New to Forum - Diabetic Cat Food

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tyshaosborne

Member Since 2013
Hi everyone! I am new to the forum. My husband and I have two male cats, one is diabetic. We love our cats dearly!! We check in with our vet often, but I'm wondering if we are getting up-to-date information? We have been feeding both of our cats Hills Prescription w/d - dry food. They eat 1/4 of a cup of food about 3-4 times a day, mostly at night because they have decided that sleeping at this time is unreasonable :-). Should we feed cat(2)_steam our cats wet food or dry food? What wet food is good? How often should we check our cat's blood sugar level? We do it about 2x a month. There is so much discrepant information online, so I'm seeking real cat parents' advice. Thank you so much! Andre and Andie's Mom and Dad :-)
 
Welcome to the FDMB!! The best place to be if you have an extra sweet kitty!!

The simple answer to your question is that we recommend only feeding wet food with less than 10% carbs. Many of our cats have been able to go off the juice by a simple diet change. Dry foods are too high in carbs. We have a list with the foods broken down by carb percentage too. Look in column C for the carb percentage and choose foods less than 10%

Dr. Pierson's Food Chart

The other thing you're going to hear a lot is that we strongly suggest home testing for your cat. This is the only way to know how your cat is responding to treatment, as well as knowing when you might need to increase, or decrease the dosage.

Are you giving insulin now? Or trying to manage with only diet change? If on insulin, what kind and at what dose? We recommend Lantus, Levemir or Pro Zinc as they work best on cats.

Ask all the questions you have! The members here are great and will do their best to help you. They live and breathe feline diabetes and can help keep your kitty both safe and heading towards regulation...or even remission!
 
Which cat is diabetic? Andre or Andie?

Many of us here feed Fancy feast classic pates, Friskies pates or wellness grain free canned as they are low in carbs as BJ said. But if you are giving insulin ( let us know) you should home test a bit more often since his blood sugar can drop fast.

I usually recommend 3-4 tests a day but it depends on whether you are giving insulin or not yet?

let us know

Wendy
 
Increased hunger is one of the signs of diabetes.

Low carbohydrate (and cost) over the counter canned food includes Friskies pates. I'm feeding 14 cats with 13 oz cans of the Turkey and Giblets. I've found this as low as $0.78 per can.
 
Hi Andre and Andie's mom and dad and welcome to the FDMB. Lot's of great info here.

Would you let us know your names too?

I'm Deb and that tuxie over to the right is my sugarcat Wink. He used to be on the Hill's W/D dry food (37% carbs) at the recommendation of the vet. When I brought him home to foster, I switched him to low carb canned food, Fancy Feast and Friskies pates style. It took 3 weeks to get this dry food addict to recognize wet food as edible but it did not take long after that to get Wink OTJ. OTJ means off-the-juice, insulin being the juice, aka in remission, aka diet controlled diabetic. This was after about 4 months of being unregulated at the shelter, eating food that is not good for a diabetic cat.

I highly recommend the use of low carb wet food for a diabetic cat, and Wink recommends it too! ;-) Before you make the food change, you need to be home testing. This is because the food change can drop the BG (blood glucose) levels 100 points or more. You want to make sure your kitty is safe during the food changeover.

What insulin are you using now?
 
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