...and constipation

Does insulin cause constipation or is it related somehow? I find that Ginger is never constipated and Peanut always is. Also what can I do at home to help him?

 

No, insulin shouldn't cause constipation.... Have there been any dietary changes recently....?

Quite a few folks give a little plain cooked pumpkin to help relieve constipation.
But DO take a look at this site. There is just SO much info here....
http://felineconstipation.org/

Eliz

 

Based on my experience with Saoirse she tends to be more regular on insulin. Diabetics can be affected by gut motility issues (gastroparesis - delayed stomach emptying).

Saoirse's on a lot of meds for her different issues and some of them are constipating. I give her a little canned pumpkin mixed into all of her meals. She gets on well with it but it doesn't necessarily always solve the problems it's used to treat in every cat. For example, I gave only a little bit of canned pumpkin to my civvie when she was producing very loose stools a little while back and she ended up with a bad bout of watery diarrhoea. If you do try it, do introduce it gradually.

I second the recommendation to visit felineconstipation.org.


Mogs
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Thank you for that link I'm going to read it soon. I noticed the constipation awhile back when I saw Peanut dragging his little bottom on the floor and looking at me like "mom can you help"
Since that day I have seen him do it a few more times, I keep a little bit of tissue near the box and sometimes I make in time to help out and sometimes I don't. What's great is that I have faux wood floors so it doesn't get on the carpet but the funny thing is that it looks like a child drew all over the floor with crayon lol. I'm dying in laughter as I wrote that. His diet had not changed at all in that time period. I have changed his diet recently by adding the raw food (Primal) to his diet but it hasn't been long enough for me to see if it's affected his BMs or not.

 

I am having this issue as well--Drevon was always regular before FD --his poop was the size of a dogs!
Lately he is having issues and I am not seeing his poo in the box--my other guy has always had small poo but he is not diabetic..
We started a little miralax in baby food tonight hoping for a good poo tomorrow

 

(he refuses the pumpkin and I can't get enough of the slippery elm bark in him so we are on plan C)

 

I hope that something works out for you. I have a feeling that my cat wouldn't eat pumpkin either.

 

I'm not sure what you are feeding your cat. I can tell you when we got the diabetic diagnosis, we switched to hills md and purina dm per vet instructions back in november and december, i began noticing mr biddles making straining noises in the box when pooping. Changed vets, they said try hills jd mixed in with hills md. This made him poop like crazy but not in a good way. The hills jd gave him gas. He's never had gas before. But at least no grunting in the box then. It did also however send up his glucose, which really stank and only contributed to prolonging his illness.

As a side note, it also became apparent at that time of some hind leg weakness and possible arthritis, so this could have contributed to difficulty pushing out poop, and/or discomfort with that position. Peeing was no trouble, which was good, as he was peeing a lot!

On my own i tried powdered psyllium husk, powdered pumpkin (since mr b would never eat it from a can), and miralax, all which seemed to help but never kept him regular. Also was adding fish oil (nordic naturals) which also helped a little. The powdered pumpkin, if you are interested, is called 'firm up!' by 'diggin your dog'. Its for cats as well. I bought mine on amazon. I've added link below.

Now i cant say for sure since it is only day #2 of his new food Ziwipeak but his last 2 poops have been excellent. That is all he is eating, no laxative supplements. We'll see.

 

Powdered pumpkin http://smile.amazon.com/Diggin-Your...7744&sr=8-1&keywords=firm up pumpkin for dogs

 

@mrbeesmom -

Thanks for the tip about the powdered pumpkin!


Mogs
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Thanks for the powdered pumpkin link. I have also tried powdered psyllium and I think that it did help but not long term. He also doesn't want to eat the food if it has anything added to it.
I have been feeding Friskies Turkey and Giblets Pate for a long time now and I just recently started making his diet half raw by feeding Primal raw cat food mixed with his canned food. I have read that the raw cat food will help so I'm checking the box to see what comes out lol. There was a new piece in there today that was half of the diameter that it usually is. I'm going to keep checking though. It's only been about 5 days since he's been eating the raw food. I have a can of pumpkin that's already in my pantry so if the raw food doesn't help, I'll give a little of the canned pumpkin before I order the powdered kind.

 

I almost forgot, do you guys know anything about adding chia seeds to their food. I mean do you know if it's supposed to help or not. I have tried it a few times. I put a little in the bowl then added warm water to get the chia to start getting all jelly like and then I mixed in some cat food. They ate it but I'm not sure if it helped them go to the bathroom or not.

 

I believe i have heard that. It forms a mucilage, i think. In fact i believe i've seen it as an ingredient in canned cat food. I'm not sure of its efficacy. Now i'm going to go read a few of our former canned food labels to see if any have chia.

Cha cha cha chia! (Everyone is thinking it so go ahead and sing it)

 

Ha no i was wrong. Its ground flaxseed i was thinking of, which is similar to chia. Its in some (all?) wellness core.

 

I actually have some ground flax seed. I saw a stool sample in the box today and I felt it, it was rock solid and it wasn't old. I just went straight for the pumpkin because I hadn't read about the flax yet. Anyway, I mixed a TBSP of pumpkin with a TBSP of Weruva chicken canned cat food and he ate it. He was licking the pumpkin off of the side of the bowl, I think he likes it lol. I never thought that would happen.