Hungry hungry kitty

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Laura13

Laura13

Member Since 2014
Hi everyone

So, Rupert was diagnosed in February. Since then he has been eating Hills m/d tin and dry food. He is on 5 units of insulin morning and night and his glucose levels are still pretty high (17.7 on Sunday). I've been hesitant to feed him Fancy Feast because we're in Australia and I wasn't sure if we had the same ingredients and everything.

I have recently decided to give fancy feast a go. Bought a box of Chicken and Giblet pate and started him on it last night. He loves it of course. He has one tin in the morning and one at night. We're not home during the day so I can't give him anything else. As a consequence he is STARVING! He has just been hovering around the kitchen all night meowing every time we move. I feel bad that he's so hungry. What quantities does everyone else feed? Can I give him anything else?
 
I find it works out to about 0.5 ounces per pound of cat, twice a day, to keep my cats at a good weight. I also leave food out during the day to be nibbled. This spreads out the work load for the pancreas and may help it recover. A timed feeder and/or freezing part of the food to be eaten as it thaws can do this if your cat is a scarfer.

The canned foods have more moisture and are less calorie dense; you may be feeding fewer calories by swapping out the dry for the Fancy Feast unless you calculated the calories of each to make sure that was the same. And if you contact the company, you can ask if the formulas are the same in your country and clear up that mystery.
 
You could get a timed feeder. I use the petsafe 5, and feed mine 4 times a day with it. I'm not certain if you can find that brand there but youd think theyd have something similar. If the timed feeder isnt an option you could always leave out an extra can right before you walk out the door. I used to do that before I got the timed feeder, especially at night since Hideys numbers were higher in the A.M. so the mid-night feeding helped level him out.
 
Are you still feeding the dry food or is he only eating Fancy Feast. If you have removed the dry, then you should also lower his insulin dose considerably. Dry food is high in carbs and if you have removed it from his diet, but not changed your dose, he may become hypoglycemic.

My suggestion is to drop the insulin dose back to 1 unit and start over. This way you can gradually increase it until you find his optimal dose. You want to make sure that you wait at least one week before dose changes and only increase it by 1/2 unit.

Once you find your optimal dose and his BG levels stablize, you will also see his appetite level off. Right now his body is not processing food correctly.
 
Aargh I didn't get any notifications that I had replies so I thought I'd been ignored!

Thank you for your responses! I'm pretty sure we do have those times feeders here, that's a good idea. We have completely stopped the dry food so he's only getting cans of fancy feast. I have noticed his water intake has dropped massively which I'm taking as a good sign since thirsty cats is a diabetes symptom.

He's been on fancy feast for two weeks now and as of tonight his glucose levels are 3.4 so we haven't given him any insulin tonight. Hoping remission is around the corner now.
 
Lets get you started using our grid to record your glucose tests. It will help us give you better feedback. Instructions are here.

Understanding the spreadsheet/grid:

The colored headings at the top are the ranges of glucose values. They are color-coded to clue you in as to meaning.

Each day is 1 row. Each column stores different data for the day.

From left to right, you enter
the Date in the first column
the AMPS (morning pre-shot test) in the 2nd column
the Units given (turquoise column)

Then, there are 11 columns labeled +1 through +11
If you test at +5 (5 hours after the shot), you enter the test number in the +5 column
If you test at +7 (7 hours after the shot), you enter the test number in the +7 column
and so on.

Halfway across the page is the column for PMPS (evening pre-shot)
To the right is another turquoise column for Units given at the evening shot.

There is second set of columns labeled +1 through +11
If you snag a before bed test at +3, you enter the test number in the +3 column.

We separate day and night numbers like that because many cats go lower at night.

It is merely a grid for storing the info; no math required.

After you've set that up, you can put it in your signature, along with other details that may help us give you feedback.

Go to the top left of the screen.
Click on User Control Panel.
Click on Profile
Click on Edit Signature
A text box displays.
This is where you paste the link for your spreadsheet, once it is set up.
Add any other text, such as
your name, cat's name,
city and state,
date of Dx (diagnosis)
insulin
meter
any other pertinent issues like food issues, allergies, IBD, etc.
 
I free feed dry and give them wet food once per day. When I got my diabetic cat (he had diabetes when I adopted him) he had already lost a lot of weight and once on insulin he needed to eat a LOT just to gain back the weight, since he was eating for weight gain. Naturally, it was very difficult to get his blood sugar low enough to acceptable, but once he had gained back all the weight that he was going to, it got a lot easier and I could lower his insulin.
 
What dry food did you feed him? Rupert was also really skinny when he was diagnosed but he has put that weight back on now.
 
Laura

Tip: You can search all of a person's posts by clicking on the name at the right of the post, then clicking on Search User's Posts. This let's you see where the person started, as well as current posts.

(Most of mine are info posts on Feline Health and occasional observations or ideas elsewhere.)

The only low carb dry foods are Youg Again 0 Carb (5% calories from carbohydrate), Epigen 90, Stella and Cheweys' freeze dried (no crunch), and then 2 which are in the 10-20% calories from carbohydrate, Wellness Core and Evo Cat and Kitten. I'm feeding 1 stray and 2 ferals the Evo, plus Friskies Pates.
 
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