Need Help: Walter the cat is ravenous-

[Zelda & Walter]

His BG keeps bouncing but seems to hover in the 400-600 range. I'm not sure if I'm feeding him enough or too much food. He's on DM Selects. Taking two units of Lantus twice a day. Vet increased from 1.5 to 2 last week but little change in the readings. In late August, Walter had to be hospitalized (ketoacidosis) and I don't want to go down that path again. I've just now fed him another half can of food (he had about a half at 6am). Plan is to give him more at 6pm but he still seems very hungry plus I think he's lost weight over the last 2 weeks. Thyroid?
Tried to attach spreadsheet without success (will keep trying).
Any advice would be much appreciated.
Thank you!

 

[FurBabiesMama]

Hi. Cats usually are starving when their glucose is too high. If he is staying in the 400-600 range ALL the time, that is much too high. Please do add a link to your spreadsheet. There are instructions here: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/fdmb-spreadsheet-instructions.130337/ and you can post for help, if you need it.

It is fine for him to be fed multiple times a day. There are formulas for determining how much food your cat should be getting. A common one is 20 calories per pound of healthy body weight. So, you can calculate how much food that is and break it into multiple meals (my girls get 4 meals daily). Also, while his glucose is unregulated, he may need extra food since his body is unable to properly use the food he eats. Here is how PetMD.com explains it, "Because insulin helps the body to use sugar for energy, lack of insulin also means that the body’s organs will not receive enough energy. This will make your cat feel hungry all the time, and though it will eat a lot more food, it will not gain weight."

Purina DM Selects are 10% carbs according to the cat food list/database. Could be worse, but you may want to consider something lower. Of course, if you do decide to change to a lower carb food, it would be important to be careful and test regularly since a change to lower carb food can sometimes drop a cat's glucose numbers.

 

[Zelda & Walter]

Hi. Cats usually are starving when their glucose is too high. If he is staying in the 400-600 range ALL the time, that is much too high. Please do add a link to your spreadsheet. There are instructions here: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/fdmb-spreadsheet-instructions.130337/ and you can post for help, if you need it.

It is fine for him to be fed multiple times a day. There are formulas for determining how much food your cat should be getting. A common one is 20 calories per pound of healthy body weight. So, you can calculate how much food that is and break it into multiple meals (my girls get 4 meals daily). Also, while his glucose is unregulated, he may need extra food since his body is unable to properly use the food he eats. Here is how PetMD.com explains it, "Because insulin helps the body to use sugar for energy, lack of insulin also means that the body’s organs will not receive enough energy. This will make your cat feel hungry all the time, and though it will eat a lot more food, it will not gain weight."

Purina DM Selects are 10% carbs according to the cat food list/database. Could be worse, but you may want to consider something lower. Of course, if you do decide to change to a lower carb food, it would be important to be careful and test regularly since a change to lower carb food can sometimes drop a cat's glucose numbers.

 

[Zelda & Walter]

Thank you. Not sure why the vet recommended the DM food but I'll try something with lower carbs. Really need to get these numbers down.

 

[Veronica & Babu-chiri]

Hi and welcome!!

With a history of ketoacidosis and his numbers being high right now, I think that unless he's overweight ( which doesn't appear to be the case ) you should give him as much food as he wants do not limit his food intake right now.

We can see the spreadsheet but I'm not sure is the right one since there's no data in it, and it would be good to be able to see your test results so that people here can try and figure out what's going on with those high numbers