Newish member - Snickers loves dry food

[SingsToCats]

Hi, I'm Liz. I posted a couple of times in the Lantus forum, I didn't realize I was supposed to post here first.

Snickers is the sweetest, gentlest cat I've ever known. He's 14 years old and has been diabetic for a couple of months. I've made so many mistakes trying to take care of him.

The vet started him on 5 units of Lantus, and raised it to 6. He wanted to raise it to 7, but Snickers' glucose just seemed to get higher and higher. We stopped giving him insulin for a couple of days and his glucose went back down a little.

We started him again at 1 unit. We've worked our way up to 4 units. Wednesday his glucose went below 300 for a while and we got excited. Then the next morning it shot up to the dreaded "Hi" on the Relion meter.

He still eats mostly dry food - Purina DM. Deb gave me some suggestions about transitioning him to wet food. He just loves crunchy things. We used to give him Fritos and pieces of potato chip.

I'm just discouraged because I thought we were finally making progress.

 

[Juls and Billy]

Purina DM dry is pretty high carbs for a diabetic kitty. You're going to have trouble regulating Snickers' BGL while he's eating that dry food. Sugar cats do much better on wet food, under 10% calories from carbs. And it's not just the carb content. Diabetic kitties need more moisture in their diet, and cats are notorious for not drinking enough water. That's why so many cats on a dry food diet have urinary tract issues.

If he'll eat wet food at all, he'll really be better off on a canned diet, fed in many small meals a day. Take a look at my Billy's chart to see what a difference switching to wet food made, and how quickly we had to adjust his dose down. That's not to say that all diabetic cats will reach remission like Billy did, or as fast as he did. Every cat is different. But a wet low carb diet will give Snickers his best chance at remission, and will help get him on a lower dose, even if he continues to need insulin.

If he likes an occasional crunchy treat, my cats love freeze dried chicken cat treats. Halos Liv-a-little treats are one example. It's great for a post testing snack, and gives them a little something to crunch on. Honestly, I though Billy would miss his dry food, but he really doesn't. He loves his Fancy Feast now and never looks for his dry food anymore.

If you switch to all wet, do keep an eye on his blood sugar levels and get some mid-cycle tests. Switching to a wet low carb diet can drop BGLs over 100 points.

 

[Lisa and Witn (GA)]

Dry food is most likely causing the high glucose levels. However, do not remove the dry food until you lower the dose significantly. Changing a diet to a low carb diet can significantly drop glucose levels.

My cats were dry food addicts. It took a while to convert them and started by mixing the dry with canned food, reducing the dry each day. Eventually, I was able to put just a couple pieces of dry on top, before removing it completely from their diets. Also substituting the dry with a low carb treat, such a freeze dried chicken also helped.

 

[jt and trouble (GA)]

Oh dear...This reminds me of my little Trouble.. I couldnt get his regulated because of the dry food. It was his JOY in life. Sadly it was also what kept his numbers out of control. With urging from the good folks here, I finally put my big girl panties on and just removed the dry. (I monitored his glucose levels closely) while administering insulin, which is what SHOULD be done.
Poor Trouble use to sit where his dry food use to sit and just stare. Trying to magically make it appear? UGH I FELT LIKE A MONSTER. But you know what? once the dry was removed his numbers dropped. Maybe a month later (long time ago) he was off insulin. I'm not trying to sugar coat it. ECID every cat is different. I cant say this will happen to your kitty. BUT? It could.

Lisa (above) has the right solution...monitor monitor monitor. When you have questions COME HERE ASK. You got this!!!
jeanne

 

[Bron and Sheba (GA)]

Hi Liz, are you using a ReiOn meter or an Alphatrak meter?
Your signature says ReliOn but your SS says Alphatrak?
If you have swapped over to the ReliOn meter, can you put a coloured line in the SS where you swapped over and write ReliOn meter across the line please so we can see where the change takes place please?
It makes a big difference when we are helping you.

If Snickers likes crunchy food I would look at using the air dried foods that ZiwiPeak and other companies use now instead of just the ordinary dry food that is not only higher in carbs, it is much lower in moisture which is not good at all for cats.
Maybe low carb canned food with some crunchies ...air dried ones...on top.
However any change over of food to lower carb needs to be done carefully while monitoring the BG levels closely