Newly diagnosed and switching to 2 meals a day

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Kendra R

Kendra R

Member Since 2023
My 10 yr old cat Piccolo was diagnosed 6/21 after we noticed continual weight loss+high appetite+excessive peeing including outside of little box. We started 1 unit Vetsulin that evening. (1 unit am/1 unit pm after meals)

We immediately switched him from free feeding kibble (he had been on Hills C/D dry after a full urinary blockage in early 2020) Now he's on Hills m/d canned food, vet suggested 2 meals a day, totaling 2.25-2.5 cans of the 5.5oz wet food. (I know this might not be the best food on the market and it's too expensive, I do plan to talk to vet about switching him to Fancy Feast or something similar but it's better than kibble and just don't want to mess with variables until he's a little more regulated I guess.)

The problem is he likes the food, but never finishes. The most he's eaten in one sitting is 4 oz. I guess he's just so used to grazing. I just don't want him losing more weight- and he's definitely hungry between meals. I'm trying to weigh/make note at most meals to get a feel for how much he's eating. I sometimes stir the food up, add a few drops of water and can get him to eat more at mealtimes but he still never eats a full can. I've started testing periodically with a Relion meter so I can get some data for the vet. (He's usually in the mid to high 400s before meals)

Anyway I guess I'm just wondering if I'm worrying more than I should I want to follow the vet's guidelines especially early on in his treatment but I feel guilty bc I feel like I'm starving him haha. He used to be pretty overweight at 19+ lbs but he's now only 12ish.

Anyone else have a cat that had a hard time adjusting to 2 meals and did they eventually learn to eat more at mealtime? There's a lot to learn in this process and if I called my vet everytime I thought of a new question he'd go crazy lol.

Thanks :)
 
Hi and welcome to the forum :bighug:

There’s no need to feed him twice a day only. That’s very old-fashioned advice that works for dogs not cats, who as you mentioned, are grazers. It does, I’m afraid, go hand in hand with your vet’s selection of Vetsulin which is also called caninsulin because it was created for canines who have a much slower metabolism than cats. What this means is that it hits hard and fast and it’s short- lasting so your cat is not protected for a full 12 hours. Also please know that with Vetsulin you have to make sure your cat has food onboard at least 30 minutes before the shot because, again it hits fast. Back to feeding, smaller meals throughout the day are easier on their already compromised pancreas and help to avoid big sugar spikes. Most of us feed the 2 larger meals at shot time and smaller meals throughout the day. That can be just a smaller amount of the same food or low carb treats like freeze dried, regular chicken or turkey or even baby food. Unregulated cats also can’t process the nutrients in food well so they eat but are still hungry and will continue to lose weight. if Piccolo is hungry, feed him as much as he’ll eat right now. Diabetic cats also burn calories just by peeing since theirs sugar in their urine. There’s no need to starve him, it won’t help get him regulated and it will make matters worse. My second diabetic cat Bobo was ravenous at first and I was feeding him a lot more then as he got regulated his apetite started to normalize again and once he went into remission, he was back to his finicky pick eater self :cat:

We see a lot of vets here who treat their cat patients the same way they treat dogs because they don’t know a lot about feline diabetes. Unfortunately most vets do not know a lot about feline diabetes….they have many animals to look after and they all have different diseases and treatments. Vets also get their information about nutrition from the big cat food manufacturers so they are biased in what they recommend. I know it’s hard to not follow your vet’s guidance because we think they’re experts but my cat only got better when I stopped listening to my vet. And yes, I couldn’t call every time I had a question, which was multiple times a day, but I could post here and get folks who held my hand through it all!

With a diabetic cat you need:

  • A low carb wet diet that is 10% carbs or under. Most of us use around 4-7% carbs
  • A suitable insulin such as Lantus or Prozinc which are long acting, more gentle insulins than the old insulins.
  • We recommend hometesting the blood glucose with a human meter…it is not necessary to use a pet meter which is expensive to run and is no better. It will keep your kitty safe and you will know how the dose is working for your kitty. That’s great that you’re already home testing, would you be willing to set up a spreadsheet and plug the data you e collected onto it?
  • HELP US HELP YOU has information about the spreadsheet, signature and hypo box which you will need to be able to look after your beloved kitty properly, especially on Vetsulin.
A word of warning though…don’t change the food you are feeding at the moment over to the low carb food until you are testing the blood glucose because a change over can drop the BGs by up to 100 points and we don’t want you to have a hypo on your hands.

