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millerb

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I wanted to introduce myself and my "sugar cat" Skipper: male, 15.5 years old, normal weight 11 lbs.
We began this journey Dec. 3, when I took him in because he hadn't been eating for a few days, but was drinking and peeing a lot. He already is on methimazole for hyperthyroid, so I didn't think that was it. A quick check of his blood sugar confirmed diabetes. I was overwhelmed for about 5 days. I had to snap out of it so I could start taking care of him. He also has chronic kidney disease. To make a very long story short, we started ProZinc insulin in early December. But his blood work also showed high calcium and he was losing about 1/2 lb. a week, so we had all kinds of scans and tests for cancer, which thankfully, showed no tumors anywhere. On the January day we had ultrasounds on his abdomen and heart looking for tumors, he went into diabetic ketoacidosis (I monitor his urine at home). I drove him straight from my vet's office to the specialty/emergency hospital, where I checked him into the intensive care unit at 8 lbs. In the ICU, he was on IV insulin for 48+ hours, then they started his ProZinc injections again. While on IV insulin, his sugar got down below 300, but when he would eat, it went up over 500 each time, and that's where it has been every week since then. We go to our vet every Thursday evening to get his blood sugar checked. After 10 hours of fasting, it's always 500+. We did make some progress last week, when he gained 5.5 oz. and his sugar was 402. But, we're on 5.5 units of ProZinc twice a day. My vet says if we can't get it controlled, she's going to send us to a specialist back at the specialty/emergency hospital.
Needless to say, my head has been spinning since Dec. 3. The whole month of December was a blur. I get up at 4:30 am on weekdays to give him breakfast and a shot before I head off to train before work, then I rush home from work to feed dinner and give another shot. I give SubQ fluids every other day for his CKD, and 2 halves of methimazole daily. I feel trapped, and that I'll never be able to travel again. I am a competitive athlete, and would like to travel this summer to some races, but can't make plans to do that without someone to take care of him. My husband is not comfortable giving the shots, monitoring urine, etc., so I feel like this is 100% on my shoulders.
Anyway, I'm glad I found this group and look forward to reading more about your experiences.
thanks for reading!
 
This has been a harrowing journey for you so far. Hopefully we will be able to help.

What does he eat? Would you be willing to learn to test his blood sugar at home? That will give you much more accurate numbers than at the vet (where cats are usually stressed by strange noises, smells, etc.) and you will be able to see just how the insulin is working in his body during the cycle.
 
Re: Introduction - now more challenges ahead

Thanks for the reply. I would definitely be willing to test his blood at home. We went to the vet tonight for our weekly check, and it wasn't good. He lost the 5.5 oz. he had gained last week, and his sugar was 502 on a 10-hour fast. My vet is sending us to an internal medicine specialist at the specialty hospital. They use a different kind of insulin there. I'm so frustrated because I have already spent literally thousands of dollars in the past 3 months, and we are no further along that when we started. It's not my vet's fault ... she has done everything she can think of. I think it's a combination of his hyperthyroid, CKD and now diabetes and anemia that is preventing us from making progress.

Skipper eats the w/d dry food primarily. He does not like wet food at all. I have literally tried every brand in my major metropolitan area, and have found 2 that he will eat. Both are Blue brand -- one is salmon and one is a new kind called Longevity mature. He will not eat any real food -- no chicken, fish, salmon, mackerel, anything. He is allergic to beef, we have discovered in trying to feed him beef liver to boost his red blood cell count. So the diet has been a challenge. Prior to the diabetes he was eating Acana dry food. My other cat is allergic to chicken and doesn't like dry food, only wet food. Have you ever tried to find a wet food without chicken or chicken byproducts? It's nearly impossible!

I'm glad I found this forum with people who are going through the same situation.
 
Re: Introduction - now more challenges ahead

millerb said:
Thanks for the reply. I would definitely be willing to test his blood at home. We went to the vet tonight for our weekly check, and it wasn't good. He lost the 5.5 oz. he had gained last week, and his sugar was 502 on a 10-hour fast. My vet is sending us to an internal medicine specialist at the specialty hospital. They use a different kind of insulin there. I'm so frustrated because I have already spent literally thousands of dollars in the past 3 months, and we are no further along that when we started. It's not my vet's fault ... she has done everything she can think of. I think it's a combination of his hyperthyroid, CKD and now diabetes and anemia that is preventing us from making progress.

