Diet advice please for diabetic cat

After losing lots of weight my cat has undergone lots of tests, and at age 7, been diagnosed diabetic. He is to have twice daily insulin doses. Having one read up on this, as you do, I am worried about changing his diet to fewer carbs without testing sugar levels. Any advice please? Also vet suggests twice daily feeding but he is very hungry and used to having more frequent small meals throughout the day. Help appreciated thank you. He is one of six cats so it may be easier and healthier to change them all to a better protein diet.

 

hi - welcome!! This is a place where you will get lots of answers. Firstly what is your cat's name and what kind of insulin is he on? Home testing (in my opinion) is vital to the health of your cat and even more important if you are considering changing his food. The food choice is easy - Dr. Lisa Pierson (DVM) compiled data on commercial foods at: http://www.catinfo.org/docs/FoodChartPublic9-22-12.pdf .
The reason he is hungry (all the time) is because he is an unregulated diabetic. This ravenous hunger will ease with the introduction of insulin or at the very best low carb high protein food (there is a chance he could go into remission with diet change - hence home testing being sooooo important). I feed my Scamp twice a day and she is used to it now but I know there are others who do feed throughout the day but they remove food two hours before testing the glucose levels.
I know others will give advice also and this is a wonderful forum filled with incredibly knowledgeable, caring people - you have come to the right place!

best wishes - Alix

 

Hi Sian,
I saw your post in the other forum, but decided to answer you here. I am just here to welcome you!

There are people in this group that have great experience who will answer your questions. They are so helpful! I have been here for a couple of weeks and did my first home test on 3/16.
While I don't know much, as this is all new to me, I can share my experiences so far:

I was not at all comfortable giving my cat, Elizabeth, shots without knowing the blood glucose levels. So, I started home testing, and it has gone very well. Everyone here will encourage you to do home testing. And best of all they will help every step of the way. And believe me, you need their help!

One of the vets at my clinic suggested feeding twice a day. My cat doesn't eat much at one time, and I didn't want her to lose more weight, so I have let her have the many small meals throughout the day. There are some articles suggesting that small meals through the day are best for diabetic cats.

Once the BG levels lower, your cat won't be as hungry (or thirsty).

I use an AlphaTrak2 glucometer, which is calibrated for cats and dogs. Most people here use a human glucometer, and many of the articles posted on this site use the numbers for the human meters. The reason for using the human glucometer makes sense to me now! The strips are much less expensive than the Alphatrak strips. I will probably end up changing, but love the AlphaTrak2....it is a dream to use - if only those strips weren't so expensive!

I removed dry food from Elizabeth's diet yesterday. She likes wet food, so it hasn't been a problem. One of my questions has been about the validity of the numbers on the food charts. Surely some of these values change, as they are years old, and Dr. Lisa Pierson acknowledges that in an article I found. She suggests calling the company to get the true values (different than the values found on the can), and I plan on doing that next week. According to the calculations she said to follow, the Hill's m/d canned food (using the values on the can) is 9% carbs, and not the 14% that is on the chart. Maybe I did it incorrectly - anyone reading this that knows, please let me know.

That's about all I know! I am so glad I started home testing, and even happier that there are so many cat lovers willing to spend their time helping and sharing their knowledge and experience.

 

Hi @Sian most people free feed their cat or give small meal often and only remove food two hours before the next insulin shot is due.

I didn't switch foods until I was testing at home. It doesn't have to done immediately. This link will give you some great tips of taking readings at home

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/hometesting-links-and-tips.287/

 

Changing from a high carb diet to a low carb diet may reduce the glucose levels 100-200 mg/dL and may reduce the insulin dose 1-2 units.

It is critical to home test if you are already giving insulin and want to change food.

 

Hi Vicki,

Many of us here have found the following online calculator to be helpful:
http://www.scheyderweb.com/cats/catfood.html
This calculator will give you the total calories, and also the breakdown of how many calories from protein, fat, and carbs there are in 100g of food.
But to get the percentage of calories from carbs we usually need to go one stage further; so you just need to grab a calculator and do this:
Divide the number of calories from carbs per 100g by the total calories per 100g, and then multiply by 100. That will give the percentage of calories from carbs.

Note: If there are around 100 total calories in 100g of food then it's not necessary to do this last calculation, because the number of calories in 100g of food and the percentage of calories will be the same.
.

 

Welcome! How often should glucose be checked?