We are happy to help you with setting up the spreadsheet, sorting out what food to buy, how to transition safely to a low carb diet, how to learn to home test and much more.

FOOD CHART have a look on this chart and choose foods that are under 10%.

You will also need some higher carb foods for that hypo box..information in the help us help you link.

This is an excellent site for diabetic cats…it has been around for more than 25 years and has very experienced people to help you.

Keep asking lots of questions.

PS - You may want to share with your vet the guidelines from the American Animal Hospital Assn for the treatment of diabetes in both dogs and cats. the AAHA no longer recommends Caninsulin/Vetsulin for treating feline diabetes.
 
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Also as far as testing, we recommend you test before each shot making sure he’s had no access to food at least 2 hours before the test. That’s the only time that’s important because you want to get the real bg not influenced by food to make sure it’s safe to shoot. We also recommend at least 2 more tests, one during the day if possible and one in the evening. We here dose by the lowest your cat goes in a 12-hour period or cycle so we try to get that by testing about 5-6 hours after the am shot. With Vetsulin, that can happen much sooner like 3-4 hours after the shot
 
Ale & Bobo & Minnie (GA) said:
Hi and welcome to the forum :bighug:

There’s no need to feed him twice a day only. That’s very old-fashioned advice that works for dogs not cats, who as you mentioned, are grazers. It does, I’m afraid, go hand in hand with your vet’s selection of Vetsulin which is also called caninsulin because it was created for canines who have a much slower metabolism than cats. What this means is that it hits hard and fast and it’s short- lasting so your cat is not protected for a full 12 hours. Also please know that with Vetsulin you have to make sure your cat has food onboard at least 30 minutes before the shot because, again it hits fast. Back to feeding, smaller meals throughout the day are easier on their already compromised pancreas and help to avoid big sugar spikes. Most of us feed the 2 larger meals at shot time and smaller meals throughout the day. That can be just a smaller amount of the same food or low carb treats like freeze dried, regular chicken or turkey or even baby food. Unregulated cats also can’t process the nutrients in food well so they eat but are still hungry and will continue to lose weight. if Piccolo is hungry, feed him as much as he’ll eat right now. Diabetic cats also burn calories just by peeing since theirs sugar in their urine. There’s no need to starve him, it won’t help get him regulated and it will make matters worse. My second diabetic cat Bobo was ravenous at first and I was feeding him a lot more then as he got regulated his apetite started to normalize again and once he went into remission, he was back to his finicky pick eater self :cat:

We see a lot of vets here who treat their cat patients the same way they treat dogs because they don’t know a lot about feline diabetes. Unfortunately most vets do not know a lot about feline diabetes….they have many animals to look after and they all have different diseases and treatments. Vets also get their information about nutrition from the big cat food manufacturers so they are biased in what they recommend. I know it’s hard to not follow your vet’s guidance because we think they’re experts but my cat only got better when I stopped listening to my vet. And yes, I couldn’t call every time I had a question, which was multiple times a day, but I could post here and get folks who held my hand through it all!

With a diabetic cat you need:

  • A low carb wet diet that is 10% carbs or under. Most of us use around 4-7% carbs
  • A suitable insulin such as Lantus or Prozinc which are long acting, more gentle insulins than the old insulins.
  • We recommend hometesting the blood glucose with a human meter…it is not necessary to use a pet meter which is expensive to run and is no better. It will keep your kitty safe and you will know how the dose is working for your kitty. That’s great that you’re already home testing, would you be willing to set up a spreadsheet and plug the data you e collected onto it?
  • HELP US HELP YOU has information about the spreadsheet, signature and hypo box which you will need to be able to look after your beloved kitty properly, especially on Vetsulin.
A word of warning though…don’t change the food you are feeding at the moment over to the low carb food until you are testing the blood glucose because a change over can drop the BGs by up to 100 points and we don’t want you to have a hypo on your hands.

We are happy to help you with setting up the spreadsheet, sorting out what food to buy, how to transition safely to a low carb diet, how to learn to home test and much more.

FOOD CHART have a look on this chart and choose foods that are under 10%.

You will also need some higher carb foods for that hypo box..information in the help us help you link.

This is an excellent site for diabetic cats…it has been around for more than 25 years and has very experienced people to help you.

Keep asking lots of questions.

PS - You may want to share with your vet the guidelines from the American Animal Hospital Assn for the treatment of diabetes in both dogs and cats. the AAHA no longer recommends Caninsulin/Vetsulin for treating feline diabetes.
Click to expand...

