Diabetic Cat Treatment with no Insulin....Asia

I live in Thailand.....my cat was diagnosed with Diabetes but I am trying to treat without Insulin.

Hi my cat was half hearted diagnosed with Diabetes 2 months ago. In short I did only a little research and changed her diet over to 85 grams wet a day and a little dry and went on vacation for 2 months.
After returning home my 14 lb kitty was now 10 lbs. I took her to the vet again who diagnosed Diabetes but not so bad she needed Insulin yet. He suggested dry kibble for Diabetes by Science Diet. After I read your page I changed her completely to wet food 2 weeks ago and she is still losing weight (you can feel her ribs back bone etc).
She is hungry all the time and I feed her about 6 times a day. About 11oz of food in total (2 cans various brands). We have a selection of Avoderm, Science Diet, and Royal Canine wet foods here in Thailand. She drinks much less water now with the wet food. Poops and pees fine. She seems happy except that she is wasting away! Please help. There is so much information out there and I don't want to change in the wrong direction! We can ship food in, cook it here etc, money is not an issue. I just want my healthy kitty back.

She is almost 7. Always been big boned, long haired and red. I adopted her at 6 months and she has always been an indoor (fairly lazy) kitty cat. Until 2 months ago I left the dry food out for grazing and gave 40 grams of wet in the AM and the same in the PM. She has a sister that is 8 and getting fatter because she wants to eat all the time the other one does.

Thank you I hope this reaches you. The doctors here at the vets are good, but the language barrier is hard and it looks like science diet throws a lot of money at them so they push it a bit.

 

Hi. If your cat has diabetes, it sounds to me like she needs insulin. How was she diagnosed?
Insulin is what helps the cells to use the food they eat to make energy, etc. If she is diabetic and she her body is not producing it's own insulin, then the cells can not get the food, and she looses weight no matter how much she eats.

 

If i were you, I'd get a meter and start testing her. Then you'll know how high she is and whether insulin is necessary. It is also possible that she has another issue - there are several illnesses that cause cats to lose weight, like kidney disease or thyroid issues. If her numbers are in normal ranges for glucose, it would be time for another vet visit.

I don't know about the food brands you mention. Things to watch out for in ingredients are rice, gravies, potatoes and any kinds of grains. If you can find pates that are mainly meat, that is best. You can check out our food charts and order from the US - try to stay under 8-10% carbs.


http://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=115

 

I was under the impression from what I read on few sights that if I feed her properly I wouldn't need Insulin. Am I incorrect? I want what's in her best interest but I would like to not use Insulin if there are other options. Will the Diabetes not cure itself through the proper food? I am not sure what her number was when we went to the vet. I will have to ask him in the morning.

 

We use this food chart to help us select low carbohydrate foods to feed our diabetic cats. http://www.catinfo.org/docs/FoodChartPublic9-22-12.pdf A very good vet here is the USA who is concerned about cat nutrition spent a lot of time to get the information on this chart. Dr. Lisa Pierson.

I looked up the Avoderm brand on our food chart and it has some flavors and types that should be ok.
Chicken 9%
Salmon 10%
Ocean Fish 8%
Chicken Chunks/Gravy 8%
Salmon/Consomme 0%
Sardines/ Consomme 1%
Swordfish /Consomme 1%
Tuna & Prawns 0%
Tuna & Chicken w/vegetables 2%

Royal Canine - Babycat 8%

Hill's Science Diet - none of these are <10% carbs.
Hill's Prescription Diet - none of these are <10% carbs. Lots of vets recommend the m/d for a diabetic cat but that is 14% carbs, too high.

Hope this helps. Let us know if you need more information.

 

Diet can help a lot. Often, it does not help completely and you need to give insulin.

Your cat walking on its hocks instead of it's toes is an indication that the diabetes has progressed and you need to start giving insulin.

We recommend Lantus, Levimir or PZI/Prozinc for a diabetic cat.

 

The proper diet can cause a pancreas to heal and the cat to be a diet controlled diabetic in remission. This doesn't happen with every cat. If you start testing and change the diet, you should be able to see in a week or so if her blood glucose levels are high enough to need insulin or low enough not to need insulin. Sometimes if insulin is needed, it is only a few months; sometimes they are healthy and happy on insulin for the rest of their lives.

 

Wow thank you so much for all this information! Some of it makes me feel a lot better...I really thank you for your responses from the bottom of my heart! We are feeding the healthiest canned foods we can find, but they seem to have tired of the Avoderm already.

