the hunger

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Donna & Buddha

Donna & Buddha

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Buddha's already scarfed down his alloted 2 cans of ff this morning, and the hunger is still upon him.

He just gets so hungry. If his food isn't available he hunts down anything else in the house that might be edible, house plants, crumbs under the table, anything left out on the counters. He'll even bite at me, though not hard.

Anyone else's cat get this way? I hate to open another can for him, but if his body is telling him he needs to eat then maybe he should eat.

Donna
 
Donna

I briefly looked at your spreadsheet and I see numbers all over the place, from HI down to some very low and everything in between. I'm not a numbers expert but off the top of my head I see an unregulated kitty who is scarfing down food because of this lack of regulation/consistency. Have you had some help from the PZI forum in trying to get things a bit calmer?
 
I'm doing my best to give him a a consistent dose on a 12/12 schedule. It seems that when I increase his dose, just the tiniest bit, his bg will go lower than I am comfortable with. Staying with the same dose (2u ProZinc) gives me varying results, but I'm trying hard to stick with it for 2 weeks and see if better numbers shake out. Not sure if that's the best thing to do, but reacting to increased or decreased ps bg also wasn't doing us much good.

I'm not always so good with 12/12 shots, often its 11/13 or so. With kids and other pets in the house, I can't guarantee that he won't find a hc snack. He LIKES food, always has.

But the hunger comes and goes.
 
Oh I'm not faulting your efforts! I am saying his numbers are inconsistent but I've not spent the time trying to analyze why. Honestly, whatever is going on is likely affecting his hunger unless there is another medical condition that he has that I'm not aware of? I think you need some help figuring out his sensitivity to dose change...
 

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Have you tried any other brand of food like wellness or evo? My cat's BG numbers were all over the place until I got him stable with the EVO 95% chicken & turkey. I learned my cat is very carb sensitive and the slightest change made a world of difference.
 
Buddha has no other medical issues that I know of. After his DKA, The vet prescribed Renal K+ for a while, but said I could stop. Though the stopping wasn't based on bloodwork.

Don't mean to get so defensive, I am quite open to help! I just get frustrated. Would be nice to have a regulated cat but not sure how to get one.

I haven't tried EVO or the wellness wet foods. Any boutique pet store (or even Petsmart) is more than an hour's drive away. Walmarts and ff however are everywhere. I can get, Brandon Hills 95% chicken & chicken liver and other flavors at the grocery store. Not on "the list" but I would assume it's lc.

Has anyone tried to figure out the glycemic index of cat foods?
 
I hope this isn't considered controversial, but IMO it may be the PZI. My mom's cat Francis was on 3 units of PZI and she was unable to regulate him for about 5 months. She switched to lantus and within a couple weeks he was doing MUCH better and he only needs .25 units and his numbers are much lower. Huge change from the insulin switch. ECID but I thought you should know.
 
Yeah, Janet has nicely listed out the calories from carbohydrate (close enough to GI for this purpose) for pretty much all available cat foods. See http://binkyspage.tripod.com/foodfaq.html and the links from it.

Note that you will have a much better chance of getting a regular blood sugar level as your carbohydrate level comes down. Diabetic cats don't handle carbohydrates well at all (even worse than diabetic humans), because they're obligate carnivores.

You'll want to not only change to one of the foods Janet lists as low-carb (Wellness, Fancy Feast, etc), but remove any possibility of your cat getting into any high-carb food at any time, to get consistency. So no treats, no dry food 'left out in case he gets hungry', just more low-carb canned.

We have some lovely graphs of people doing this food switch and a cat's BG settling down within days. It's quite dramatic. And I expect you're already doing fine with the insulin, but you will probably need to monitor blood sugar carefully and lower dose as you remove all the high-carb food. For us that all happened over one fun-filled weekend.
 
When Maui started the sugar dance and learned to eat canned food, there were times when she would eat 2 FF cans in one sitting. That typically satisfied her. Once her numbers got regulated, this hunger drive lessened.

So, until you get him under control, I'd suggest giving him more food. That is if he won't gack it up.

You also may (if not already doing) want to add water to the food. This will help fill him up and ensure he gets enough water in him.
 
Steve -- Buddha has been fed non-fish varieties of fancy feast from the gluten-free page, since November.

Covert -- case of EVO for $20 is good, but shipping is over $12.
 
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