Chester Newly Diabetic

Hi, I'm Dana and my rescue cat, Chester, has recently been diagnosed as diabetic. Unsure of his exact age, somewhere around 12-14. Original GB was 509! Then dropped to 435 with 1 unit of insulin. I started reading about nutrition as I knew it would make a difference. found very little current help with carb % on line. Switched his foods around a bit and dropped his GB to 315. Tightened up his food some more and ditched the prescription crap and his numbers dropped to 175. He's taking 2 units of insulin 2x a day. I'm working on better food and hoping to keep his numbers down and not to have to increase the insulin. That's where I'm at. The current vet is uncooperative with anything except prescription diets and more insulin. Small town. NO Holistic vets here. So I'm on my own. Love to have found this forum. Thanks ahead of time for any and all help!

 

Welcome.
What insulin? Good insulins are the human Lantus and Levemir and the pet insulins ProZinc and BCP PZI. For those two human insulin it is best to get the 5 pack of 3 ml disposable pens via a 10 ml vial. Although per ml the vial is less expensive most cats will not use up a 10 ml vial before the insulin goes bad/becomes ineffective. The human insulin N/NPH is sometimes prescribed but only lasts 8-10 hours. Same for the pet insulin Vetsulin/Caninisulin.
Most of us here test or cats blood glucose at home using a human meter. We test before each shot and periodically between shots. We record our reading and other info in a spreadsheet. See:
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/fdmb-spreadsheet-instructions.130337/
What are you feeding? A low-carb canned is best. As you know, there is no reason for a prescription food. Here is a list of commercial low-carb canned

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/shortcut-shopping-list-all-8-or-less-updated.117688/

Here is a link to home testing blood sugarshttp://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/hometesting-links-and-tips.287/

If you have any question please ask i the Health forum
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/forums/feline-health-the-main-forum.28/

 

Hi. My Vet only had VetSulin insulin. She will not teach me how to home test either. She was very discouraging about any food choices other than prescription. At least I KNOW better than all this! I'm just researching on my own to learn about all this. I'm pretty savvy about human nutrition/vitamins/herbs, etc., but just know basics on cats. I do have sense enough to know that diet makes a big difference with managing any disease!! Makes sense to feed high protein/low carb. Just use common sense. What do they eat in the wild? duh!

 

I couldn't find the answer to this on the Forum and couldn't post the question anywhere else. What's the best carb % to go by? AS FED or DME? Seems a bit confusing that just taking out the liquid in a food would raise the carb content so much! Seems to me that the carbs are either there or not!
Trying to get my cat around the 5% mark regularly. I've got to figure out this home testing stuff too! I'm going to be a little slow at all this. I'm a full time caregiver for my dad right now and he's very demanding of my time! Thanks for the help.

 

You need to go on the % of kilocalories provided by carbs on a dry matter basis. The food lists that Larry provided links for above are rated by the % kilocalories from carbs (DMB).

Another useful link for you:

catinfo.org - vet-authored site on feline nutritional requirements (excellent resource)

Welcome aboard!


Mogs
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Hi Dana and welcome to the forum. My cat was diagnosed as diabetic on Mar 9. Shortly afterwards I found this forum and they have really helped me get a handle on all of this.

 

Your vet can write a prescription for either Lantus or Levemir. These insulins are not normally carried in a vets office anyway. If you can convince your vet to do this, ask for the prescription for the pens instead of a vial. It is more cost efficient to use the pens because you will be able to use almost every drop. With the vials, the insulin will begin to become ineffective long before you can use it all. Also, your vet should be able to order either ProZinc or PZI. They can also give you a prescription for either one of these and you can order it online.

Hometesting may seem a little difficult at first, but once you get the hang of it then it is very easy. That is something that is important to learn, it could save your cat's life. If your child was diabetic, you would not want to give him/her insulin unless you knew it was safe. You do not need your vets permission to hometest. Some of us have had vets like the one you use and we usually agree to disagree.

Many of us feed our cats either Fancy Feast or Friskies canned foods. Pate flavors are generally lower in carbs. Any food that has gravy is also higher in carbs. If you are in a different country and neither one is available, let us know where you are located. We probably have members from there that can give you food recommendations.

 

I'm in the USA trying to squeeze in time to learna nd do all this! I'm a FT caregiver for my dad who had dementia and other issues. This is really overwhelming on top of taking care of him. I so appreciate finding this Forum! Afraid I'm going to have to change Vets...no big deal to me. My REAL Vet is in Atlanta, but I"m having to live in Alabama to help my dad who cannot be alone anymore. I just needed a Vet here, and just kinda "picked" one. I've got a referral to another one here that I'll give a try and see if that works out better. Anyone know if there's going to be an issue changing the type of insulin Chester is getting?
I've got to change his foods again as I was going on AS FED % and not DME. Didn't really understand that at first, but it makes sense now. Either the carbs are in the can or not! Water content shouldn't matter as the cats are eating all the food you give them so they're getting all those carbs!
I'll contact the new Vet and see in advance if he'll teach me to home test, etc. Thanks. Gotta run.

 

Changing insulin isn't a big deal.

 

WOW! Am I confused about Carb content. OK. I've got it that I should use DME%, BUT I can't get two values to match, so I don't know what's correct! For example, Wellness Brand Signature Selects (in a tub). (Flavor used here Shredded White meat chicken with Chicken Liver in sauce) They LOOK great...looks like all shredded meat with vitamins. When I use this calculator method to determine the DME % of cards ( http://scheyderweb.com/cats/catfood.html) I come up with 3% DME (per 100g) calculated. Looking good, right? WRONG! According to the email that I got from the company, the carb DME % is 32.89% !!! YEOW! Now they don't say if that's per 100g or the whole package (I'm assuming the whole package which is only 2.8oz) BTW 100g is a little more than 3oz.
So, now I don't know what the heck numbers to use. What's accurate? I would think that the company would know their numbers correctly, right? So that would mean that this calculation stuff doesn't work right. Anyone got answers?
Gee, no wonder my cat turned diabetic after looking at the carb content in these foods! Unless I get something scientific that changes my mind, I'm going to believe that the manufacturer knows their nutritional content better than any calculation I can do! Sure does cut the choices a bunch. Guess I'd better email FF too!

 

@Dana Bearden -

Hi Dana,

If you post your question about calculating carbs in a new thread on the Feline Health board you will probably get more responses because that board gets more traffic than this one.


Mogs
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A general rule of thumb is that if a food contains a sauce or gravy it tends to be higher in carbs. Canned food with gravy is what people her will use if their kitty's glucose drops low in order to bring the glucose levels up. Many people use the Fancy Feast classic or Friskies pates. most of which fall into the 10% or under category for carbs