Rudy's Mom...newly diagnosed and vet tonight!

I would really so appreciate some help - my baby Rudy who's 7 has just been diagnosed w/diabetes. High sugar in blood and urine, going for initial vet visit tonight. He's currently on rx food, Hills Z/D originally prescribed for skin issues he was having. He started drinking tons of water about 2 weeks ago and he's also losing some fur...I hope we caught it soon enough. My questions are:

If I want to change him over to a soft food, I know it needs to be done slowly. I will speak to the vet about this - will my vet be receptive to me seeing if changing over to the soft food will cause his diabetes to subside? Or does it depend on how high his glucose level currently is - and if there's a level where food will NOT make that level go down...

If he does have to take the insulin I know now which ones to ask for - but if I change food and do insulin, how will you know it causes remission?

I guess I'm very confused and could use ANY advice you could provide for my vet visit...

 

Welcome! You've come to right place.

That depends on your vet. Mine immediately recommended low carb canned food only. Many vets recommend a variety of prescription foods, both wet and dry. Most of us here feed Friskies or Fancy Feast pate style canned food. The canned vet foods are no better and a lot more $$$. The vet dry food are too high in carbs.

A switch from dry food or any other high carb food often has a significant impact on blood glucose levels. It's through testing at home that you'll see the change.

No, not really. Having said that, it's true that a change to low carb wet food impacts some cats more than others.

You'll only know by testing BG at home and tracking how it changes over time in response to insulin type/dose and what is being fed.

This is the welcome forum and doesn't get as much traffic. Please post all your other questions on the main health forum where more people will see them.

 

thank you so much

 

Welcome!

 

update - worked w the vet, I'm going to change his food to all soft food wait a week and then retest blood to check level again. If we need insulin vet said he wants to use prozinc insulin as we feed twice a day and both work. Concerned w lantus that it would drop too low and we won't be around should something happen So glad I found you all as he wanted me to use the R/D hills soft food but it's just as high in carbs as the dry!! Going to out him on friskies classic pate chicken despite what vet said...they just don't get it.

 

This is the last of canned foods and their carb numbers. http://catinfo.org/docs/CatFoodProteinFatCarbPhosphorusChart.pdf

Make sure he prescribed no more than 1 unit to start.

You may want to pick up your own bg meter to learn how to home test. If you are interested we can help you with what to get and how to do it.