Interpreting numbers

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Di and Jasper

Di and Jasper

Member Since 2013
Jasper was diagnosed in feb 12 and put on caninsulin but after a hypo fit and numerous curves (+12 normally 28 (504) +6 4 (72) ) my vet put him on Hypurin PZ at Christmas. He has been micro dosed since then and he's come on great and his + 12 figures have been coming down and can sometimes be as low as 5 (90) at his plus 12 test. This morning is +12 was 8 (144) he had his breakfast and no insulin and his +2 was 7.2 (129) +4 was 6.4 (115) and +6 was 5.7 (108). I'm a little confused :? because his numbers are coming down but he didn't have any insulin. Does this look like he may be going into remission? At what point do you say no insulin. My vet said 20 (360) as she thinks he may be insulin sensitive but this seems quite high to me.
 
Yes it does look like he maybe trying very hard to go into remission especially since his numbers are dropping after eating but without insulin. Basically the way we judge is a cat is in remission is if they can stay between 40-120 on a human meter for 14 days with most of those are in double digits.

Mel, Maxwell, Autumn & The Fur Gang
 
Hello from Surrey!

Yes, I agree with Mel. It does look like your cat is trying to go into remission... The BG numbers came down after feeding because your cat's pancreas produced insulin!

What exactly are you feeding him at the moment? This could be a good time to feed him the lowest carb food you can find....

Elizabeth
 
Thanks for the replies, hi Elizabeth I changed his food about a month ago to butchers classic but I have been on zooplus this weekend looking at the food they do, have been looking at bozita, hes quite fussy and will not eat any fish flavours, I also have 5 other cats so what ever jasper has they will be eating as well. Any recommendations?
 
Oh, Dianne, I didn't realise it was you! Just checked back through your posts and the 'penny dropped'. I'd been wondering how you were doing. Nice to see this exciting news!

Butcher's Classic is, as I recall, about 8.8% calories from carbs, so there are much lower carb foods out there. There are pricier though, but this could be a worthwhile investment at this stage... Just going to have a look at my food list and will post back shortly...

Lovely to hear from you! :-D
 
Dianne,

Yes, re Zooplus a good option at a good price is Bozita canned cat foods, which come in at around 5% calories from carbs. They are a pate style. This is a popular one for UK diabetics.
Zooplus also do Bozita tetrapacks 'in jelly', at around 7% calories from carbs.
Much pricier, (but decent value in the 800g tins for a multi-cat household) is Grau 'grain free', which the calculation says is around 7.8% calories from carbs (but I suspect it's actually lower than that...) The Grau is a premium food and you may find that your cats actually eat less of it because of that.

These calculations have been done using the online ingredient 'analysis' for these products (for more accurate info we'd need to contact the manufacturer).

There are lower carb foods out there, but they are pricier, and with 6 cats to feed that might not be an option for you... (Although there is always the possibility of feeding raw, of course. I only use raw as a supplement, but those who feed it as an only food say it can be the cheapest way to feed if you have a friendly butcher...)

Will try to list some other foods later. (My list needs updating because I found out this morning that my Excel cat food calculator has an error, so I'm having to redo all the calculations.... :roll: )

Feeding frequent small, snack sized meals where possible (rather than big meals) will help to jolly your cat's pancreas along without overwhelming it with too much to do at any one time.

Eliz

Edited to add Bozita tetrapack info
 
Thanks Eliz, I'm going to have a proper look this afternoon, it's got to be worth spending a little bit extra if its going to help jasper :-D
 
Dianne, another option for even lower carb foods is to buy online from Germany... The Germans make brilliant cat food!!! And quite a few folks buy from there...

The postage may seem steep (about a tenner), but you can get a LOT of food for that postage cost, and buying from German shops will give you access to decent priced foods like Macs 'grain free' and Ropocat that can have really low carbs (I looked at a couple just now, one of which was 1.9% calories from carbs and the other came out as 0% carbs...) The Macs 'grain free' comes in 800g tins too which can be really good value if you have a multi-cat household...
 
I'm really interested in feeding raw. As I live in the middle of nowhere all my younger cats hunt Herbert often bring rabbit back (which jasper steals) my husband shoots on the farm so again rabbit is easy enough to get hold of and my butcher is also a friend so getting ofel etc will be easy enough. Think I'm going to go and do some research. :?:
 
MommaOfMuse said:
Dr Lisa has a really good recipe for homemade raw on her website here

Mel, Maxwell, Autumn & The Fur Gang
Click to expand...

Was going to give the link to Dr Pierson's recipe but Mel beat me to it (that gal is SO much faster than me...)