Skipper eats the w/d dry food primarily. He does not like wet food at all. I have literally tried every brand in my major metropolitan area, and have found 2 that he will eat. Both are Blue brand -- one is salmon and one is a new kind called Longevity mature. He will not eat any real food -- no chicken, fish, salmon, mackerel, anything. He is allergic to beef, we have discovered in trying to feed him beef liver to boost his red blood cell count. So the diet has been a challenge. Prior to the diabetes he was eating Acana dry food. My other cat is allergic to chicken and doesn't like dry food, only wet food. Have you ever tried to find a wet food without chicken or chicken byproducts? It's nearly impossible!

I'm glad I found this forum with people who are going through the same situation.
Click to expand...

Alrighty, first thing to say is that you are in a great place, here on this site.

Now, let's do the food first.... dry is bad, but there are some cats who will not touch ANY wet food and would choose to starve and die before even smelling wet food. I know; I have a cat like that, but thank goodness she is not diabetic.
You said he will eat a couple flavors of wet in the Blue brand name, and I think that would be better than the dry food. I vaguely recall that there is an EVO dry kitten food that is not crazy with the carbs, but if possible, I would try to stick with the wet he will eat.
Also, you can refer to Binky's list for a ton of foods that list the carbs in each and maybe you can find a few that are under or around 10% that he will eat.
Binky’s Food Lists
Feeding Your Cat: Know The Basics of Feline Nutrition

I have a diabetic cat who is extremely carb sensitive, and if she gets just a few pieces of dry that she stole from the other cat, well, her numbers will hit the 400s, so you may have a fairly carb sensitive kitty on your hands.

In order to know what's going on with the insulin you are giving, home testing is the way to go, to keep your cat safe and also to cut down on all the expensive vet visits. The numbers you get at the vet are not of any use because most cats are stressed at the office and their numbers may well be much higher than normal. One of my cats tests higher at the vet and another actually tests lower. Once I get them home, they are back to their normal numbers in 30min.

You can pick up a normal blood glucose meter, test strips, lancets all at the pharmacy. If in the US, many people use the Relion as they have the most economical test strips, but my favorite meter is the Bayer contour. Many others use OneTouch, Accu-Chek, or some other, but stay clear of the Free Style ones as they have proven to give false readings for several cats.
Testing is quite simple to learn; just a poke on the tip of the cats ear for a drop of blood, then sip the blood on a test strip. there are youtubes as well, and no matter any problem you have, someone here can help you.
Here's one:
Testing on cat’s ear

What dose are you giving Skipper now, and what meds or supplements are you giving, aside from the fluids.

Once you start testing, you will be able to see how well or how poorly the PZI insulin is doing. If poorly, there are other insulins you can try like Lantus or Levemir which may be more to Skipper's liking.
 
The Blue Salmon flavor is a favorite with both my cats and is very low carb. I have been feeding that and Evo chicken/turkey flavors. Scout's numbers went way down when I removed the dry food. If you do feed dry, the Evo dry is the lowest carb I've seen. I would not recommend feeding any other dry while Skipper's blood sugar is so high.

You have definitely come to the right place. The folks here and their advice helped me treat Scout and get her diet-regulated and no longer needing insulin or daily tests.

Now get to home testing and save yourself some vet bills. :) My vet was happy to listen to the numbers over the phone and give advice, and of course you can always come here for advice on the numbers.

Good luck and scritches to Skipper.

Lori
 
Thank you so much for the replies. I have tried EVO wet foods, and both cats throw it up. That's been an issue with a lot of the canned foods. It can't have any beef or chicken in them, and even the ones that are supposed to be "turkey" or "salmon" often have chicken as a 2nd or 3rd ingredient. He just doesn't like wet food. I've even tried adding warm vegetable or chicken broth to his dry food, and he won't touch it. I'm also concerned about the low carb/high protein foods because of his CKD, which requires low protein. So it's quite the conundrum!

Skipper is on methimazole, 2.5 mg twice a day; 5.5 units of ProZinc twice a day; and Lactated Ringer's fluids, 250 ccs every other day. We've tried a bunch of neutraceutical supplements but he has vomited them all up.

