Newly Diagnosed with Variable appetite

Hi,

My kitty Charlie was diagnosed with Diabetes December 27, 2017. She is doing well on her insulin shots, but she is a finicky eater and will love a flavour of her wet food one day and then turn her nose up at it the next. I try to keep a good variety of flavours, but it's hard to guess what she'll eat on any given evening.

My question is that if she doesn't eat her dinner then I'm not supposed to give her any insulin, but do I take the food away then so she doesn't go too high? Or do I leave it down and then give her insulin if she eats enough of it before I go to bed? I'm frustrated because the vet has stressed how important it is that her shots be 12 hours apart, but I can't make her eat and I know what happens when a diabetic eats with no insulin on board. This is way more annoying that a toddler with Type 1 Diabetes.

 

A complete answer will depend on which insulin you're using, but generally, it's actually better for them to eat multiple small meals instead of 2 huge ones.

Just like humans are told to eat more frequent, small meals, it's the same with our sugarcats. Smaller meals don't stress out the pancreas as much as big meals do

 

She's on 3 units of Caninsulin twice per day, twelve hours apart. I have two cats so I have been leaving the dry food out for them to snack on during the day. My old routine was to feed wet food once a day in the evening for both cats and have dry food available as they would like to eat it. Now there is wet food twice a day and it tends to last throughout the day. Charlie is generally loving the wet food twice a day (every 12 hours before insulin) and hasn't been eating the dry food at all, at least when I'm home and noticing what she's eating. Today is the first day since she was diagnosed that she hasn't eaten any wet food in the evening, it is totally out of character. I have left the (low carb, I checked) wet food out for them and have put the dry food away for the night. I feel like it won't hurt either of them to have only wet food available for the next 10 hours.

 

OK...Caninsulin is one of the older, harsher insulins, so it's important that they do eat a "normal" meal about 20 minutes before the shot so that when it "hits", there's food on board, but it's still OK to feed a small snack between shots.

The important thing will be to test often enough to find out how long the caninsulin lasts, where she usually nadir's and at what point it starts to wear off. You'll then want to try to get most of her food in before the nadir so that as the insulin is wearing off you're not adding extra carbs.

Getting the dry completely out of the picture will also help. Kibble is very high in carbs with some of them as high as 40+% carbs! We want them eating less than 10% carbs

BUT, don't reduce the carbs unless you're home testing. Dropping the carbs can drastically reduce the need for insulin. You don't want to send her into a hypoglycemic crisis.

What dose was she started on? 3U is a very high dose, especially for so soon since her diagnosis!! We usually start at .5 to 1U and hold that dose while we gather data by testing to see how they respond.

Giving too much insulin can lead to high numbers just like not enough can!

Are you home testing yet?

 

3 units is A HUGE dose for a newly diagnosed cat! The typical starting dose is 1 unit. I'm Actually a bit concerned about that dose unless you are home testing. If you eliminate the dry food please cut that dose to 1 as the bg is going to drop. Which wet food are you feeding? As Chris said most of us feed several meals a day. Just no food 2 hours prior to the preshot test.

Testing is the only way to know if your cat is safe and if the dose is appropriate. You wouldnt give your toddler a shot without knowing the bg level, right? And like I said 3 units is a high dose. Please be aware of symptoms of hypoglycemia in cats. Make sure you have honey or Karo syrup in case of an emergency.

Please watch the video in my signature showing how I test my cat CC at home.

 

I am not home testing yet. I do have an assortment of glucometers to use, I need to buy strips for one of them. She was at the vet on Thursday for a bg check 8 hours after her am shot. Her bg was 13.1 which the vet thought was good, she also gained 1/2 a pound in a week. I watched the vet test her and am confident that I could do it myself, I just haven't tried yet.

I am feeding her Weruva wet food, it is what she was eating before she was dx'd. I also leave a bowl of dry Royal Canin "Aging" food for both cats to eat as they wish.

I skipped her insulin shot last night and she seems OK. She's eaten a decent meal this morning and had some treats as well.

She was started on 3 units twice per day. Her bg when she was diagnosed was 34.

 

glad you have a meter already. Pick whichever one needs the smallest sample size. make sure to get bigger gauge lancets too... 26 or 28. The Royal Canin food is not diabetic friendly... you're going to want to make sure she doesn't eat that AT ALL. it's like feeding them cookies. the Weruva is good depending on which one you are feeding. if it's the bff in cans great! if it's the pate, great! if it's the pouches or gravy, not so great. lol here's a food chart so you can see how many carbs. keep it under 10% (under 7 is better). make sure any treats are also low carb. no crunchy Party Mix or Temptations or anything like that. Freeze dried meats are good to feed. adn of course fresh meats. http://catinfo.org/docs/CatFoodProteinFatCarbPhosphorusChart.pdf again, be careful with that sarting dose, it's triple what most cats start at. makes me nervous as it's so easy to suddenly go hypoglycemic... which as i'm sure you know can be deadly. get those test strips as soon as you can. testing is fairly easy after the first few days of it.

 

I echo Janet's and Chris's concern about being on such a high starting dose. FYI, 3IU is too high a starting dose according to the guidelines from the insulin manufacturer:

MSD - Caninsulin Starting Dose Calculation

IMPORTANT SAFETY NOTE:

Whatever you do, don't remove the dry food from your kitty's diet yet. Here is important vet-authored information for safely managing changing diabetic cats already receiving insulin to a lower carb food (you need to closely monitor BG at home throughout the transition as the insulin dose is likely to need to be reduced):

catinfo.0rg - feline diabetes page


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