I need some advice on food

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Hi everyone. My cat was diagnosed with diabetes a couple days ago and I am trying to figure out what to do. She is 12 years old and already has allergy problems (which I give her shots for) and kidney stones (which she eats special food for). The vet that I saw is either incredibly uninformed or just not very good at her job because she has provided me with little information and told me it would be ok to keep my cat on a dry food diet. I'm waiting for the other vet at the office to call me so I can ask more questions.

I have 2 major problems.

1. She is already on special food due to her kidney issues, I feed her Hill's Prescription CD formula. The vet told me that if I switch to Purina Prescription DM that it would have similar properties to the CD formula making sure that she did not develop future stones in her bladder. But the vet also said I could put her on the dry version of the DM which I learnt from 30 seconds of googling that that is a very bad idea. I have her eating fancy feasts pate currently, but I am worried that that might affect her kidney/bladder problems and I don't even know where to look for information about that.

2. I am leaving the country in 3 months and I was going to give her up anyways. I now have the emotional problem of do I try and regulate her diabetes and hope that I can find someone who will take a diabetic cat with other issues or do I make her life as comfortable as I can for the next few months and then put her down. I know that no one can make this decision for me, but I would really appreciate advice or opinions on the matter because I am just beside myself about how to handle this.

Finally, I haven't put her on insulin yet because I read somewhere that changing the food drastically on insulin can lead to further problems and I understand that changing the food is the first and most important step. How long is too long to wait to put her on insulin?

I'm sorry for all the words but I wanted to provide as much information as possible. I really have no idea what to do and though I have read a lot about diabetes in the past couple days, I would really appreciate all the advice and insight that I can get from anyone who wants to give it.

Thank you so much.
 
I need some advice as well. My cat was just diagnosed with diabetes and I am in the process of taking him off dry food and going to wet food. The Vet recommended "Binkey's Page" that has a great piece on food along with a chart on the content and what is good. The problem is that all the foods that are best for the cat with diabetes are pate (no gravy) and my cat won't eat them. He loves the gravy!

Anyone have any suggestions oon what to do with this? Is there a way to make the Pate stuff more "wet" ?
 
Pop over to Cat Info for more current nutrition info in this chart.
Some of them are not pate.

I'd also encourage you to start home testing the glucose levels. Vet office levels may be 100-180 mg/dL higher than at home. Changing to low carb canned or raw food may drop the glucose 100-2000 mg/dL. You may see numbers at home that are manageable by proper diet.
 
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Hello and welcome - what is your name and your kitties name? It definitely is a crash course at the beginning to learn it all, but we can help. The go to website we use now for cat nutrition is www.catinfo.org. The author Dr. Lisa Pierson is a veterinarian. There is a chart there of most commercial canned cat foods and the nutritional values. For diabetics, you want something under 10% carbs. If kitties like gravy, add some water to the food to make it soupy. Adding water is also good for diabetics. As it is for cats with kidney or urinary issues.

You might want to check out the page on the same website on feeding for urinary issues. That is what C/D is prescribed for. I have a second kitty who had crystals, and he was on C/D when Neko was diagnosed. Since she raids his food bowl and C/D is way too high carbs for her, I wanted something that both could eat. The vet suggested a raw diet, which they are on, but the website says that canned is fine too, you just want something with low carbs and low phosphorus, with lots of water added. You don't need to spend money on expensive veterinary foods. The Fancy Feast pates are rather high in phosphorus. Check out the food chart I referred to earlier - ideally you want something under 250 in phosphorus. I think Friskies has a Special Diet food for urinary issues that works, but there are several other out there too.

I wouldn't wait more than a couple of weeks for a food trial to see if the numbers get lower before starting insulin if you need to.
 
Bob Morris said:
The problem is that all the foods that are best for the cat with diabetes are pate (no gravy) and my cat won't eat them. He loves the gravy!
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I don't know enough about the kidney-friendly diets to be able to answer the first post, unfortunately (I'll probably need to figure this out as well soon, for the same reasons that Wendy has), but I know that the Weruva "Paw-lickin chicken" is a low carb gravy option. I'm not sure what they thicken the gravy with, but it's listed as only 3% carbs, and I haven't noticed it spiking Tonka's blood sugars at all the days that I feed it (as a treat - it's a pricier food in my local pet food store but not much more so than the DM). Weruva's got the reputation of making high quality cat food and the boys do seem to absolutely love this one. The Purina DM Savory Selects is also a gravy food, although higher in carbs (listed as 10%, which is about as high as you want to go for a diabetic cat, from the sounds of it). I'm sure there are others, you just have to find the ones with a gravy that is not starchy. The lists mentioned above are good for that
 
Bob Morris said:
The problem is that all the foods that are best for the cat with diabetes are pate (no gravy) and my cat won't eat them. He loves the gravy!

Anyone have any suggestions oon what to do with this? Is there a way to make the Pate stuff more "wet" ?
Click to expand...

Hi Bob,

From what I've learned since joining FDMB, foods with gravy tend to have higher carbohydrates.

Try mixing enough water through the paté food to make it a soupy consistency. If that doesn't work, try warming the 'paté soup' a bit. The added water can result in the flavour not being strong enough to appeal to the cat. If you have a microwave oven, nuke it on a medium setting for a few seconds, then give it a good stir. Check the temperature to make sure it's no more than tepid. (I've spent a lot of time dipping my finger into cat food since Saoirse was diagnosed. :rolleyes: ) Another tip is to try sprinkling either some parmesan or broken-up freeze-dried protein treats on top of the soupy mix.
 
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