newbie to board with question on carbs

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corky5239

Member Since 2013
good morning, I'm new to this board but I have just found out that my cat Gypsy Lee is diabetic, she's my 3rd cat in a row to be so. I'm in shock. My first cat I put on insulin. My second I controlled thru food and quite successfully. I make myself informed. I will try and control my Gypsy Lee thru food also. I have gone thru the food chart on this site which lists - I think it would be %'s - and I know I'm looking for high protein, low carb but I don't know what is best as far as fat content and also some food was listed as NO for carbs. Does she need a small amount of carbs or is the food listed as NO carbs OK? What would be a number as far as fat content?? I went thru ALL 982 foods listed and wrote down the ones I thought would be good choices. She did (before diabetes) get a few morsels of dry food as a treat because she loved it (Burns)but I have taken that away completely (she now cries at the cupboard - it breaks my heart) I have put her on 4 small meals a day now - about 6 hrs. apart. She has no symptoms and never did - only the blood test which ran around 200. Gypsy Lee also has HIV which shows itself thru eye and nasal problems. she is on meds quite abit of the time. She is 5 years old and the love of my life and I am crushed that this has happened again. I have just had 14 years of special need cats and Gypsy Lee was suspose to be my relief fun cat but I find I'm right back in the thick of it again and I know info has changed in the last 6 year since my Snowy was diagonosed so I'm trying to get up to speed again with the new info. Any info on carbs and fat content would be helpful. It's taking me a bit to get around the web site and I haven't yet figured how to get a pic of Gypsy Lee on the site yet (I'm electronicly challenged)
Thank you to anyone who can help
Kathie & Gypsy Lee
 
Remember, glucose may be elevated as much as 100 points at the vet's office.

Did the vet get a fructosamine test? A single glucose test does not a diabetic make.
 
BJM said:
Remember, glucose may be elevated as much as 100 points at the vet's office.

Did the vet get a fructosamine test? A single glucose test does not a diabetic make.
Click to expand...

Great question. Was the diagnosis just based on that 200?

On food, just interested to know what sort of food was listed as "NO" carbs? Unless it was pure meat with no additives, I think "no carbs" might be suspect.

To answer your question though, cats have no nutritional requirement for carbohydrates at all. Their system converts protein or fat into glucose to meet all their requirements for energy. I've read that the perfect food for cats is "mice". The only carbs in a mouse would be from any food in it's digestive track that had not been digested when kitty caught it. Unfortunately, nobody sells "Mousey Morsels", because it must breach some sort of code of ethics. Although it's fine to stick pork, beef, chicken, seafood, and turkey into a can since people eat them...
 
Carl,
Just read your post after I send out one. Gypsy Lee has had numerous blood tests and all higher than should be. The info I found about 0 carbs was on this site - on a spreadsheet of about 900 foods. You can find it under - Feline Health section, under "announcments" about 20 lines down -" Cat Food Ingredients", by Karen & Angus. I found it very interesting. Also, thank you for your explaination of how cats get their carbs from protein and fat - now I understand how they could have a "no carb" diet. Every piece of info helps in handling this thing. Let me know what your comments might be on the food spreadsheet. Thanks!!
Kathie & Gypsy Lee
 
If there was glucose in the urine, the renal threshold (around 240 - 280) was exceed in the previous several hours. That is highly suggestive of diabetes.

If blood glucose elevated at a vets office, several possibilities exist, that is why I asked specifically about a fructosamine test. A fructosamine test is like the humans HbA1c - it gives an average glucose level over time. Vet stress may raise the glucose 100 points of more. Infection may elevate the glucose (just ask any human diabetic!) A typical dry food diet may raise the glucose over 100 points - its why, if you are already using insulin and want to change the diet, we want you able to test, because otherwise, the cat could hypo with the existing dose.
 
Thanks, Kathie. I'd never looked at that list before.

I am not sure what to make of all the "no" entries. I looked at the Fancy Feast classics since that's what I feed and I'm most familiar with them...

All of the classics have "no" in the columns specific to carbohydrate ingredients, which makes it appear like they'd have "zero carbs", right?

But actually none of them contain "zero calories from carbs"...
They are all what we consider "low carb" and all come in at 5% or less. But they all have some ingredient that is putting carbs into the mix.

Here's a link to Dr. P.'s food charts which was updated last year and is the most current information we have access to.
http://www.catinfo.org/docs/FoodChartPublic9-22-12.pdf

That's where we usually point people to so that they can look for choices for the lowest carb values. "Low carb" would be anything less than 10%.
 
Hi again,
I just found Dr. P's chart this morning and will be going over it. I hope to have Gypsy Lee diet controlled. She will have more blood work in about 3 weeks. The vets feel that her HIV is also not helping the situation. My last cat Snowy was diet controlled but my Mr. Leon was on insulin and they called him a "fragile diabetic" - that one was no fun and it was before I knew about foods (14 yrs. ago). I'm sure I could have done a much better job of taking care of him - I am so sorry for him, he was such a good boy. I treated him for 8 yrs. till he was 18. I will certainly take to heart any info that I get on this site and from the people that have been caring enough to ans. and help me - even though I have been down this road more often than I want to think about.
Thanks again
Kathie & Gypsy Lee
 
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