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Elijah & Dingus

Elijah & Dingus

Member Since 2023
Hi everyone!!

My name is Elijah, and my cat's name is Dingus, which I promise is quite applicable with this kitty. He's an orange tabby and really has that orange cat personality. A bit of background - I moved to my current neighborhood in June 2022, and there were a few neighborhood strays that my roommates and I fed, Dingus being one of them. I think there were 3 strays in total, and 2 of them looked really healthy and well-groomed, likely indoor-outdoor cats. Dingus had really matted fur, looked really old, and was super skinny. In October 2022, we decided to bring him inside, get him vetted, and see what his situation was. He had to basically get completely shaved because the matting was so deep, he was estimated to be around 10-11 years old, and based on his frame, he should be around 12lbs but weighed barely 8 and a half.

After months of trying to find him a home, I really fell in love with this cat. He's got so much energy and a BIG personality, and I decided to adopt him myself. I noticed that he was starving all the time, no matter how much we fed him, and he drank a LOT of water. He would urinate so much that I had to clean his litterbox 2 or 3 times a day to prevent it from stinking up my room. I had a feeling it was feline diabetes, and that diagnosis was confirmed in July 2023, just about a month ago at this point.

Right now he's on 2 units of ProZinc twice a day, he's getting half a cup of Purina One True Instinct dry food and a can of Tiki Cat wet food twice a day (total 1 cup of dry food and 2 cans of wet food), and he's put on some weight and didn't seem to be starving all the time anymore. However, the last week or so, that's kind of changed. I have a lot of questions and concerns, I've never had a pet with diabetes before, but I don't want to ask questions that have already been asked and answered, so I'm going to read through some things in the ProZinc thread and the FAQ first.

Anyways, I'm really grateful that a message board like this exists, I was having a hard time doing research on my own. Thank you in advance to any advice or information that people have posted already or that people give to me. Here's a picture of Dingus (aka Dingy or Dingleberry) for you all, too!
 
Hi and welcome Elijah and Dingus to the forum. What a gorgeous boy!
It is wonderful you took him in. he is a lucky boy!
Please ask all the question you like. Most people have the same questions you will want answers for and we are happy to answer them all time and again.
Dry food is not the greatest food to feed diabetic cats as it is high carb and cats need food that is 10% carbs or lower.
There are a couple of low carb dry foods on the market if you are interested.
However I would not do any swapping of food over to low carb unless you are hometesting the blood glucose (BG) because a lower carb diet will drop the BG up to 100 points and unless you are monitoring the BGs you won’t know until the cat has a hypo event, which we want to avoid at all costs.
I am going to give you a couple of links for hometesting (it isn’t as scary as it sounds) and Dingus will accept it I am sure with a few bribes of food! We all started out like you, knowing nothing and thinking we could not possibly hometest!
HOMETESTING HINTS AND LINKS

I’m also going to give you the link to our spreadsheet and signature. And also the hypo kit…make sure you get one set up asap. We can help you with dosing but we need to see the BG data to do so. And the signature which appears at the bottom of all your posts will tell us about Dingus. We always look at the SS and signature before we help you. You can see mine at the bottom of my post in small typing.
HELP US HELP YOU

And here is a link to a FOOD CHART
 
Hi Bron and Sheba! I appreciate your and assumingly everyone else's willingness to answer the same questions so many times. I'm glad I found this message board.

I do know that dry food is not the greatest to feed diabetic cats, and once I get him a little more regulated and at a healthy weight, I'm going to cut back on how much I give him. I have heard, though, that feeding too high of protein content can lead to kidney issues down the road, so I'm likely going to keep him on the dry food and just lower it to half a cup per day at the most. The dry food I'm feeding him is high protein, but still has (I think) around 35% carbs, so I do plan to find a lower carb content dry food to switch to.

Thank you for the links, too! I'm going to start reading through everything today, so I probably will start posting questions tonight or tomorrow.
 
Unregulated cats will eat but still be hungry and lose weight. I wound feed him more right now so he can gain. He doesn’t have to eat x2 a day only. That’s something that works for dogs who have slower metabolisms than cats. Cats are grazers. It’s also easier on their compromised pancreas to have smaller meals throughout the day and helps avoid big sugar spikes. Most of us feed the 2 larger meals at shot times and smaller ones or snacks 3-4 times a day. Please consider feeding him more right now.

I echo what Bron said thank you for rescuing him!!!
 
I'm really glad I rescued him, too, he's become really really important to me in the 3 months I've had him. When we first took Dingus to the vet in January 2023, he weighed around 8.5lbs, you could very clearly see his spine and hips, and he had basically 0 muscle in his hips. In July when he was diagnosed, he was up to 9.25lbs, still way skinny compared to where he should be. Since starting ProZinc, he has gone up to about 10.5lbs, and I'm still feeding him a lot for each meal, plus he gets a high-calorie lickable mousse tube thing three times a day. I'm working on getting him to 12lbs, which is his ideal weight based on his frame size, before I make any changes to his diet. His digestive system did not like being switched from Friskie's pate to Tiki Cat, so I'm going to wait before I try to make another switch.

One of the issues I'm having with him though is that I don't want to leave food out for him because I'm not home during the day and I'm worried he'll scarf it down right away. I saw a thread about auto feeders to look into, and that's probably what I'll end up doing, I just have to look into the options and find one that's financially doable. I'm low-income, so I have to plan every penny.
 
