Hi, I’m new here

My fourteen year old Burmese has just been diagnosed with diabetes. We are in the early stages of diagnosis. My main concern at the moment is her feeding schedule. She has always had access to dry food 24. hours a day, with some wet food at breakfast. She’s a very fussy eater and if I put her to her food she’ll just walk away. The other problem is we have a Burmilla who is four, who is also used to having food available all the time. I understand that she should only have food at specific times. Does anyone have any tips for me on how to handle this?

 

Hi and welcome to the message board. Would you please tell us your name and your cats names?

Switch them to a feeding schedule. You want to use a cat's natural hunger to get them to eat.

Does she like the wet food?

This will help to get you started on here. New? How You Can Help Us Help You!

 

My name is Pam and my cats are Lili and Molly.
She won't eat the wet food, but has started to eat the dried food the vet gave us.
I'll have to work on the feeding schedule, difficult with the two cats.
Tahnks for any help.

 

Pam -

Many people with diabetic cats allow their cats to free feed/graze. To a degree, a lot depends on which insulin you'll be using. For insulin other than Lantus and Levemir, your cat needs to eat about 30 min. prior to giving a shot. The other types of insulin (not long-acting/depot type) need to have food on board prior to a shot since the shorter acting insulins have a (much) earlier onset. Lantus and Lev give you more room with regard to when the insulin kicks in (i.e., onset). We do encourage you to pick up food 2 hours before shot time so you know your blood glucose test at shot time isn't influenced by food.

There is a fundamental problem with dry food. Almost all of the dry foods are high in carbohydrates. If you feed your cat a diet that's high in carbs, your cat's chance of reaching remission is pretty much zero. There are only a few dry foods that are lower in carbs -- Young Again Zero Carb (it's not zero carbs but it's low carb) and Dr.Elsey's Clean Protein. ZiwiPeak makes an air dried raw food that is a lot like kibble -- it's just a lot healthier. I'd encourage you to take a look at this website on feline nutrition. The site is authored by a vet who makes a compelling case for why dry food is not a good choice for cats. She also has a section on the site discussing how to transition a cat to a canned food diet. FWIW, there are a lot of people here who at one time thought they were doing a good thing for their kitty by feeding dry food -- myself included.

 

Hi Pam, thanks for telling us your name and your kitties names.

Would you please put some information in your signature for us? It will help us to help you better. How to do that is in the link I gave you before. Look back to post #2 to find that.

More later.