I think I will start home testing. I may take advantage of the free testing kit on this site if one is available. I kind of feel like I've been throwing money down a rat hole for the past 3 months, but of course, if I had to do it all over again, I probably would.

Thanks again for the advice. I'm making an appt. today to see the internal medicine specialist, and hopefully she will have some ideas on how to get this taken care of before I develop an ulcer.
 
Have you tried Nature's Variety Instinct at all? For canned they have Rabbit and Lamb don't have any beef or poultry: http://www.naturesvariety.com/Instinct/cat/can/all. Just don't feed the Nature's Variety Venison--it's crazy high in phosphorus. Dick van Patten's Natural Balance formulas has a Venison & Pea, Duck & Pea, and Salmon & Pea formula that are limited ingredients as well--if you have local pet food or grain supply store near you usually they carry them. There's a store locator on the Nature's variety site: http://www.naturesvariety.com/locator, and the Dick van Patten site: http://www.naturalbalanceinc.com/home/usa.tpl . I think PetCo carries the nature's variety. I'm know you've already tried, but I also want to give you this link in case there's a trick that you haven't tried yet: http://catinfo.org/#Transitioning_Dry_Food_Addicts_to_Canned_Food_.

Unfortunately I don't know of a lower carb dry food that doesn't have beef or poultry in it. I was going to recommend the Instinct dry, but looking over the ingredients, there is turkey and chicken in all of them. Natural Balance makes Limited ingredient dry foods, but Peas are the first ingredient so I wouldn't think they'd be low carb: http://www.naturalbalanceinc.com/catformulas/DuckCat.html.

EDIT: I just reread your last post, and am I understanding right that he can have turkey? If so, Instinct has a new Turkey dry food that's lower in carbs: http://www.naturesvariety.com/Instinct/cat/kibble/LIDturkey

Another option (albeit a pricy one), would be freeze dried raw food: http://www.naturesvariety.com/InstinctRaw/FD/dog/all--it's dry so he might take to it. You can get the Lamb or Venison formulas (that have no poultry or beef).
 
Thanks for the advice. We have tried the Nature's Variety ones, and one of them threw up the duck and rabbit ... I think it was my other cat. Today I got Wellness CORE Salmon, Whitefish and Herring. I think we've tried that before, and it's grain-free and chicken-free. We'll see how it goes tomorrow. I also got more of the Blue Longevity Mature, which they loved, and both kept down. Always a plus!

I asked my vet about the raw diets and she thought it would be too rough on his GI system since he has such a sensitive stomach anyway. I'll see what the internal medicine specialist says when we go March 5. I'm not going to make any big changes until then.
 
millerb said:
I asked my vet about the raw diets and she thought it would be too rough on his GI system since he has such a sensitive stomach anyway. I'll see what the internal medicine specialist says when we go March 5. I'm not going to make any big changes until then.
Click to expand...

A lot of times a raw diet is actually the best thing you can feed a cat with GI issues--I think your vet might be mistaken that it would be hard on his system. In fact, it would likely be the exact opposite. Check out this part of Dr. Pierson's cat nutrition page: http://catinfo.org/#Inflammatory_Bowel_Disease_(IBD)
 
Thanks, Julia! I may give it a try. This morning he refused to eat at all at our normal feeding time, so I had to wait until after finished my workout then try again. He turned his nose up at the wet food that he ate heartily last week (Blue Longevity Mature -- all fish protein, no grain or poultry) and ate a few bites of dry w/d. Urine check was clear for ketones, but continues to show high sugar levels.
I will try the freeze dried food and see how he does. A local pet supply shop allows returns if something doesn't work, so I'll get it from there. One more week until we see the specialist.

I greatly admire all of you for dealing with this, as this is one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. Even watching my beloved German shepherd decline in her old age then watch cancer destroy her body was not as hard as trying to balance blood sugar, food, carbohydrates, water, urine, insulin, weight, neuropathy, and hospitalizations.
 
Remember to do any diet changes by gradually mixing in the new food. Otherwise, you frequently get vomiting and/or diarrhea.
A 3 day plan might look have these mix ratios
25% new : 75% old on day 1
50% new : 50% old on day 2
75% new : 25% old on day 3
 
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