Elijah & Dingus said:
I'm really glad I rescued him, too, he's become really really important to me in the 3 months I've had him. When we first took Dingus to the vet in January 2023, he weighed around 8.5lbs, you could very clearly see his spine and hips, and he had basically 0 muscle in his hips. In July when he was diagnosed, he was up to 9.25lbs, still way skinny compared to where he should be. Since starting ProZinc, he has gone up to about 10.5lbs, and I'm still feeding him a lot for each meal, plus he gets a high-calorie lickable mousse tube thing three times a day. I'm working on getting him to 12lbs, which is his ideal weight based on his frame size, before I make any changes to his diet. His digestive system did not like being switched from Friskie's pate to Tiki Cat, so I'm going to wait before I try to make another switch.

One of the issues I'm having with him though is that I don't want to leave food out for him because I'm not home during the day and I'm worried he'll scarf it down right away. I saw a thread about auto feeders to look into, and that's probably what I'll end up doing, I just have to look into the options and find one that's financially doable. I'm low-income, so I have to plan every penny.
Click to expand...

they can be very expensive, or not. Pretty wide range.

This one is about $20, it's the one we got:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08737FP7D/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 
Bron and Sheba (GA) said:
I’ll tag @Diane Tyler's Mom as she can tell you about low carb dry food options.
Click to expand...
Here are some low carb dry foods ,they are about 5 or 6% carbs
None of them are cheap
You need to order them online
Dr Elseys you can buy on chewey site
https://www.chewy.com/dr-elseys-cleanprotein-chicken/dp/146269?utm_source=google-product&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=12791446238&utm_content=Dr. Elsey's&utm_term=&show-search=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI0PvU2Zj79wIVRIdbCh3JawEkEAQYASABEgIInfD_BwE

Young again on their web site
https://www.youngagainpetfood.com
Take a look at the young again zero or the zero mature

Dr Elsey's also at Walmart
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Dr-Elsey...ViI3ICh0suwO_EAQYAiABEgJrOPD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Dr Elsey's Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FCJHDPR/ref=twister_B09GHFJY65?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

the Dr Elsey's comes in different size bags
None of these can be bought in stores

Also
Wysong Epigen 90
 
Elijah & Dingus said:
I just have to look into the options and find one that's financially doable. I'm low-income, so I have to plan every penny.
Click to expand...
If money is an issue I understand that
I know Tiki Cat is a little expensive, Most feed Fancy Feast Pates or Friskies, more affordable
Most feed 6% carbs and under
Bron gave you the food chart above
I would suggest you start home testing also
Here is the link for the meter and test strips so you don't have to search for them
Relion Premier Classic Meter at Walmart for 9 dollars
https://www.walmart.com/ip/ReliOn-Premier-CLASSIC-Blood-Glucose-Monitoring-System/552134103
The tests strips are 17.88 for 100
https://www.walmart.com/ip/ReliOn-Premier-Blood-Glucose-Test-Strips-100-Count/575088197

Click on this link and go to post #5 , it will explain how the spreadsheet works
https://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/new-member-salem-newly-diagnosed.271043/#post-3018593
 
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Sorry for not checking in for a couple of days, work was super crazy Thursday afternoon and yesterday. Tiki Cat is kind of expensive, but I use it because of their sustainability efforts, and that was something I did a lot of research on before picking a wet food for him. They use certain seafood practices that are significantly more sustainable than what most companies use, which is something super important to me, so I'm okay with the slightly more expensive food due to that. I didn't know that there were good yet inexpensive auto feeders, so thank you to Kyle & Hendrick for that link! I'm going to order one of those.

Thank you, as well, to Diane & Tyler for the links to the meter and strips, plus the dry food options. I'll order the meter and strips, too, when I order the feeder, and I'll check into the foods to see what would make the most sense. I have to get a new bag of dry food soon, so I'll start switching him over once I have the low-carb food. I did check out the spreadsheet and got one for Dingus set up to start logging his levels once I get the meter and strips, and I'll make sure to keep that updated. I truthfully still don't really understand the numbers part of all of this, but I'm sure it'll start to make a lot more sense once I start home-testing.

Y'all have been incredibly helpful just in the few days I've been here, and I really hope you know how much I appreciate it. I was prepared for the diagnosis, but that didn't make it any easier to figure out what the heck I'm supposed to be doing, and y'all have been a huge help.
 
Always aim for the sweet spot warm the ears up first, you can put rice in a sock and put it in the microwave, test it on the inside of your wrist to be sure it's not to hot, like you would test a babies bottle. You can fill a pill bottle with warm water and roll it on the ears also.Just keep rubbing the ears with your fingers to warm them up
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fec17d29-5ab4-44a8-912b-3a91944c3954-jpeg.57073

6. As the ears get used to bleeding and grow more capilares, it gets easier to get the amount of blood you need on the first try. If he won’t stand still, you can get the blood onto a clean finger nail and test from there.
When you do get some blood you can try milking the ear.
Get you finger and gently push up toward the blood , more will appear
You will put the cotton round behind his ear in case you poke your finger, after you are done testing you will fold the cotton round over his ear to stop the bleeding , press gently for about 10 or 20 seconds until it stops
Get 26 or 28 gauge lancets
A lot of us use the lancets to test freehand not the lancing device
I find it better to see where I'm aiming
Look at the lancet under a light and you will see one side is curved upward, that's the side you want to poke with
Here is a video one of our members made testing her kitty
She's using a pet meter that has to be coded ,with a human meter you don't have to code it.
I have always used a human meter
VIDEO: How to test your cat's blood sugar
 
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