We also have something called "Top Cat" (which I think is made in Thailand), Sheeba (3oz cans but it seems to be a lot of gravy), Royal Canine wet pouches"Light" or "Intesive" AND Friskies in a big can "Deep Sea delights" etc.

Lastly I am giving boiled chicken breast for some snacks and or meals if she is being picky. Is this ok? Healthy for her? We have access to any meat over here (except bunnies) so we could substitute if there was something better.

THANK YOU AGAIN
MAY YOU ALL HAVE AMAZING KARMA!

 

The Sheba in the gravy are probably too high carb.
The Friskies should be ok of it is the pate style, all ground up really fine. I feed my diabetic cat the Friskies pates.
Royal Canine LIght looks like 10%.
Royal Canine - if the "Intensive" is the Intensive Beauty, that is 14%, too high.
I could not find any information about the Top Cat cat food.

The boiled chicken breast is fine. Does not have the extra vitamins and minerals that a cat needs in their diet. There are supplements you can add to make it a complete food. I do not know any of the names. Maybe someone else does.

Any pure meat would be ok. No spices, no salt or pepper. You would need to add a supplement to make this a complete food.

I'm thinking you may have access to some of the same foods that our members in Australia have. I'll do a search and try to give you more suggestions.

 

In the Feline Health forum there is a topic called "Canned Cat food for Europeans and International Buyers". Link to it here: http://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=64843

I don't know if this topic will help you to find any other foods but you can look and see.

 

Hello and welcome to the board!

First, I would go back and "edit" that first post and delete your email address. We are all nice guys here but there are automated tools that will scour websites for email addresses and start spamming them and we dont want that! We will send you a PM (private message) through this board if we want to contant you 1:1

Second I agree with what you have been told, change the food to a lowed carb, start home testing ( a human meter is fine) and then once we see how that goes, and as soon as you can, start a good insulin like lantus, levemir or prozinc (PZI). Have you spoken to your vet recently?


Wendy

 

Ok I just went to the vet here today to check her numbers again.

As of March 25, 2013 her Glucose reading was 325 (but this number was right after eating)
As of May 20th, 2013 it was 282 (this was waiting 6 hours after feeding)
As of June 1st, 2013 it was 242 (this was waiting 6 hours after feeding)

It looks good but between March and May she lost 3.5 lbs....it was during this time I stopped leaving the dry food out all the time and fed her a bit more wet food. I think I unintentionally wasn't feeding her enough food during this time. Within the last 2 vet checks (10 days apart) I switched her completely to can food and fed her as much as she wanted. There was only 100 grams weight loss. He suggested to try and manage with food and avoid the Insulin for the time being. I would like to start making her food if anyone would like to share some good recipes! My boyfriend is a chef so we can make food often and easily. We did pick up some of the earlier suggestion mentioned in this feed for canned/pouched food too!

 

Those are not bad numbers considering she was probably stressed and higher at the vet, so the diet change could work. This vet has the recipe for raw food if you'd want to try that: www.catinfo.org I don't know of a recipe for cooked wet. Are you willing to try testing at home? That will give you true, stressfree numbers.

 

I was willing to try testing at home, but the doctor didn't want me doing it. I know I can buy a Glucose machine here but not sure how to get the blood. Is there any directions out there?

THanks

 

Here is a thread with lots of info on hometesting:

http://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=287

We figure we would never give insulin to our 2 legged children without testing first; we do the same with our 4 legged ones.

 

Did you manage to get a meter? Hows Cassie doing?

 

Read www.catinfo.org for excellent information about cat nutrition and recipes to make food at home.

Basically cats need some calcium and taurine -- they get this in nature from eating the bones of the prey animal and the organs like heart.

So the supplement to add to pure meat diet has calcium and taurine and possibly some other ingredients -- catinfo.org will explain -- however, if you grind up chicken (or other) meat with bones and organs so that the bits of bone are very small, the supplement is not needed. This requires a heavy duty grinder and processing the meat/bones twice to make the pieces smaller. (I read this on catinfo.org - I have not made the cat food myself)

Good luck!
phoebe

 

Hello,

For the moment Sassy is ok. I had a phone consultation with Dr. Lisa Pierson @ catinfo.org last week. She was very kind and encouraged me to order a Glucometer from Walmart in America because I could not find one here that was under 6mililiters for the blood sample. She said even if we had to wait 10 days for it to arrive is was dependable once it got here. Unfortunately Walmart does not deliver abroad so I ended up having to have someone buy it there and send it to me....long story short it added a few extra days to the shipping time! I weigh her everyday and feed her as much can food as she wants (she eats about 4 pouches of "Extra Light" and "Babycat" Royal Canine 3oz packs a day...total 12 oz) . So far her weight is stable at 10lbs although she is still quite boney in the shoulders and backbones.

