Newly diagnosed

Status
Not open for further replies.
E

Elizabeth Maloney

Member Since 2015
Hi there! My name is Elizabeth and I'm from WV. I have 4 dogs and 9 cats, and my oldest, Captain, was just diagnosed last week.
My vet did not start him on insulin and sent me home with Purina DM canned food, but I have only been giving him that sporadically, and giving him Friskies canned more often, as he likes it better.
I have attempted to check his blood sugar, using all the techniques I've read on here, but so far, that hasn't produced anything. I would like to avoid starting him on insulin, but he's just not eating enough low carb wet food to bring it down, I don't think, so I'm not sure how that will go.
 
Hi Elizabeth, Captain and the rest of your fur gang!

The Friskies canned foods are fine for a diabetic cat as long as you stick to the pate varieties - a lot of us feed exactly that to our diabetic cats, so if your kitties will eat those then you're off to a good start already. :)

Learning home testing can take quite a few attempts, but you will get there if you stick with it. I don't know if it's something that might help, but if you make sure you're using the alternate site use lancets - they're a slightly bigger needle which makes it much easier to get enough blood for testing at least to begin with. It sounds as though you've already read all the information on warming his ear first and the right place to aim for. The other thing you could try is using a paw pad to get blood for testing from instead of his ear if you're not having any luck with his ears.
 
Food list from Cat Info written by vet Lisa Pierson.
All the Friskies pates are OK, except Mixed Grill which is a bit higher carbohydrate.

While you work on home testing, see my signature link Secondary Monitoring Tools for some additional assessments you may use to monitor his health.
 
Thank you both. I'm a type 1 diabetic, was diagnosed when I was 11, and am now 33, so I have all the necessary things at home to test him, and bonus...don't even have to spend extra money to buy them :)
I'd like him to eat all wet food, but with 9 cats, I can't afford to feed them all wet all the time. He also won't eat more than about 3 ounces at a time, and I can't leave it out because the other cats will eat it and he'll just let them. And because of work, I only have time to offer him wet twice a day.
 
In the US, there are few low carb dry foods:
Evo Cat and Kitten Dry
Stella and Chewey's freeze dried (no crunch)
Young Again 0 Car (internet only)
Orijen - about 15% calories from carbohydrates using this calculator​
 
Last edited:
I don't see it either, so I plugged in the numbers from the regular dry cat food; its a medium carb dry.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top