Also, since you're in the UK you may want to post any raw food questions on this site: http://www.petforums.co.uk/cat-health-nutrition/ There are a couple of posters there who are outstandingly brilliant in terms of their understanding of raw cat food (especially 'Hobbs'....)

Raw food is a wonderful (and obviously low carb) food for cats, but not quite as straightforward as it first seems, so it does need a bit of reading up about. But if you have access to wild rabbit meat, and have a friendly butcher, then you are very lucky indeed!

I rotate ordinary canned food with minced raw (skinned and gutted) wild rabbit that I buy from Woldsway. I mix that wild rabbit with a few supplements because rabbit is a)low in fat (so I add duck/goose fat), and b)bone dense (so I add extra muscle meat). I also add extra taurine (because chopping/mincing/freezing the meat reduces taurine content). And I add B vitamins and water (because of lost blood), and also egg yolks, vitamin E and fish oil. But some folks don't think all those supplements are necessary.

The key thing (if you're feeding over 20% of raw) is that bone and meat are balanced (calcium and phosphorus), and fat also, and that you make up any nutrients that may be missing because of the processing of the meat. If you're feeding 20% or less of raw (ie, one meal in five or less) then that isn't so important.

If you feed a lot of raw (which I don't, but I am thinking about...) then you will need a decent food grinder/chopper, and freezer space....

Intially I'd suggest that you just try your cats with little bits of raw meat to see if they will eat it at all. And you can add small amounts of raw to their regular canned food to gently ease them into the idea... Four out of my five cats now love raw food above anything else, and one of the five still won't touch it (but I'm still working on him... ;-) )

Eliz
 
Thanks for the advice. I had some cow heart in the fridge (for the ferrets) so I tried all the cats with a small amount to see who would eat it as a treat. The 3 main hunters wolfed it down the 2 non hunters (inc jasper) kept picking it up but weren't sure what to do with it and the cat that only hunts and eats frogs (she's very strange) wasn't interested. I'm going to look at the websites you both suggested and do a lot of research before I try. :-D
 
All 14 of mine will take your leg off for chicken and rabbit but will completely ignore beef organs, but will wolf down raw steak or ground beef, so it maybe just the non-hunters aren't sure what to do with a cow heart, but will go wild for either raw rabbit or chicken. Who knows they are afterall cats. ;-)

Mel, Maxwell, Autumn & The Fur Gang
 
Di and Jasper said:
... At what point do you say no insulin. My vet said 20 (360) as she thinks he may be insulin sensitive but this seems quite high to me.
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Hi Dianne, - Just realised we hadn't responded to this bit of your post.

Do you mean 'at what number do you not give an insulin shot? (What folks here refer to as your 'no shoot' number?).

Normal blood glucose levels for a cat are roughly between 2.5 and 7.2 (and in some cats a smidge lower and higher than that). So, if the cat is staying in that range then no insulin is needed. But if the numbers go much above that then whether to give insulin or not depends on the individual cat and how they respond to insulin.

Some people will give insulin at pretty low numbers if they have the data to show that it is safe to do so. Some people with cats going into remission may give a tiny weeny amount of insulin at blood glucose levels just above normal numbers, or even at the higher range of normal numbers. But, from what we know, your cat does seem very insulin sensitive, so I really don't think this is an option for your cat: Hence my suggestion that you try to reduce the carb content of his food, because that would be a safe way to get his blood glucose levels lower.

At what pre-shot numbers have you given insulin most recently? And what doses did you give?

Oh, regarding raw food; yes, some people do feed chunks of meat instead of minced meat. Some feed a combination of minced and chunked meat. Some give chicken wings for the cat to chew on (a great teeth cleaner if the cat will do it - but mine won't...), or small birds like quail chopped into a couple of pieces. And there are people feed their cats whole mice or day-old chicks (these are produced as food for reptiles etc, I think). It really depends on what the cat will eat (and probably on what the owner can stomach! ;-) )

My cats are old and - apart from my feral girl who regularly catches and eats prey - can only manage to eat minced meat, and they get a little bit of raw meat most days. But even that has been really beneficial to them. My OH has commented on how well they look! Initially though a couple of them didn't actually recognise it as 'food' at all. So I added just a teaspoonful to their canned food, and then increased the amount until they could eat a meal of just raw meat.

There is another raw food site here that has all sorts of useful info.
http://feline-nutrition.org/

Eliz
 
Hi Dianne,

I can't really add anything more to the great advice you're already receiving, I just wanted to say "YAAAAY!!" for Jasper's numbers, and another YAAAY! for ordering low carb wet food from Germany.