Her Glucometer should arrive about 5 days from now. So until then we wait. I have been wondering if I should start taking blood now....because many people say it takes almost 3 days to get enough blood for a sample from the ear. Any suggestions? Any words of advise are always welcome!

 

Do you know which glucometer? You will need glucometer specific test strips, too.

See if ADW (link above) will ship to you. If yes, they carry the Glucocard 01 (and test strips) which is the same thing as the WalMart ReliOn Confirm. Arkray makes the Glucocard 01. A list of their international sites is here. Maybe if you contact them, they can tell you if anyplace closer to you carries the meters and test strips.

Practice poking an apple or tomato to get a feel for how the lancets work before you test on your kitty. I just held the lancet in my hand and didn't use the device. Other folks like the lancing pen device which holds the lancet and has a spring trigger that quickly pokes and retracts.

 

Here are some ear testing tips below. I would start though by rubbing her ears and giving her a treat every few hours. Get her used to having her ears played with.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/13c_CPZVKz27fD_6aVbsguadJKvjSrSAkD7flgPPhEag/pub

 

Hello thanks for the info! Can you post the "See if ADW (link above)" for me again. I wasnt sure which one you were talking about. Just got word that my package with the Walkmart Glucose Machine will arrive on Friday.....ao I have a few days for practicing before that date!

Thanks
Cassie

 

The link for ADW - American Diabetes Wholesale - is at the top of all of these web pages.

 

Did you get the meter? Let us know if you need help/advice on testing...

 

Relion Meter from Walmart has arrived! I read that it was hard to get blood from your cats ear the first couple of times, so I tried randomly in the middle of the day to get started. Miraculously she was super calm, purring and gave us enough blood for a test! It was a bit higher than her last numbers 304. I am not sure how to interpret this because she had eaten about 1.5 hours earlier and already twice in the day. I can only find stuff that says what her numbers should be under 150 but this is after 6 hours of not eating right? Anyway I just am glad it worked and I will try again in the morning when she has an empty belly.

Thanks
Cassie

 

Welcome to the Vampire club!

If she ate, then you are seeing a food-affected number. It is still too high - diabetic - and she needs insulin to bring it under control.

 

Great job! I would test her, then feed. Then wait 1-2 hours and test again. And get another test first thing in the morning. If you are still seeing over 130 then she will need insulin.

Can you also get urine ketone strips?

Wendy

 

Ok so I waited 6 hours this morning with no feed to do a fresh test. With no food she was 239. It was a little stressful because we had to test her a couple of times in both ears to get a drop of blood. We fed her Royal Canine "Ultra Light" 3 oz. Waited 2 hours and tested again with the result of 360 she was happy and purring this time so I doubt the number was stress related. She is on an all wet food diet about 1 month now but the amount of carbohydrate she is getting is questionable as she will go through 5 different kinds of food in a day. Sometimes its Avoderm, sometimes its Royal Canine, "Intensive," "Beauty," Babycat and Friskies "Makeral Feast" 400g can, and sometimes chicken breast occasionally. She is a pretty picky eater and likes lots of different things. I feed her about 6 times a day little meals 1.5oz.

All in all she seems pretty happy and even plays with the string once in a while. She does pee a considerable amount still but she drinks waaaaay less water so I guess she is getting from the wet food. We weigh her everyday and she has been a consistant 10lbs for 1 month straight after losing the first 3.5lb (a lot of that was due to not enough food intake). She is still pretty boney in the back and shoulder bones. I am off to the market to try one last ditch effort this week with "homemade food" from Dr. Persons website. I figure I probably need at least 3-4 days of consistant numbers to know how much Glucose she will need so in the meantime I can try the raw diet and see if it helps any.

Thanks for any suggestions
Cassie

PS> Is there any chance in the world that she will come back off Insulin after I put her on it? Her symptoms started a little bit back April 1st, 2013. My boyfriend and I travel for work about 3 months a year and trying to find a kitty sitter in Thailand to do testing and Insulin is going to be well.......quite difficult.

 

If you can follow the Tight Regulation Protocol for Lantus, there is a chance she can come off insulin.

You might look for students interested in becoming veterinarians to teach the home-testing and monitoring, maybe for a school project. If you can teach several, you will have multiple folks you could have pet sit while you travel.

Or, if there are pet sitters in your area, you could swap teaching them for hours of pet sitting or for discounted pet sitting.

