Food vs. Insulin

Hi everyone, my 13 year old male cat, Lucky, has been diagnosed with diabetes. His BG was 260 on 11-11. The vet wants me to give insulin shots. Should I try the food first? Or are his numbers too high for that?

Thank you,

Gretchen & Lucky
13 yo neutered male, Dx 11-13-19

 

Hi and welcome Gretchen and Lucky,

As long as Lucky did not have any ketones at diagnosis you should be ok to try a low carb wet diet for no more than a week.
But I would recommend you buy a bottle of Ketostix (from Walmart or a pharmacy) to test the urine for ketones each day until you start insulin. There is always a risk of a cat diagnosed with diabetes and not getting insulin, developing ketones which can lead to the serious DKA. So best to monitor for the ketones and if any develop at all, start insulin immediately and tell the vet.

Also I would recommend you start home testing the blood sugars. That is the only way to keep Lucky safe.
Testing at the vet every so often will not keep him safe.

Come on over to the main forum where there are more people to help you.

 

Thanks Bron and Sheba. What’s a ketone? The vet said that Lucky had glucose in his urine sample. Is that the same thing?

Gretchen

 

No. Glucose in the urine is from the diabetes. That spills over into the urine once it gets to the urine threshold.

Ketones form when the body does not have enough insulin and therefore isn’t able to use glucose for energy. It uses fat for energy instead and that in turn creates ketones which in cats is dangerous.

That is why we want you to test for ketones while you are swapping over to a low carb diet. If there had been any ketones in the urine at diagnosis, you would need to start the insulin straight away.
And by testing the blood sugar levels you will be able to see how much lower the BG level is with the low carb food.
Does that all make sense?

 

I would recommend getting a human glucose meter. Walmart has a ReliOn meter and strips and they are much cheaper than the pet meters.

 

Welcome, Gretchen.

Bron has made some great suggestions. In case you don't have a clue as to what low carb food is, you want a canned food that is below 10% carbohydrate. Most of us feed around 4 - 6%. This is a link to a food chart put together by Lisa Pierson, DVM. She also has a wonderful website on feline nutrition. Many people here give their cat Fancy Feast pate style foods but there are a range of choices.

If you want to move over to the Health forum, there will lots more people stopping by to say hello to you and Lucky.