I think my cat might be diabetic...need suggestions.

Hello everyone, my name is Frank and I have been roaming this board for the last several hours. Let me say that this is an amazing community and I am glad to be a part of it, I found this site just doing general browsing.

Before I get started, let me say that I'm a guy. I only mention that because I've seen only women on this board so I feel compelled (for some reason) to let people know, don't ask me why because I don't know.

On to my story.

I am the proud owner of three black and white tuxedo cats, I obtained these cats by taking in their young mother who had gotten pregnant (unknown to me at the time) while she was left alone outside by a neighbor. I've raised them since birth so they are family to me, they were born Nov 9, 2003 behind my couch in the living room. I have a girl named Helen a boy named Max and another boy who is nameless but was given the name Charlie by a neighbor, Charlie is the focus of this post.

Charlie bonded to me instantly and continues to be close to me to this day. Charlie is energetic, talkative and the most curious of all my cats. He's always investigating something.

Charlie has had signs that he might be diabetic for a while now but I lack the financial resources to take him to the vet. I'm not afraid to admit that I'm a poor man so I'm not able to take him to the vet. I don't want to lose Charlie or any other of my cats so I thought I'd ask for advice.

The first sign that he might be diabetic came as a kitten but I'll get to that one in a minute. Charlie has a tendency to pee a lot and drink a lot of water, this sent up red flags. My aunt even noticed this and that's unusual because she's notoriously spacey. He goes to his litter box 5 to 7 times a day I'd say, though it does vary, he does have days when it appears normal. There are times though, that he'll go to the litter box, pause and leave. He does this quite a lot actually, like he's suddenly lost the urge. The thought had occured to me that he might have a urinary tract infection but this is offset by two things. 1. He's been doing this for years, UTI's would have spread and killed him by now (I'm guessing) 2. His rear leg weakness.

That's the other sign I was referring to. He almost died on me when he was a kitten. His rear legs gave out and he got so lethargic that he stopped moving. He wouldn't eat, he had no energy to walk, he just lied there on his side. He peed and pooped on himself because he couldn't get up, if my aunt hadn't hand fed him he would have starved. Apparently, this is a major sign of diabetes in cats but I didn't know that til recently, combine that with his constant peeing and it leads me to my conclusion.

I love my cats, they keep me sane during tough times so I want to do the best I can for them but unfortunately I don't have the resources. I'm hoping the members of this board can give me advice on what I could possibly do. Charlie isn't sick presently, infact, he's sitting on my lap right now. Charlie appears to have ear mites too because he scratches his ears and they are often bloody but he only get's worse with ear mite drops.

I hope that I don't seem to be a bad parent, I'm doing my best. If anyone has any suggestions, advice etc. please let me know. Thank you for reading my post and for any input.

-Frank

 

Hi Frank and welcome. Of course men are allowed on this board and we actually have quite a few. I love tuxies - I have one myself.

While many will recommend that you need to see a vet, I get the issue about finances, so let's see if we can help you determine what is going on. But do keep in mind that you may need to see a vet, if for no other reason then to get a prescription for insulin and syringes.

So, let's start with some questions:

What food do you feed them?
wet? dry? combination?
how often do you feed them?
does he have any other health conditions currently?

There are three key factors to managing diabetes: food/nutrition, home testing and insulin

the easiest and least expensive way for you to determine if this is FD, is to test his blood glucose levels (BG). You can purchase a meter, test strips and lancets from any pharmacy - however, Walmart sells Relion brand and is the least expensive. You can also see the starred post at the top and ask for a free start up kit.

While you are waiting to get set up with this stuff and start testing to be sure, the next thing would be to change the food you are feeding.

If you are currently feeding any dry food, you want to stop that and feed a wet diet only - such as low carb canned or raw food.

ALL cats, and especially those with diabetes, do best on a species appropriate diet that is high in protein and low in carbs. Dry food DOES NOT fit that bill. Most here on FDMB feed low carb/high protein canned, raw bought from a pet store or they make there own.

Here great links, one is to a food chart put together by one of our board members that breaks down the carb % and protein % of most of the commercial brand foods. You want to keep the carb % below 10% and around 7% is great. The other link is to a site by a vet "Dr. Lisa DVM" ... who also posts on this board from time to time ... there is in-depth info. there about many things, including nutrition and how to make raw food.