 

Thanks for your info on Lantus Insulin. Do you have suggestions where the best place to purchase it from would be? I noticed Lantus has a 24 hour once a day shot...is that the one I want?

Thanks
Cassie

 

Lantus is best dosed twice a day, every 12 hours.

You can dose it once a day, but then your cat will be without insulin for 6-10 hours every day.

Normal duration for Lantus in a cat is 14-18 hours.

I do not know where you can purchase Lantus in Thailand. Here in the USA, we need a prescription from our vet and go to a pharmacy or drugstore to get the insulin. In Canada, you do not need a prescription to buy insulin, and get it at any drugstore/druggist/chemist/pharmacy.

Here is a internet search I did on availability of Lantus and cost in Thailand. It was not available in 2009 but has been available at least since 2012.
http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/591156-lantus/
http://www.mims.com/thailand/drug/info/Lantus/

Not sure how much these two links will help you.

 

Note: the once a day is for humans. Cat's metabolisms are twice as fast, thus it must be given twice a day.

 

Well it turns out you can get Lantus here and I didn't even need a prescription! I got a 10ml bottle for around 85 US dollars. I wasn't sure what was the easiest but they also have the Solostar stick if I need that next time! Waiting for my appointment with Dr. Pierson later this week to set up a schedule! This mornings number after 6 hours fasting was 230.....not so great!

 

But not horrible either. In fact, that number is below renal
threshold. There are plenty of people here that would be very happy to have that number without any insulin.

With insulin, you should be able to bring that number down.

Please ask any questions you may have. We are here to help.

 

Starting Insulin in the morning. Got the dosage of 0.5unit....only a couple of drops twice a day We will be using Lantus. I am home all day tomorrow but then gone for about 6 hours on Friday. Should I worry about leaving her home alone? Should I expect her to act differently? Currently we are feeding her whenever she is hungry so little bits about 6 times a day. Do I need to regulate that with Lantus? Should I feed before or after her shot? Wow sorry full of so many questions!

Thanks
Sassy and Cassie

 

Within about 10-15 minutes, the order is test, feed, shoot.

Starting out, do not shoot below 200 mg/dL. As you collect test data to show it is safe, than no shot number may gradually be lowered.

You may leave food down for her all day then pick it up 2 hours before the next shot. Until she is regulated, she may need as much as 50% more food than a normal cat because she cannot use the calories very well.

 

@BJM sorry could you clarify this sentence for me?

"Starting out, do not shoot below 200 mg/dL. As you collect test data to show it is safe, than no shot number may gradually be lowered"

Also Dr. Pierson said it would be better for us to wait until Saturday so we could be home all day to test her!

 

When you first start giving insulin, even with a low dose, you do not know how well the cat will respond. For that reason, we suggest you not give insulin when the glucose level is below 200 mg/dL. Its for the cat's safety.

You test before all shots and you test around the nadir - the lowest point between shots - to see how low the dose is taking the cat. With Lantus, most dose adjustments are made based on the nadir, with the goal of staying above 50 mg/dL. As you get tests in that +5 to +7 hour time period after a shot, you will see how low the cat goes and how big the change or drop from pre-shot to nadir is.

As you continue with the Lantus, you may find that you have pre-shot numbers below 200. If, from your test data, you see that the nadir is well above 50 on that dose, it is likely to be safe to give the same insulin dose at gradually lower pre-shot levels. You want to change that no shot number in moderate steps for safety. Larger steps are possible if you are going to be home to monitor.

If you get to the point of pre-shot numbers below 150 mg/dL with nadirs above 50 mg/dL, you really want to be posting in the Lantus Tight Regulation forum to get coaching on how to shoot low numbers safely, especially if your objective is to see if you can obtain remission.

 

Thanks so much for all your information. We do plan to do close Monitoring for a hopeful Remission! We are pretty much home 5 entire days a week so we will join the tight regulation Lantus for sure!

 

Great! Here's the link to the Lantus Tight Regulation forum. You'll want to get started reading the sticky posts at the top of the second section which explain the care and use of Lantus.

Plus, you'll find it helpful to see how they post there and how folks are using Lantus if you read over some of the threads (aka 'condos') for different cats.

 

If you are going to join the TR lantus forum, some more information to help folks out would be appreciated.

Also, creating a spreadsheet where you can track your cats numbers and progress is invaluable. Here are the directions for doing that. http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=18207
Ask for help if you need it on the spreadsheet creation and link to your signature.

 

Hey there

Hows things going? Are you still planning to pop over to the lantus board?

Wendy