Emma and her anal glands

Hi, everyone. First, thanks to this site for posting great information about feline diabetes, and especially this forum for information sharing. My furry daughter Emma became diabetic October 2009, and this forum was a huge help. My little princess actually went into remission in March and has been off the juice. One issue that she appears to have run into is related to her anal glands. Before she became diabetic, she was strictly dry food and never had an issue. When she became diabetic, I switched her to mainly wet food with a little dry out. Since I hated everything I read about prescription diabetic cat food, I went with Wellness Core wet and dry. She seemed to like the poultry food for about a month and than she got sick of it. So I found articles on Fancy Feast flavors that you can feed a diabetic cat and she LOVES it! Of course, her poops have gotten softer and I am thinking because she's not pushing as hard to go, her anal glands aren't expressing themselves. Anyhow, she's been to the vet at least 4 times in 6 months, where her right anal gland ruptured. Poor baby! Anyhow, I am probably going to be bringing her in monthly to get them expressed at the vet as she won't let me anywhere near her butt area. Question for anyone out here...has anyone tried Vetasyl (i.e, kitty metamucil)? The vet suggested that I try to give her canned pumpkin once a day to try to give her more fiber, which I have yet to try. I guess I am worried that the pumpkin may put her back into diabetic mode. Anyhow, any suggestions on trying to firm up poop, which may help Emma's anal gland issue? Or any other suggestions for that matter? Emma is about 8 1/2 years old, and I rescued her about a year and a 1/2 ago. She loves me and no one else..LOL...but is curious with other people. She is overweight...she's 17 lbs! She loves to eat and doesn't like to exercise at all. Her furry brother Sparky tries to get her to play with him but she has no desire to. Any advice appreciated! Thank you!

 

Have you considered a raw diet?

Is she completely off hard food?

My cats eat canned only, and have firm poops.

 

My crew also has firm to very firm poops on canned wet food / FF only, except Cole who gets very soft poop on FF. She gets fed whatever pate' style food doesn't cause the poooding. She primarily eats 'By Nature' these days.

One thing you could try would be to just feed chicken breast, simmered in some water for 10 minutes, for a day. See if that firms up the poops. If so, I'd try some other canned foods. Danny, who recently went diet controlled after 3 years on insulin, currently loves Soulistic chicken, and the Weruva Paw-Licken chicken.

good luck,
laur

 

Cats are just funny about this. I've had 2 of mine have issues with their anal glands - both are Civvie (non diabetic) girls. The one is a skinny half-siamese. We had to have hers expressed probably a half a dozen times over the span of a year although luckily it never ruptured or abcessed. She was eating nothing but hair-ball formula (high fiber) kibble at the time. The vet suggested at the time that Siamese are just prone to it, as our fat cats.

Most recently my extremely Zaftig Tortie had issues. She's fat, I won't lie - she takes after her Momma Bean. We joke there are entire zip-codes of her body she can't reach to bathe and since I refuse to lick them for her.... She still eats some kibble although we've tried to convince her not to - she's my kibble-hold out. But she now also gets 1/2 of her food from moist food, apparently she's just a moist food snob, it has to be in small cans before she's interested. We've had her done twice and the vet thinks she should be ok now, or perhaps after one more trip.

As for the pumpkin - I fed it to my diabetic Yittle during the last few months of his life on a number of occaisions. I didn't find it budged his numbers at all. After all, we're talking about a spoonful or so of unsweetened pumpkin, If I remember right almost half the carbs in pumpkin are fiber so its not really that sugary.

 

Hi, everyone. Thanks for all the advice! I'll definitely try some of them.

Interesting how some of your cats are on wet food and poops are firm. I always had the impression from a number of websites I went to was that the poops get softer on wet. Than again, i am sure it depends on the wet food. Wellness Core wet (poultry) gave her too firm poops as the poor thing struggled sometimes to go. Now I am on the opposite end of the spectrum...LOL! But God do I love my baby, so I will try anything to make it easier for her. God bless her, she has tolerated those vet visits where they expressed her glands. OMG..the first time they did it, I was in the room! Between her screaming and my crying hysterically because I know she was feeling pain, I have never been the same...LOL! I am sure expressing them is painful but vet said that it is actually more painful for them if they get blocked and than get infected. So we'll try a few different diet options like you folks mentioned. I'll schedule a monthly appointmen to check and express glands if needed. And I'll work extra hard to try to get her to "work out". She is also like her Mom...chubby....LOL! One of my nicknames for her is My Chunky Monkey.

Thanks again! Any other comments from others are more than welcome too. I will try just about anything!