New to the boards: Wonton not peeing

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Wonton

Wonton

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Wonton is 11 yrs old and found out the beginning of April of her diabetes. She's on 2 units 2x daily of Lantus and I'm slowly changing her canned food to FF Classic. 3/4 Friskies Special Diet Chicken w/Gravy and 1/3 FF twice a day. The vet prescribed Hills W/D dry that I leave out for her to craze on during the day while I'm at work. Her BG has been close to 300 most evenings (which is much better than 598 when we first started). I've been used to alot of pee in her litterbox when I get home from work but yesterday there was one regular sized clump. This moring I saw she hadn't peed all night and her BG was 398. She hasn't been drinking her water like she used to, but I'm thinking she's getting her water from the canned food? If I do home and she still hasn't peed I'm thinking I would need to take her to the vet, but what if she seems like she's feeling fine?? But with that high BG I would think she'd be peeing much more. I'd appreciate any advice, suggestions. Thank you and thank you for this wonderful message board!
 
Wonton said:
Wonton is 11 yrs old and found out the beginning of April of her diabetes. She's on 2 units 2x daily of Lantus and I'm slowly changing her canned food to FF Classic. 3/4 Friskies Special Diet Chicken w/Gravy and 1/3 FF twice a day. The vet prescribed Hills W/D dry that I leave out for her to craze on during the day while I'm at work. Her BG has been close to 300 most evenings (which is much better than 598 when we first started). I've been used to alot of pee in her litterbox when I get home from work but yesterday there was one regular sized clump. This moring I saw she hadn't peed all night and her BG was 398. She hasn't been drinking her water like she used to, but I'm thinking she's getting her water from the canned food? If I do home and she still hasn't peed I'm thinking I would need to take her to the vet, but what if she seems like she's feeling fine?? But with that high BG I would think she'd be peeing much more. I'd appreciate any advice, suggestions. Thank you and thank you for this wonderful message board!
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First thing: the food needs to be changed. Dry food for a diabetic is not good, and the sooner the better. The gravies have to go as well.... sorry, Wonton!.

Now, the dose of 2u is quite high for starting out, but with the dry food, you are likely safe from BG dropping too low. The numbers you want to see, to know how she is doing on the Lantus will be more around mid-cycle, not the BG at shot times, so if you could do a curve one or two cycles.... test at +3, +6, +9, for example.... you will see how she's reacting to the insulin.

For the urine, how much water is she drinking? If you are feeding a dry food, she is not getting any moisture there! That dry food is really a bad thing for diabetics; no moisture and too high in carbs.
Is she going to the box but not peeing, or just not going at all today?

There are plenty of better foods which will give you a chance of getting Wonton off insulin, just stick to the wet, low carb foods, with no grilled or sauce or gravy in the names.

I always added more water to my cats' wet food as one does not drink straight water at all, and the other was not a big drinker. Both of their urine outputs decreased as they became regulated, but not sure about other cats.

You want to be sure that you are testing more when you remove the dry food, and I would consider decreasing the dose to 1u BID for the food change, as you want to avoid any hypo issues.
 
Thank you for your reply! I should have mentioned that originally I started her on 1 unit 2x daily. Also, I had changed her Friskies w/gravy to FF Classic one evening and the next morning she was so violently vomitting, but thankfully she was able to eat and keep it down by mid-afternoon. So I'm slowly changing with 1/3 FF Classic and 2/3 Friskies until it will be all FF Classic. If she doesn't eat all day, except morning, she sometimes gets stick vomitting just foam, so I leave her something to nibble (dry food) during the day. Would a small amount of low carb dry food be ok? Maybe once her sugar levels are more normal she won't need food during the day, but just guessing.
 
It is really best to feed her several times during the day - but not dry food. Many of us use a timed feeder - I have a 2 compartment and set it to open at +4 and +8. If you don't have a timed feeder you can freeze some wet food and then your kitty can nibble as it thaws.

If she continues to vomit, you might want to think about Pepcid. Try spreading out her food a bit first. If she continues to vomit, check beck here about Pepcid.
 
I appreciate the info :-D Here's my to do list: I will add some water to her canned FF Classic with the slow transition to only FF (or may try Wellness). Will also freeze some food to thaw during the day and may try the timed feeder also. I will get her off dry food and do more testing especially curves which may show a need to decrease the insulin from 2 u to 1 u. So I have things to work on to get my girl feeling better. At this moment I'm concerned because my bf called to say she still has not peed, but doesn't seem uncomfortable or distressed. Going to call the vet's office but I know they'll want me to bring her in. It's really hard on the pocketbook lately, but if she's sick, maybe a urinary tract infection, then of course I will do what I can to get her well....
 
