Newly Diagnosed Kitty

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Saia

Saia

Member Since 2024
Hi all, my kitty age 9.5 years has been diagnosed about two weeks ago now and started Prozinc. Her levels haven't changed at all and we are going to the dr tomorrow morning, but I was wondering what is everyone's favorite foods to give your diabetic senior? She's overweight as well and I'm struggling myself with the stress of everything though I have quickly learned to give insulin needles and take her blood glucose at home with an AlphaTrak 3 upon my vet's recommendation. I was going to do her first glucose curve tomorrow (at the 2 week mark) but I kind of freaked out because her clinical signs have not been getting much better with her insulin and so I booked an appointment for her to check up on her instead.

The vet started her on dry Hill's metabolic c/d stress dry food but it gave her constipation with all that fiber. She's currently mostly on her old food Royal Canin SO Calm, but I know this isn't good for her either. I've been seeing that some of Fancy Feast's canned foods are good for diabetics. Does this food actually provide all the nutrients a cat needs? Even the Kitten versions, such as the tender turkey feast?

Any advice is appreciated, I sometimes feel like I'm losing my mind researching all about cat diabetes. I just want to help her as best as I possibly can. :(
 
Welcome. You've come to the right place. Feline diabetes is a steep learning curve but becomes easier rather quickly.

Fancy Feast pates and some of the flaked is fine. If you want a higher quality food, look at the Tiki and Ziwipeak foods on this list:
You are looking for foods under 10% carbs.
Royal Canin SO wet food is high carb (21-24%) so that means the dry food is likely to be even higher. Do not switch out food all at once. It has to be done gradually. Just switching to a low carb food can drop numbers by up to 100. Transitioning slowly means that any change in insulin needs can be caught.

Tell us more about your kitty.
 
Thank you so much for the reply. What might you suggest for portioning old to new food? I just gave her some of the fancy feast (low carb ones) this morning, initially nothing happened, but tonight her levels are 14.1mmol/l, down from about 23-25mmol/l usually, when it is time to give her insulin. So tonight, I have given her about half of the tiny can with some of the dry food but I'm afraid to give the insulin dose, though if she eats carbs now she should be okay until I consult the vet tomorrow.
She was basically on the urinary food because her sister Quinn needs to be on it, so I thought it would be better if she were on it too, since it's supposed to get rid of crystals and such.
 
How much later would the shot be? Can you afford to get off schedule a bit?

14.1 (252 US units) is safe enough to shoot.
As a precaution, I'd feed a bit more dry food and if you can, do a test 2 hours after the shot and post for advice.
I'm tagging @Bandit's Mom who is likely to be online shortly. There are people from all over the world here.

Waving from Canada.
 
Thank you. She was normally supposed to have her shot an hour ago, but I did give dry and I'm still waiting a tiny bit little longer to see if her levels are still going down somehow. I can feed her a bit more dry and give the shot, and test in 2 hours. At the moment I work part time remotely and do university from home so it's not a huge deal for me to stay awake for my furbaby.
I see people with spreadsheets and that, I will need to set one up since that's pretty handy.

Oh I am from Canada too, the West! :)
 
I grew up on Vancouver Island. Now living in Ontario.
Also tagging west coast people @tiffmaxee and @Wendy&Neko to keep an eye on you.

Just in case:
Spreadsheet. Feline diabetes is very numbers driven. It is the first place someone looks.
Instructions here:
And btw. AlphaTrak strips are crazy expensive in Canada ($2/strip). There are human meters that have less costly strips. A conversation for another day.
 
Thank you so much for the links and help. I can't tell you how stressed out I've been this past two weeks trying to learn everything about cat diabetes quickly, and on top of everything, Mia has a new doctor that she's seeing for the first time. The reason being is her diabetes. Her old doctor who I really liked is sadly over an hour away since moving recently.

Haha I'm the opposite, I was born in NS and moved to AB years ago.

