? Introducing Bandit and food questions (Ontario, Canada)

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Emma & Bandit

Emma & Bandit

Member Since 2021
Hi,

I'm just learning the lingo and took me a while to figure out conversions of BG numbers between US and Canada but I wanted to post a quick introduction for my cat Bandit. He's 4.5 years old and diagnosed Dec, 2020. Bandit has a history of being allergic to food and ate only Hydrolyzed Dry Cat food. He was over grooming in the summer of 2020 and causing some wounds so the vet gave him a steroid shot and oral steroid to ease the spots he was creating. Following up in December because we had noticed some odd signs and he was diagnosed officially after some blood work.

We started on purina DM and .5 units Lantus twice daily. He happily ate the food and within 3 weeks was off insulin. Problem was he started vomiting and sure enough he was allergic to the DM (we had hoped he had maybe outgrown the allergy). We then tried Hills Gluco Support m/d but only were able to get a hold of 3 weeks worth. Everything was going great on it but we can't get anymore as its out of stock everywhere and on backorder. We moved on to Royal Canin Select Protein VR and he needed to go back to 1 unit Lantus twice a day, of course after 2.5 weeks he started vomiting and we had to go back to Hills z/d dry food, where we were before the diabetes. Not a good food for a diabetic cat but not sure what to try next.

He just got upped to 2 units twice a day yesterday as his curve at the vet yesterday after 1 unit were between 360-576 (20-32). Here are my two main issues:

1. I gave him his first upped dose of 2 units last night and this morning - this afternoon he threw up a decent hairball and then 2 more small amounts right after, there was blood in the last amount, more than I've seen before. He also had diarrhea which he never gets, this made me panic about the dose of insulin (although please keep in mind this guy has such a history of vomiting). It took me about 5 tries but I finally tested his BG at home for the first time right before his shot and he tested 239 (13.3). I couldn't contact the vet so I dropped him to 1 unit instead of 2 for his evening dose (he did eat and drink and no vomit). He just tested +3.75 at 158.4 (8.8)!. I'm happy I gave him only 1 unit but I have to wonder what's going on with this guy! I'll keep him at 1 unit tomorrow and talk to vet Monday (fingers crossed no more vomiting until then....) I'm a little nervous about the decision but feel better since I was able to test.

2. HELP WITH FOOD PLEASE - all suggestions welcome! It appears chicken may be an allergy factor for him so we are avoiding that for sure. He does not seem to have issues with pork (odd I know). If we could ever get the Hills m/d again we could see if he could tolerate it. But we will try him on another wet food once we settle him and am looking for foods available in Canada. I'm thinking seafood (although so many have chicken!) and was looking at Fancy Feast Cod, sole & shrimp feast to start as its available locally. If anyone has had diabetic and allergy suffering cats please feel free to suggest anything.

Sorry for the long post and no doubt incorrect terminology. I've read a lot of newbie FAQ's but I don't think I have it quite down.

Thanks!
 
Hi.
With food allergies, I suggest you start making your own raw fresh food with full control over what goes in yourself.
Use Vet Lisa Pierson's well researched and well attested pages on her own site for that
1. First read this https://catinfo.org/#Home-Prepared_Diets
2. Then read this https://catinfo.org/making-cat-food/
3. Then go look in your local slaughter or store's meat section. Vet Lisa uses rabbit, but us Arctic Northerners also have wild hares, moose, rein deers, deers e.t.c. My Simba and Gustav got to try frozen deers and wild hare, but the deers smelled yuck even out through the freezer in kitchen and they just nibbled on the taste samples but turned them down. So I gave them away to my old old and wise Mum and Dad so they could eat them instead (I am A Vegetarian Myself) Only the frozen wild hare tasted better to them Simba and Gustav thought. But as every day standard they have beef, rein deer and Ice Ocean Greenland Shrimps.

Good Luck!
 
Hello, waving at you from the coast of BC. :)

You don't need vet specific diets either for diabetes, or food allergies. There are lots of commercially available novel proteins in Canada, both raw food and canned low carb. You can make your own too, but you can get started with what you can buy in the store. Novel proteins would be things like lamb, rabbit, duck, kangaroo, venison. Some of the brands we can buy here that have those options are Rawz, Nature's Variety Instinct, Koha, Ziwipeak, Feline Naturals. If you do want to make your own, it's easier to start with a premix and just add meat and water. Two premixes I've used are TC Feline (made in BC) and FoodFurLife's EZComplete (from the US).

However since you are feeding higher carb food now (the prescriptions stuff), don't change the food until you are more comfy with home testing. Changing to lower carb food can make a huge change in the amount of insulin needed.
 
Thanks for the food suggestions. I think I will look into attempting my own food in a while. I'm surrounded by 3 small butchers within a few blocks of my house so I could maybe speak with them about grinding the meats for me. He's shown he's already allergic to venison so I'm not sure what I'll start with. Maybe seafood. At least I may be able to figure out his exact allergy. Although I suspect chicken.
I also like the idea of the TC Feline. Seems easy to order.
My biggest struggle was the lancet - I just kept thinking I was doing it wrong so I only used the actual needle part which poor bandit was not too impressed about.
 
Chicken, beef, and fish are common allergens for cats. If your cat tolerates pork, you can easily get ground pork at your local butcher or grocery. The same is likely true for lamb. The butcher may be a good source for rabbit. You may need to do a fair amount of label reading to make sure that the food your buying doesn't have anything your cat can't tolerate. (One of the Fancy Feast poultry flavors has fish in it, for example.)

Like Wendy noted, the "prescription" foods are not really prescription.There's no way the carbohydrate content of some of the diabetic foods would make them appropriate for a diabetic cat!

Just to add, Dr. Lisa's recipe for homemade raw food is great. It just takes forever to source the ingredients. I've used the same pre-mixes that Wendy mentioned and they make a raw diet much easier to put together.
 
Red & Rover (GA) said:
Try a larger lancet. 26G or 28G should do the trick. (The smaller the number, the larger the needle.)

Waving from the Kawarthas. Welcome.
Click to expand...

Waving from GTA - changing the lancets was life altering for us. We bought 100 FreeStyle from Walmart for about $12 and they've been great. A few misses since buying them, but the blood flows more easily now. We're only about three weeks in on our cat's treatment so are still learning the ropes as well.
 
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