How much canned food should I be giving him at each meal?

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Good morning! I am a newbie to feline diabetes. Powder was diagnosed 2 weeks ago and I have been giving him fancy feast twice daily mixed with a small amount of Purina DM dry to ween him off of the dry food that he used to get. I am giving him 1/2 a can (small can) with a very small amount of dry twice daily. He still seems like he is starving. He weighs 16 lbs. I have not been able to get him regulated yet. He started on 1 unit of Lantus...then 1.5... now 2 units and his BG is still high. 303 this morning after he ate. I am getting frustrated. The lowest he got to was 280 mid day.. I don't want to give him too much food to spike the BG higher but he still seems so hungry. I think he needs more insulin. Should I go ahead and increase it again? Should I increase his canned food to a whole can of 2 times a day? I am supposed to take him back to the vet this friday. I am getting discouraged. Any suggestions? Thanks.

Caryn
 
Re: How much canned food should I be giving him at each meal

AT his weight I would be feeding him a whole can twice a day at the very least if not a little more, since Fancy Feast is only a 3 oz can and my big guy here Maxwell at 17lbs eats between 1 1/2 to 2 cans (5.5oz) cans of Friskies per day and that just maintains his weight, but then again he is also in remission so won't be eating as much as Powder at nearly the same weight although that little bit of dry food is also giving him more carbs and calories than if he was already on an all wet diet....Powder will probably need even more right now since he is still unregulated and not processing his food correctly yet.

Mel, Maxwell, Musette & The Fur Gang.
 
Re: How much canned food should I be giving him at each meal

Thank you...I will give him more. I am trying to stop the dry...but he gets mad and sits in fron of the empty bowl meowing. I am hoping by the end of the week he will off the dry. I guess it is more me that feels bad for him and I also have a healthy cat that also wants his dry. I am trying to ween bothof them off of it.
 
Re: How much canned food should I be giving him at each meal

One thing that helped a lot here as I have 2 diabetics and 11 non-diabetics who were dry addicts, was to feed them several small meals throughout the day. Now I have the advantage of being home with them all day to be able to just give them fresh food 3 times a day. But I know a lot of folks here either use timed feeders or freeze the wet food and then put it out frozen so that the kitties can nibble on it as it thaws.`

The way it works around here at least is all the cats are fed 1/4 of their daily food at 7am when I test and shoot Musette, then at 1pm they get another 1/4 of their daily food which is about where Musette's nadir is, and then finally at 7pm they get the last 1/2 of their daily food, but in this case 1/4 of it is fresh and 1/4 of it is frozen so they can eat it overnight, which has helped stop my 3 siamese from demanding that they are starving at 3am..lol.

Mel, Maxwell, Musette & The Fur Gang
 
Re: How much canned food should I be giving him at each meal

Yes I have thought about getting a feeder because I do work. I was just not sure how that works with canned food.
 
Re: How much canned food should I be giving him at each meal

I also feed my Timmy Fancy Feast. She gets 1 1/2 cans for breakfast, 1 can for dinner, and a half a can before I go to bed. On the weekends when I don't have to work, I split her morning meal into two feeding times, so then she gets four small meals a day. She was down to 8 pounds when diagnosed, and now has been maintaining at 9 pounds, which seems plenty for her small frame. I was worried about feeding her too much, but also not feeding my 9 month old boy kitty enough, but this schedule seems to work for both of them.
 
Re: How much canned food should I be giving him at each meal

Many of us spread out feedings into several smaller meals. You want to know when your cat's nadir is on the Lantus, because you generally want to feed up to the nadir, but not afterward (there are a few exceptions, but this is a general guideline)I feed 1 can of FF at shot time, 1/4 of a 5.5 oz. can of Sophistacat an hour later, and one more 1/4 can at +2. I'd like to space it out more, but Mikey has a very early nadir and that's the only way I get all his meals in him before then. He gets a total of 12 oz a day, sometimes a bit more, but he needs to gain weight.