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond and for all the helpful advice! I will talk to my vet about Prozinc because that's what I keep hearing about the Vetsulin. The spreadsheet seems like a really good idea but I don't have a reliable laptop at the moment. I do have an app that uploads each blood sugar reading via bluetooth and I've been making notes on that though which hopefully will help when I speak to my vet. We've already spoken about doing a glucose curve at home after a few weeks on insulin, because he doesn't do well at the vet and could skew his numbers.

He hasn't had a reading lower than 396 yet which I took just before dinner...I did test him once approx 3 hrs post Vetsulin and it was 398 so that seems to be the low end for him at the moment. I've been giving him 30min to eat then giving shot. (I put food out 930am/pm then shot at 10am/pm. Would it make sense to wait and do shot at 1030am/pm?)

Again I really appreciate the help & insight so much! Going to go give him a low carb snack now :)
 
It’s my pleasure and I’m only paying forward :) I’m going to tag our resident spreadsheet pro to see if there’s anything you can do from a cell. I can often look at the spreadsheets on my cell, but I’ve never tried updating one. I feel like if you have a goggle drive on your cell, you should be able to… @Bandit's Mom ?

If you noticed, our members have some basic information about their cat's in their signature. This helps us to not pester you by asking the same questions (your cat's name, insulin type, date of diagnosis, etc.) repeatedly. We also have a link to our spreadsheet in our signature. We are very numbers driven. The spreadsheet is a record of your cat's progress. By linking it in your signature, we can follow along and provide feedback should you need the help.
 
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Hi and welcome Kendra and Piccolo
There is no need to ask your vet about swapping the food over to fancy feast. most vet will advise to feed one of the prescription foods as they have been educated by the big food manufacturers who promote their own products.
I also echo Ale’s advice about feeding more than just twice a day which is old advice. I was told the same thing with Sheba and she used to be always so starving hungry and asking for food. Once I swapped to two main meals and several snacks a day she was so much happier and more settled.
Im looking forward to seeing your spreadsheet.
 
Thanks yall! i was able to make the spreadsheet by using the instructions for tablets, got the link on my signature and I think I did it right :) This will be great data to have...Now I just need my order of lancets to arrive on time today so I can keep tracking. Had fun online shopping for some new pates, freeze dried treats and some Tiki Cat after dark for my kitties to try: D
 
Great job setting up your signature and spreadsheet!!

it would be great if you could get some evening tests too. Do you think you could manage a +2 in the pm before going to bed? It really does help gauge what the overnight cycle will be like.

here’s the link to the Vetsulin forum: https://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/forums/caninsulin-vetsulin-and-n-nph.19/ I suggest you read the yellow sticky notes on Vetsulin as it will have some good info for you to know about the insulin.

according to our SLGS dosing protocol, you want to keep Piccolo at the 1 unit dose for 7 days then try to do a curve at home and based on the numbers, potentially increase him to 1.25. Do your syringes have 1/2 unit marking on them?
 
Ale & Bobo & Minnie (GA) said:
Great job setting up your signature and spreadsheet!!

it would be great if you could get some evening tests too. Do you think you could manage a +2 in the pm before going to bed? It really does help gauge what the overnight cycle will be like.

here’s the link to the Vetsulin forum: https://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/forums/caninsulin-vetsulin-and-n-nph.19/ I suggest you read the yellow sticky notes on Vetsulin as it will have some good info for you to know about the insulin.

according to our SLGS dosing protocol, you want to keep Piccolo at the 1 unit dose for 7 days then try to do a curve at home and based on the numbers, potentially increase him to 1.25. Do your syringes have 1/2 unit marking on them?
Click to expand...


My syringes don't have 1/2 unit markings unfortunately but maybe I'll order some to have on hand! My vet wants to have me do the at -home curve after a few weeks on 1 unit although based on these recommendations I'll try and do that quite a bit sooner. I will see if i can get a +2 tonight, thanks for the advice there! I suppose I may need to push his main meals earlier by 30-60min to allow myself more opportunities to get a +2. I ran out of lancets this morning but have a big box on the way which is due to arrive by 10pm just in time for his PMPS reading. Going to follow your link & read up on the vetsulin now :)
 
We make adjustments faster than vets because we’re home testing daily so there’s no need to wait 2-3 weeks for a curve at the vet to then make dose adjustments. It’s also not ideal to stay too long on a dose that’s not working and staying a really long time on any one dose increases the potential of insulin resistance. It’s a balancing act for sure but if your schedule allows to move up the meal/shot times to get that +2 at night, it would be helpful :cat:
 
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