Here's Rascal

Hello Everyone,
I have to say this is a wonderful spot so far from what I have read and look forward to reading more and posting about our felines journey with Diabetes. Rascal is 11yrs old and was just diagnosed on 9/30. We noticed he was drinking significant amounts of water and not really eating. We got him to the vet who took blood and urine samples. He began a wet food diet right away and was eating well just from the switch in food. He has been on a 2 dose 2 unit insulin plan since 10/01, and eating wet food twice a day. We are hopeful for him to be controlled through diet and get off insulin.
Rascal has been with me since he was 8 weeks old and shares our home with his biological brother Frankenstein, 12yr old female sibling Bebedora, and a 4yr old male Moose. It has been a challenge to switch from free feeding on dry food to a scheduled meal time twice a day with Rascal getting wet food and the other 3 getting dry food. I know it would be best (and easier) to put them all on a wet food diet, but that is not financially possible right now. Look forward to interacting with all of you.

Thanks,
Matthew & Rascal

 

Welcome Matthew and Rascal!
Have you chosen a low carb wet food specifically? Here is a chart if you need it. https://catinfo.org/docs/CatFoodProteinFatCarbPhosphorusChart.pdf

I know it is really hard to go from free-feeding dry to doing wet! Rascal can eat more than twice a day most likely. Many of us feed our sugar cats multiple small snacks throughout the day.
I feed everyone friskies pate which is low carb, my diabetic gets her own particular 5.5 oz can flavor because of some tummy issues, but you can get the larger 13oz cans of friskies at Walmart for 93 cents each, or a case of 12 on amazon for around $11. If you’re able to incorporate more wet food into the others’ diets, then that would be good for them, but Rascal is the one who is ill so we can be concerned with him first.

It will help us help you by setting up a spreadsheet for home testing, and setting up your signature with pertinent information.

I think @Idjit's mom usually explains those steps pretty well.

I’m glad you found us! This place has been a tremendous life saver quite literally, for my Alice.

Best wishes going forward for you and Rascal and the rest of your cat family!

 

Hi and welcome to FDMB, Matthew, Rascal and the civvie (non-diabetic) siblings.

You have already posted about diet on the Main Health forum, and that's great. It's the right place to take all general health related questions and concerns.

Sharon14 asked if you were home testing yet, but I imagine you are at work right now and it's either that you are unable to respond, or it's unwise? I hope you will be able to get back online later today and tell us more about Rascal.

First, would you take a few minutes and create a signature so that we can see Rascal's information whenever you post?

Setting up your signature (light grey text under a post). Here's how:
click on your name in the upper right corner of this page
click on "signature" in the menu that drops down
type the following in the box that opens: kitty's name/age/date of diabetes diagnosis/insulin you're using/ glucose meter you're using/what he eats/any other meds or health issues he has. You can add your name, and a geographic location (sometimes the country/time zone matters) Be sure to SAVE when you are finished.

We also use a spreadsheet here to record the insulin and testing data so you can see how the trends and patterns emerge, and members can review his progress before offering suggestions or advice:
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/fdmb-spreadsheet-instructions.130337/
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/understanding-the-spreadsheet-grid.156606/

When you set up the signature and then the spreadsheet, it's very helpful to put the spreadsheet link (eg. Rascal's SS) at the very end of Rascal's info, even make it bold so it stands out.
The instructions tell you how to create a text link (the URL spreadsheet links can be very long and take up a lot of room and signature space is limited).
Much easier to find, just in case you have a bit of an urgent event or question and the spreadsheet data needs to be consulted.

Of course remission, being a diet controlled diabetic, is the ultimate hope, but it's a worthy goal that effective diabetic treatment can help a kitty to attain. In any event, remission or regulation, your cat is going to be healthier and happier.

Learning to home test, which is not expensive, will help you keep Rascal safe and know on a daily basis, just how the insulin is working and if dosage is correct, not too much or too little. Especially since you have changed to low carb wet food and that can significantly lower blood sugar, while you probably haven't lowered the insulin (if needed) correspondingly.

We can help with information about supplies and how to test. Ask in the Main Health forum and you are going to get lots of response..we are all about taking good care of our sugar cats!

 

He is on a low card wet food. Currently Fancy Feast Grilled. We are going to pick up a few cans of th special kitty from Wal-Mart to see if he like that. The food chart you provided is great, the Vet did give us the Binkys Page list as well. We also got 3 cans of the DM cat food and he did not seem to like that much at all. Currently not doing home testing. Rascal will be going to vet next friday to be monitored all day to determine the next steps.
In regards to the scheduled feedings of the other cats we have added some wet food to the dry they get and it seems to be motivating them to eat more at meal times. Thanks so much for your input!

 

I just saw in your signature that you are using NPH! That is what I started with when Alice and I began this journey, because it was cheapest. I hope it works well for you, but I must say I personally did not achieve very good regulation for Alice on it until I started giving shots 3x/day. If cost is an issue, you may want to check out Diabetic Cats in Need, http://DCIN.dreamhosters.com/ I believe.