There is no dry food that is good for a diabetic cat. There are maybe one or two brands that have lower carbs, but then you still have the moisture problem with dry food. Also, even low carb dry food can increase blood glucose levels for many cats. It's best to just not have it at all.

What many of us do when we are not home to feed, is freeze portions of canned food and leave them out. If your cat's a gobbler like mine, you can get an auto-feeder to release the food at a specific time of day. If your cat is a grazer, you can just add some extra water and leave the canned food out like you do the dry. At room temperature the canned food is good to be left out up to 12 hrs, and up to 24hrs if it's frozen.

Please make sure you're decreasing the amount of insulin as you're changing the diet. Getting rid of the high carb food can cause blood glucose levels to drop significantly. Most cats on a low carb, canned diet do not need much more than 1u of insulin. Some even go into spontaneous remission.

Also, the dose should never be raised in whole units. Dose adjustments should be made in .25u-.5u increments, depending on how low he's going mid-cycle. 1u is a LOT of insulin for a cat. Bandit never needed more than 1.25u the entire time he was on insulin, and even .5u changes were far too much for him. He's been in remission almost 2 years now. Here is the Lantus dosing protocol, which is safe and effective (84% remission rate for the newly diagnosed) for cats: http://www.uq.edu.au/ccah/docs/diabetesinfo/link4.pdf. It does require testing at least 3 times daily, which is very doable--you test before each shot to make sure it's safe to shoot insulin (this is recommended for everyone), and then you get a mid-cycle test to see how much the insulin is lowering his blood glucose levels.

As for the peeing thing--cats usually go about every 12 hrs but they can wait as long as 24 to go. A blockage is very dangerous and can prevent a cat from urinating, but there would be signs of distress, e.g. constant trips to the litter box, meowing in the box, straining to pee with no urine produced. As it got worse you would see lethargy, vomiting, and lack of appetite. If you see these symptoms, take him to the vet immediately!
 
You asked if just a few pieces of dry food could be bad? YES! If you have a very carb sensitive cat like my Shadoe was, just her stealing a small mouthful of 3 pieces could send her BG from the 200s to the 400s. So dry food will make a difference in Wonton's BG numbers and mess up your getting her regulated.
There was once a cat who was getting 20u of insulin and eating dry food. After transitioning the cat to wet, low carb foods, that cat was down to 1u.

There's a huge list of foods that would be suitable, listing the carbs, etc for the foods.
http://binkyspage.tripod.com/canfood.html

Just stick under 10% for the carbs, and add water to her food. I added equal parts food and water for Oliver and a bit less for Shadoe.
 
I can't even give Bandit a few pieces of the lower carb dry food or his blood glucose will shoot up into the 200-300 range. But he can eat grain free canned food with the same % of carbs and it doesn't affect his blood glucose at all. Because of the way dry food is manufactured, it needs something to bind it together, which means it must have some kind of starch. In high carb foods it's corn starch, but the lower carb ones use vegetable starch. However, vegetable starches can have a negative effect on blood sugar, too, and the concentrated delivery method can just be too much for a lot of diabetics.
 
WoW!! :shock: I definitely need to wean her off the dry. She seems to be enjoying the canned food more anyway, so in that regard it will be easy. But I know I need to watch and test and watch and test often when I do it. cat_pet_icon
 
Good luck with Wonton (love the name).

Sneakers was on all dry when dx, funny thing was, they say to wean gently... Sneakers didn't wean- I left out dry and she went straight to the wet and ignored the dry until her kitty gf's came around one day and said, hey, lets go to this new restaurant in the neighborhood- it has dry food! Sneakers went outside, ate at the neighbors and her numbers went up like a rocket :shock: . Our journey back down has been filled with disappointments- mainly for her as she has no more outdoor time unless it is supervised and she has been pre-fed :lol: .

I do about half/half of water and FF, less than 5% as she is really carb sensative (will hold those suckers for days before letting them go). Once I got her carbs down I knew what I was really dealing with and was able to do better on dosing and knowing when something was off.
 
Thank you everyone for your support. When I got home from work, Wonton had peed twice and pooped in her box...Yeay!! Funny to say I was happy to see pee and poop :lol: BTW, I like the name Sneakers too! This weekend I want to do a curve and see how Wonton is handling the insulin while I give her more canned food and cut out the dry.
You are all awesome and I've learned sooo much these boards. :thumbup
I wish you all and your fur kids health and happiness.
Hugs,
Carolyn
 
Hey- we are ALL happy when the 5 P's are being done-

Pee
Poop
Preen
Play
Purr

I think that's all of them. Sneakers only has four- she doesn't do the play that often and has only started the preening up again.

Glad Wonton is feeling better and getting some 'moves' in.
 
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