Have a looksee at http://www.floydspfotenshop.de/Katz....html?XTCsid=d8929a828d26185d86ba41d82f4214d6 and also http://www.fuettern-mit-spass.de/katzenfutter/nassfutter/

My Catface, Milo, was on Hypurin PZI & has recently gone into remission, with help from Christopherus (0% carb) & Om Nom Nom (0.5% carb) & Taffy's (0.5% carb), all of which are high meat content. Some are canned raw, & then pasteurised in the can. It certainly looks 'nearly cooked' when I put it in their bowls, and some of the flavours has whole chicken hearts in it, which Milo (but not his sister) loves to chomp on.

I use Google Chrome as my browser & it will automatically translate the German web sites into English, sometimes with sniggery consequences.... :lol:

Good luck to you & Jasper!

Juliet
 
Hi Eliz I've been giving him an eighth of a unit when his +12 is 14, this drops his + 6 to between 3 and 6, his bg has been rising again and tonight it was 11.5 at + 12 i haven't given him any insulin because as you say he's just so sensitive. Strangly this weekend he's had no insulin and he hasn't been sleeping anywhere near as much as he has been just lately and he just seems more like his old self (pre diabetic). I guess he's probably going to need some tomorrow morning but I'm not comfortable waiting until he's at 20, when he starts getting higher numbers he goes really low at his +6 and he get aggressive with the other cats......
Hi Juliet thanks for the reply I'm really interest in the 0% carb food I think this will help jasper come off the juice. I'm going to go and have a look at the site just now, looking forward to translations lol. One question, does the food smell as strong as normal cat food, the reason I ask is because one of my cats won't eat wet cat food, she seems to hate the smell and walks out of the room when I put it down for all the other cats, she will only eat dried food, :oops: chicken and frogs :shock: oh yes if she can get hold of a loaf of bread or cheese she will eat that as well. I have been reading about using Parmesan cheese to entice cats to eat other foods so I'm going to try this next, I just thought if the food doesn't smell as strong as regular wet food it might be a bit easier to change her eating habits, I'm hoping if I change all the cats to a low carb diet then non of the others will have to go though what poor jaspers had to put up with.
Thanks
 
Yes, it would be better to switch ALL the cats to low carb, high protein wetness. Finding one that they're all happy with may be a bit of a nightmare, though! I just buy loads of different flavours & open more than one at a time.

RE: Smell....well, I'm not the best person to ask. :lol: In my opinion ALL cat food honks to high heaven! I don't like meat & don't eat it myself, so, first thing in the morning, opening a fresh tin, can be stomach-churning! :lol: I don't think its any more stinky than the usual stuff, but it depends on the flavour. The chickeny ones seem to be the least offensive to me!
 
Dr Schrodinger said:
...Finding one that they're all happy with may be a bit of a nightmare, though! I just buy loads of different flavours & open more than one at a time...
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Ha-ha! - They've got you well trained, Juliet! :lol:
 
Well I tested jasper this morning and as I expected his BG was 14, I gave him an eighth of a unit and his plus 12 was 6.4.... (No shot) Just tested him again at plus 4 and he's at 6.2, he seems to be spluttering so will wait and see what happens when his low carb food arrives
 
Di and Jasper said:
Well I tested jasper this morning and as I expected his BG was 14, I gave him an eighth of a unit and his plus 12 was 6.4.... (No shot) Just tested him again at plus 4 and he's at 6.2, he seems to be spluttering so will wait and see what happens when his low carb food arrives
Click to expand...

That's looking very encouraging, Dianne. Yes, will be really interesting to see what difference the low carb food makes....
 
Dr Schrodinger said:
Good numbers!!

I have all my bits crossed for him (& you). It is quite uncomfortable...
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ouch.... :mrgreen:
Well I ordered some bozita from zooplus and it arrived today, I nicely mashed it up for him and he wouldn't touch it :shock: I then up a large chunk of it into his bowl and he happily chomped away..... He hasn't had any insulin since Tuesday morning and his BG has been hanging around the 5 mark, although tonight's test was 9.9.
I had a look at that raw food supplier you mentioned Eliz and think I might try them before I go to the expense of buying grinder etc.

Thanks for the support guys it's just nice to have people to talk to that understand how you feel, I couldn't have anymore children after my daughter so I had cats instead :smile: so they are all my surrogate children and since jaspers diagnosis our relationship has got even closer people at work think I'm some kind of crazy cat lady, they talk about their kids all the time and I talk about my cats :-D
 
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