New to the Forum and Need Advice

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Kallie-Jen

Kallie-Jen

Member Since 2016
Hi, this is my first time posting. My name is Jennifer and my cat is Kallie. Kalie is about 10 ½ years old and was diagnosed with diabetes in May. A little history. Kallie has always had a sensitive stomach. A lot of foods would give a loose stool not total diarrhea but not solid. About two years ago I took her to the vet for that and she suggested changing foods so I tried Purina One Healthy Metabolism. She ate that fine and had no digestive issues. That brings me to May of this year. I noticed she started losing weight. Within a couple weeks she went from looking maybe a few pounds’ overweight to a thin sick old cat. So I took her to the vet. She had diabetes, her sugar at that point was just over 400. The vet gave me DM food and she would eat that at that point. Her sugar did not go down enough so she went on Insulin. She was put on Humulin. I started feeding her Fancy Feast Classic at that point because several posts on here and other articles I read said Fancy Feast Classic was good to feed a diabetic cat. It worked, her insulin went down to 2 and 2. She had good readings in her weekly visits and she got to the point after three weeks we didn’t need to go back. She went back in August for a check-up, her sugar was still good 106 was the average reading.

However, she has had a problem with loose stools because of the Fancy Feast. I took her to the vet last week for her anal glands. She has a urinary tract infection and her sugar was high 199. The vet ‘scolded’ me for feeding her Fancy Feast and said she needs to eat a diabetic food. So I ordered Royal Canin Glycobalance both dry and canned. On Saturday the vet tech called me and said she has a smoldering pancreatitis and she is now also on Pancreatabs.

I am very perplexed on what to do. The Fancy Feast was working on her sugar but caused loosed stools which led to her anal glands being infected and probably the uti. Which I read uti’s can raise blood sugar in cats so that could be why her sugar is high. Any advice on food I should try? I will try the Glycobalance but I’ve read mixed things on that.

Thanks for reading and thanks for any advice you can give.
 
Most of the food sold as "diabetic" food is high in carbohydrates and not acceptable for a diabetic cat. There are only two dry foods that can be fed to sugar kitties, EvoCat & Kitten and Young Again Zero Carb, and they both still have the disadvantage of being dry. I am not real familiar with RC Glycobalance but I'm willing to bet anything that the dry, at least, is way too high in carbs.

Fancy Feast Classic pates are fine for diabetic kitties, in terms of carbs. There are also several other, widely available foods that are okay to use; Friskies, Wellness, Weruva, etc. I know you have probably already looked at it, but just in case I'm giving you the link to Dr. Lisa Pierson's cat food list:

http://catinfo.org/docs/FoodChartPublic9-22-12.pdf

You want foods that are 10% or less in carbs.

For the loose stools, I would try some different foods to see if you can find one that works better. You can also add a little bit of pumpkin puree (100% pure pumpkin with no spices or seasonings) to the food. Probiotics can help a lot, too. I have a cat that must have probiotics or she will have terrible diarrhea.

Diabetic cats are very prone to UTI's because of the glucose in their urine.

I'm sorry your vet scolded you for trying to take the best care of your kitty that you can. Most vets are not well versed in feline nutrition as they only get a few hours of study on it in vet school. My vet and I ended up parting company over Squallie's diet (told me I was killing him by feeding him FF) and my home testing (she didn't want me to). It turned out to be a good thing, because now I have a vet who is much more up-to-date on treating feline diabetes, and has better knowledge of feline nutrition! :)
 
I don't understand why the vet was so unhappy about her BG being 199. That is not really a high number. A lot of cat parents would be ticked pink if their kitty's BG was that low. It sounds like you need a vet that knows more about feline diabetes.
 
Thank you for your responses. I will try probiotics to see if that works for her stomach. I don't think I am going to change her food. Everything I've read on this forum and other sites say Fancy Feast Classic is good to feed and it worked until she got a UTI to control her blood sugar. So I want to see what happens after the UTI clears up to her sugar. Thanks again for your responses, I appreciate it greatly.
 
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