Yeah, I know it's super expensive, but my vet didn't want me to use a human meter for at home glucose curves and so I ended up buying the AlphaTrak because I thought I might be able to do the curve myself at home, plus the added stress of her being in a clinic all day and the higher glucose readings and such. On top of the high vet fee for getting inaccurate readings.

I also wasn't sure how to use the human one on cats so I just ended up getting the AlphaTrak.

Anyway she has had a bit more dry food and her shot at 9:51pm mountain time, while I keep a close eye on her.
 
Hello from the BC coast. We all remember the learning curve to start. It's a lot to learn, but it will get easier and we can help you get there.

Some people keep the AT for curve days to show the vet, but use the regular human meters for day to day testing. I think the Freestyle Lite is a popular one, uses a small blood drop. I cross border shopped for BG meters and strips as I'm 40 minutes from the border. My vet and I used to compare notes on cheapest places to buy test strips. She was using a human meter too. I don't think vets realize how much the test strips actually cost for the AT. Eventually most people can learn here how to change their cat's insulin dose, and stop having to report curves to the vet. My visits with Neko to the vet consisted of answering the question "what is her current dose?" and that is about as much as we'd discuss the diabetes. I gave the vet lots of copies of the spreadsheets to start, and a copy of the dosing method I was using so she knew what I was doing.

I had a second non diabetic kitty with idiopathic cystitis on urinary food. Neko's numbers skyrocketed if she pillaged his bowl. I asked his vet what would be a good option they both could eat. Her first choice was too high carb, but her second choice was raw food. After some reading on the catinfo page on urinary issues, I realized it didn't have to be raw, but any low carb wet with plenty of water added would do. I did switch to raw, and with extra water his problems went away. Bonus, he lost some weight gradually as he needed to do and Neko was more satisfied as the raw seemed to fill her up more. She had an insatiable appetite due to a secondary condition she had.
 
Thank so much for the reply. It's very helpful. I hope to get to that point of knowing what I'm doing that well. I think that's a pretty good idea, having a human meter for day to day. Is there a place to go to reference human to cat glucose readings? Are they generally interchangeable?

That's good to know... I am probably eventually going to get the both of them on the wet food at the very least. My old doctor used to say of the non diabetic cat with urinary issues, that she would get an inflamed bladder because she was stressed out, so that was the other reason for the SO Calm food. Before this, which was years ago, I used to try and have them on what I thought was high quality canned food from the pet store but I never had the food chart provided here, in that, it should be low carbs and high protein so I generally tried to go for a grain free brand although there was so many types of cat food I managed to overwhelm myself so when the vet prescribed the SO food, I just went with it.
 
Well I have just checked her glucose reading again, she's still at 14.1mmol/l. I find it crazy how a bit of food change can change her BG so fast. Since I had the meter last week, I don't believe I've seen her go below 18mmol/l and consistently she's been the low 20s.

Gosh she is a good girl letting me prick her ears all day today! D:
 
There isn't a way to translate human to pet meter readings. The AT reads higher at the high end and the two types of meters get much closer as they get to the low end, which is the important numbers. Our dosing methods that we use were developed before the AT manufacturer started heavily marketing their product at the vet clinics. Back when I started, we all used human meters.

I forgot to mention, I also used Feliways around my cystitis kitty, to calm him down. He was a semi feral that spend 6 years at the vet before I took him home. It took him a while to get used to living in a house. I've also heard that it's the skitty kitties that get those issues.
 
Oh, wow! Thanks, good to know. I will definitely look into getting a human one if only for the ease of the bank account.

Awww! Yes, I've got one Feliway plugged in now, I think it helps. She is a cat that definitely is more skittish than others.
 
Saia said:
I've been seeing that some of Fancy Feast's canned foods are good for diabetics. Does this food actually provide all the nutrients a cat needs? Even the Kitten versions, such as the tender turkey feast?
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Yes. Fancy Feast canned is a complete balanced diet for all cages. There's a statement in teeny tiny print on the label that will state that the food is complete. If the statement on any cat food label says "complement" or "supplement" or some other similar wording, those are NOT complete diets. They are just treats meant to be fed, as well, treats or like a side dish to the main meal of dry food.
 
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