New Member - Larry and Weight Gain

[Morgan Ehlers]

Hello all! New member here with my sweet boy Larry. He was in bad condition when I took him to the vet and to be honest he is lucky to be alive. His blood sugar was astronomical when we went to the vet which confirmed and officially diagnosed him. He has very weak back legs, can still walk and use a box on his own but he gets litter clumps on his feet. We attempted a pee pad lined box but he insists on using the regular box.

Anyways not my real point here. He lost a significant amount of weight in the past few months and I would love to get him a bit chunky again. What are some good ways to do this without overloading him with carbs?

Any advice is welcome! I'm very green with this (still doing really well!) And could use all the info I can!

Thank you so much in advance! I'm try grateful to have found this group!

 

[Sienne and Gabby (GA)]

Welcome to you and Larry!

There are any number of ways we can be helpful. We tend to follow several tried and true methods for managing your cats diabetes. Most of the members here tend to follow the dosing recommendations we follow and don't go to the vet to have their cat's blood glucose (BG) checked -- which ends up costing a fortune especially when you can do this at home and keep your cat safe -- or to have the vet tell you how much to change the insulin dose. Obviously, that's up to you. We are huge proponents of home testing and this is borne out by research and recommendations by organizations like the American Animal Hospital Assn. (We really aren't a group of internet crazy cat ladies and gentlemen!!) We can provide you with information and videos on home testing.

We also have guidelines for the insulins that are commonly prescribed for treating feline diabetes. Please let us know if we can point you to those, or other resources.

We can offer some suggestions regarding what sounds like diabetic neuropathy -- the weakness in your cat's back legs. Methylcobalamin in a form of vitamin B12 (methyl-B12) which is tasteless and can be added to your cat's food and as numbers begin to normalize will help to get his legs back to normal. One variety is Zobaline which is formulated for diabetic cats and is available on Amazon.

As far as helping your cat to gain weight, it sounds like your aware of feeding your cat a low carb diet. We consider low carb to be less than 10%, although most of the member here feed their cat in the 5% range. This is a website on feline nutrition that is authored by a vet. There is a chart that's linked on the right side of the page (I also linked it.) that lists the majority of canned cat foods available in the US along with nutritional information. You can look for low carb foods that are higher in calories. Wellness is a good example. However, you'll notice that the higher calorie foods are higher in fat. Another alternative is to give your cat more of the low carb food you're already using. Most unregulated diabetic cats are generally hungry all the time so more food is likely to make you very popular with your cat.

Please let us know what questions you have and how we can be helpful. The members here are very generous with their time and knowledge.

 

[JanetNJ]

Welcome. Sorry about the diagnosis. You've come to the right place.

Get him on a good low carb wet food. Let him eat as much of it as he wants. Most here feed fancy feast classic or Friskies pate foods. He can eat any time except for the two hours before the preshot test when you start testing.

Get him on a quality insulin. We recommend lantus or ProZinc. Test the bg daily at home. He won't have an easy time gaining weight or repairing the leg weakness while the bg are so high. I have a video in my signature showing how I test my cat CC at home. B12 methylcobalamin supplements can help the neuropathy as well in conjunction with the better bg.