As far as how much, the rule of thumb is 20-30 calories per pound of body weight a day, depending on activity level and whether the cat is at an ideal weight. For a 13-lb cat, that translates into 260-390 calories a day. FF is about 90 calories a can for the classic flavors, so for a cat of that size, you probably need to feed about 3 cans a day.

I suspect that the dry food is the major factor in the continuing high numbers! Just a few pieces is good for a BG rise of 100+ in my cat. Cutting it out will probably work wonders! Is he eating the canned food? If he is, don't worry about his "I'm starving" act and just drop the dry.

One note of warning when you get rid of all dry...you will probably need to reduce his insulin dose immediately as cutting the dry can result in much lower numbers, and keeping him at a dose that was decided on based on dry food in the diet could send his BG too low, and hypos are very dangerous! I'm sure there will be others to help with the dosing, but IMO, you should get him off the dry food and drop his dose accordingly ASAP. That will probably help him a lot!
 
Re: How much canned food should I be giving him at each meal

Thanks....I will stop the dry. Please don't mind my ignorance but what is Nadir? I am still new to this.
 
Re: How much canned food should I be giving him at each meal

I just looked at the glosary and found out what Nadir is. How many times should I test him throughout a day to find this peak time?
 
Re: How much canned food should I be giving him at each meal

I'm pretty new. . .starting to figure it out! Hang in there! My vet recommended that Simon lose weight to eventually be 10 pounds, so his recommendation was for a 10 pound cat. He gets 5.5-6 oz total per day. I either give him half of a 5.5 oz can for a meal or a whole 3 oz can. Sometimes I give him a teaspoon or two of food as a midafternoon snack if he's driving me batty with asking for food. I found he acted really hungry right at first, but he's really not like that anymore!
I divide his food into 4 mini-meals. This keeps him happier and he also doesn't wake me up at night. We use Lantus and he gets food at shot time and +3.
I think he's lost some weight. I haven't had him weighed yet because we have been able to manage and do very well with the help from FDMB!

I've noticed many cats get much more food than Simon. . .but it seems to be working so far!
 
Re: How much canned food should I be giving him at each meal

You might not be able to find the nadir right away, but if you do a curve (every 2 hour tests) on a couple of cycles, you can start to see where it is. Then you can take some tests 1 hour apart to try to fine tune it. And then it might change :)because after all, they are cats. Right now I think Simon's nadir is pretty early, but I don't think it's necessarily a fixed point.

I would definitely take out the dry food. That will help, too. This week Simon got into the dog's dry food and I could not believe how high his BG went due to that contraband!

Do set up a spreadsheet (you can find out how in the tech forum--I can try to look up the link in a bit! I'm at work and need to run in a second to see a patient.) Once you have your spreadsheet set up, I encourage you to read and to post in the Lantus forum. They are very helpful and will show you the ropes! There are some conventions for how they post (how the title of the post is written--they call the daily report on a cat a "Condo", and you put a link to yesterday's condo in today's post.) People will definitely help you out, so just ask ask ask!
 
Re: How much canned food should I be giving him at each meal

Caryn said:
Thanks....I will stop the dry. Please don't mind my ignorance but what is Nadir? I am still new to this.

Nadir is the point in the cat's cycle in which the insulin is at its peak and as a result, the BG is the lowest. For most cats on Lantus, nadir is around six hours after the shot (+6), but not for all cats. For example, my Mikey has a very early nadir, around +3 to +4, but some cats have theirs at +7. The only way to know your cat's nadir is through testing and keeping a spreadsheet to see the pattern. If you do a couple of curves where a couple of times you test at shot time and then +2, +4, +6, +8, +10 and at the next shot, and then a couple where you test at shot time and then +1, +3, +5, +7, +9, +11 and at the next shot, you will start to see those patterns and how your cat uses his insulin. You can also do a couple of curves where you test every hour.
 
Re: How much canned food should I be giving him at each meal

Ok great...thanks for your input. I will get into the Lantus forum and try to find that spreadsheet as well.
 
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