Introducing Focker (Mr.F)

Hello Everyone. Thank you for adding us to this group.

My name is Focker, but my mom and dad call me Kiki and my nieces and nephews call me Mr. F. I'm 15yo and was just diagnosed with diabetes today... My mom is kinda freaking out on how she should take care of me. It's been a rough year for us. My grandma (My moms mom) unexpectedly passed back in February and its been hard for her.

The vet gave us SCIENCE DIET (Glucose) dry food and some wet food to try first before going to insulin. Any help or advice you have to help us, would be greatly appreciated.

 

Welcome to FDMB (or affectionately referred to as the best place you never wanted to be).

No disrespect to your vet but vets are very poorly trained in nutrition. The Science Diet food, especially the dry food, is high in carbohydrates. Your vet suggested an expensive, prescription food that is about as useful ad feeding a diabetic cookies and ice cream. The dry food is over 21% (their website has a lower carb value but the numbers are guaranteed analysis and not "as fed") and the canned is around 15% carb. We consider a low carb diet to be under 10% carb and most of. us give our cats canned food only that is around 5% carb. There is a wonderful website on feline nutrition that is authored by Lisa Pierson, DVM. On the navigation bar, there's a list of canned cat foods with their nutritional information including carbohydrates.

(FWIW, my cat who was very food motivated, hated Science Diet.) Many people here give their cats Fancy Feast pate style food It's low in carbs and much less expensive than prescription food. There are other brands that are equally good that are human grade food and cost about the same as the prescription food except the ingredients are far better.

If you're planning on a food trial before starting insulin, I'd encourage you to use a low carb food.

 

Denise and Kiki (Mr. Focker), hi and welcome to FDMB. I remember about the "freaked out" sensation, most of us arrived here feeling the same way. Dismayed, confused and overwhelmed. But, you can take a deep breath now and we will work with you to get Kiki back into the fine condition in the Before pics. There is hope, probably thousands of members over the world have benefitted from the information and support found on this board.

First, if you have not started kitty on insulin yet, this is the best time to transition his diet. The Science Diet Dry and probably the same brand wet is not for our sugar cats. Too high in carbs, it's like giving a human diabetic potatoes and gravy for dinner and a donut for dessert.

Depending on where you are in the world we can make some recommendations for a proper low carbohydrate diet to get the blood sugar levels down before you start injecting insulin.

We recommend testing the blood sugar at home so you can see just how a diet change is working, and if you begin insulin injections you can see the effect of the insulin also. We always test before every injection, just to insure it's safe to inject, that the blood sugar is high enough at that time, keeping the cat safe.

So, in a nutshell, there are the three basic components of effective diabetic treatment: proper diet, home testing, and insulin therapy.

There is information here on each of these components, and with the advice of experienced, knowledgeable members, and the support of the community is going to get Kiki on the path to better health and well being.

Please create a signature so that we can see pertinent information every time 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/glucose meter you're using/what (s)he eats/any other meds or health issues (s)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.

You can add in the information about the glucometer and insulin when you get those supplies. You are able to edit the signature at any time to keep the information current.

Next, please copy your post here and start a new thread (just like you did in this forum) in the Main Health forum HERE, paste the message. Then more members can meet both of you and we can get busy with diet recommendations etc and get Focker feeling better.