 and 1/2 cans of Fancy Feast a day, and weighs about 12.5 lbs. When Bandit was on insulin he got 3 cans a day, I fed 4 times a day, 1 can at each shot, and 1/2 can 6 hours in when his insulin peaked. Some people don't like to feed at the peak, but I always got nervous because I was either at work or sleeping right after his insulin peaked and I was terrified of hypos when I wasn't able to test.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top