Nutrition/food info

this is a good way to feed all your cats. All your cats can safely eat the same food without worry and it may save you some costs and headaches of having to do separate feedings and keeping track of what they are eating.

Before going further, let's start with these two items to determine if this is FD and sometimes a diet change on it's own can help a cat go into remission without the need for insulin.

You also mentioned weakness in the legs. Front or rear legs? Does it look like he is walking flat footed, losing his balance or being unsteady and stopping to rest? It is very possible that this could be diabetic neuropathy.

In many cases this is treatable and reversible, with Methylcolbamin B12 and insulin. But before we know if this is the situation and send you out to get Methyl B12, let's see what the BG's levels tells us.

I see you are in CA - there are several members there, who may be able to assist you in person, if you would like some help - and by help, I mean teach you how to test for BG's, inject insulin, etc.

 

The low cost start is blood testing and low carb wet food. Then go from there.
This site is full of how-tos on ear blood testing... also food. :smile:

 

Again, I recommend that Charlie see a vet. You might be able to get a handle on what is wrong with Charlie by blood testing as discussed by Hillary. Another method is testing the urine for glucose. You can buy the strip at a pharmacy. I would get the Keto distixs, those test for both glucose and ketones. Ketones in the urine are very bad.

 

Hi Frank

welcome to the FDMB!

On the $$ issue, you may like to take advantage of this link:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=6

Newbie kits supplier, Cindy, send her a PM (private message) and see what she might have, hope things work out for you and your kitty.

 

Thank you all for the suggestions. Hillary, thanks for the wealth of info. I am fascinated by all the info about wet food, I need to read labels.

I feed them dry food, apparently a taboo. I did feed them combination for a while when they were kittens.

My cats have constant access to their food, I know that's probably not ideal but they aren't overweight.

Charlie doesn't appear to have other conditions other than ear mites which I can't seem to get rid of....one of my others might be a little constipated...my female used to vomit all the time but she's gotten much better since I stopped feeding her tap water (too much chlorine around here.)

Charlie had weakness in his rear legs as a kitten but hasn't had any problems since. He really doesn't appear to be sick at all other than the constant peeing and the one incident as a kitten but I don't want to ignore it. He does have very minor balance problems when climbing over things but these are extremely minimal and hardly noticeable.

Ronnie, the link is fantastic. Thank you. I'll send away in a few days when I am able.

Thank you for all the suggestions. I'll read labels from now on as I'm genuinely interested in the subject.

-Frank

 

I did the same thing, for years, free fed them dry food, thinking that I was buying the "quality" expensive bags and it must be good for them right.

It wasn't until I came here a year ago that I learned about food and how bad dry food even the expensive ones are bad.

I also learned that all the skin issues Maui had and the steroid shots she received over the years (which contributed to the FD - it was steroids and dry food, I believe) - and her IBD issues (she had exploding daily diarrhea for months and months) - all this started to clear up and go away when I stopped the dry and got them on the wet and now also raw foods.

Who knew, I certainly did. But I was open to learning, I read and re-read Dr. Lisa's website and it made sense.

Maui's 11 years of skin problems cleared up in weeks and her diarrhea stopped in a couple months and now she just has occasional bouts, which we can deal with.

Here too - I have learned to free feed the wet and raw foods and my girls like to graze so this works out well for that.

I add tons of water to the food - to keep it moist longer and another trick you can learn is that you can freeze the wet food - just add water, freeze and if you will be away from home for several hours, you can put the frozen food out and it will thaw, once thawed they can eat it (there are some cats that won't wait and will eat it frozen ), but the point is you can safely free feed wet food.

I read somewhere that you could try olive oil in the ears to attack this problem. Put a couple drops in, massage around and use tissue or cotton to dry out - supposedly the oil will smother them. I haven't tried it personally, but figure if I needed to, it sounds like a harmless way to try to treat it.

this isn't an issue now? If you look up feline diabetic neuropathy you can see examples of what this looks like and see if that is what's happening with Charlie.

Well, we gave you some things to get started with, to see what's going on, however, you may want to consider a vet visit as that will give you the definitive (hopefully) on what you are dealing with.

If you go to the vet - you want to ask for a fructosamine test - this is a test that is the best determinate of FD - as it measures the BG level over a 2-4 period.