Newly Diagnosed: Willy Boy - 14 yo male

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ErikaS

ErikaS

Member Since 2012
We just found out our 14 yr old cat, Willy Boy, has diabetes. We're, unfortunately, seasoned vets at dealing with this because our cat's brother also got diagnosed with it two years ago. We treated him for a little over a year before finally having to put him to sleep because we were unable to regulate him, even with trying 3 different types of insulin, diet changes, tight regulation, monitoring his BG at all hours of the day and night, etc. It was absolutely heartbreaking...And so now here we are again, with his brother...We've been feeding Willy Boy Purina DM dry since our other cat got diagnosed -- we tried soo many different kinds of canned food from Binky's list, but they ultimately wouldn't eat enough of any of them, so we settled on the DM dry, which they loved. (We have another cat now, too, a 3 yo girl, who also loves it. We tried to keep her from it when we first got her, but she eventually learned to steal from his dish, and she didn't like wet food enough.)

But now that we're facing diabetes again, we're wondering if we should try a renewed effort to find a wet food Willy would actually eat. We also give each cat half of a 3 oz can of Nature's Variety Instinct Duck in the morning and evening, but they don't seem to ever eat it consistently, so I just consider it sort of a supplementary thing -- my best attempt to get some sort of canned food into them. (We would try rotating different flavors of it, but the only other one they liked was Rabbit and it seems to be indefinitely out of stock.)

Another issue is that Willy seems hungrier, so he's eating the full 1/4 c. of DM that we put out at each feeding time (we feed twice daily) and then begging for more within an hour or two. The vet said to go ahead and give him a bit more for now since he's lost weight and it's just the diabetes making him feel hungry. But I worry that these extra snacks are at inconsistent times and it's just probably not good to do that...but I don't know what the alternative is. We can't just leave a ton of food out because our little 3 yo girl cat will gobble it up.

Another complication is that Willy might have IBD. A few weeks ago, he stopped eating and got very lethargic and showed increased thirst. So we had a bunch of tests and an abdominal ultrasound done at the vet and they put him on a steroid, Budesonide, which completely turned him around. They believe whatever was causing the inflammation in his intestines could have flipped him into being diabetic, so we gave it a couple weeks, then retested his glucose, and since it was still high (399) they deemed him diabetic and suggested we start him on Lantus at 1 unit twice daily. So here we are.

I'm not sure if we should try to change his food right now or not, and if we do, what types of food should we look for given the possible IBD and Diabetes? I'm guessing ones that are highest in protein and lowest in fat and carbs? If anyone has any specific suggestions of foods that their finicky cats have liked, please share, because he really doesn't seem to like any canned food (except tuna kinds, but I don't want to get him hooked on those.)

Also, assuming we could find one he liked, what would be the best way to try and transition in a new wet food during this initial period of trying to find the right insulin dosage? (He just started on insulin this past Wednesday, so 4 days ago.) We ordered a glucometer, which should be arriving in the mail soon (we had just thrown out our old one when we moved recently! arg!) So we plan to do a curve maybe this Wednesday. I'm hesitant to mess with his diet at this initial stage, but then again, I don't want to keep him on "bad" food for longer than I have to, if switching to all wet food might help him to not need insulin at all...And if we don't make the switch now, at what point should we?

Thank you so much for reading all of this and thanks in advance for any advice!

Erika
 
Wonder if the dressings for wet would help (FortiFlora or Bonito flakes or Stella & Chewy's freeze dried raw)? We found with our civie that he would eat the pate wet if we added a bit of warm water so it was more gravy-like. He didn't know what to do with the texture.

If you go up to the Search function, you should be able to find some threads on IBD and FD. I think some people like raw for IBD, but that may not be a great option for a multi picky cat household.
 
Yeah, we've found they like the Liv-a-Little dried chicken treats crumbled over anything, but it's still not enough to make them devour a whole can (even a small can) of wet food. They mainly lick the juices off, and then graze on the rest throughout the day, rarely eating all of it. Before we discovered 3 oz cans, we would have to microwave and/or add hot water to leftover canned food because we did find they hated it cold. Their first preference is straight out of the can at room temp, but if it has to be reheated, it's got to be warm and somewhat soup-y. Still, it feels like these are all just tricks which manage to get them to eat a little bit, but I would love to find a wet food they'd actually devour completely because I know they'd really need to eat a lot of it to get the same amount of calories as they're getting from the dry.
 
When I was treating my cat Tigger for DM, he was very reluctant to eat any kind of pâté food. I finally had to let him eat a "shredded"type canned even though they were higher in carbs. He loved the Fancy Feast Elegant Medleys. they are on Binkys list, most are around 10% carbs, which is considered a medium level of carbs. Have you tried putting some dry food on top of the canned?

Good luck getting your kitty to eat!

Annemarie
 
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