New, looking for help, advice

Nearly two months ago my cat was diagnosed with a form of ibd. Nothing specific and pancreatitis has not been ruled out. He was getting probiotics, an antibiotic for 30 days. Steroids, Cerenia for vomiting and changed his food to hills s/d. Within about a week, the diarrhea stopped. Vomiting continued but was only taking Cerenia every other day. Three weeks ago, he peed on some dirty clothes in the bathroom. Since he had a history of crystals I took him to the Vet and found out he is diabetic. Steroids had to be stopped, and insulin started diet changed to royal canin glycobalance. The vomiting quit about a week into insulin treatment. He had diarrhea yesterday morning and I spoke with the vet and he feels it may be the change of diet. I intend on calling tomorrow to update about the vomiting. I was hoping that the diabetes was at the root of his problems from the start but now I think we may be dealing with both. To my knowledge there isn't a vet diet that deals with both issues and I have become aware that there are foods on the market that may be as good or better than some of the vet diets. It would help if I could find something that could help both problems that wasn't so expensive. Is anyone else going through this and have you found anything out there that helps.

I should add that he had shown improvement prior to being diagnosed with diabetes.

My name is Shannon and my cat's name is Alexii (Lex) for short. He's 14 years old.

 

Welcome to the message board, the best place you never wanted to be.

Some folks have found that feeding a raw diet may help with IBD. You might pop over to www.IBDKitties.net to do some reading.

Also, it really helps to do food changes gradually - switching about 20-25% per day or two - to avoid GI upsets and food refusals.

There are 4 things you'll need to manage your kitty's diabetes:
- You - without your commitment, the following won't work.
- Home blood glucose monitoring with an inexpensive human glucometer such as the WalMart Relion Confirm or Target Up and Up (the pet ones will break your budget!). This saves you the cost of going to the vet for curves and done regularly, removes the need for a fructosamine test. All of our insulin guidelines use human glucometer numbers for reference.
- Low carb over the counter canned or raw diet, such as many Friskies pates. See Cat Info for more info. If already on insulin, you must be home testing before changing the diet. Food changes should be gradual to avoid GI upsets - 20-25% different food each day until switched. There are 2 low carb, dry, over the counter foods in the US - Evo Cat and Kitten dry found at pet specialty stores and Young Again 0 found online.
- A long-lasting insulin such as ProZinc, Lantus, BCP PZI, or Levemir. No insulin lasts 24 hours in the cat, so giving it every 12 hours is optimal for control.

 

I agree that trying a raw diet could be the way to go. My cat had chronic diarrhoea and I swapped to raw and the problem has been gone for 18 months.
In the meantime you could try giving mashed pumpkin twice a day .....about 1/2 to 1 teaspoon twice a day. That will help with any diarrhoea and it also helps with constipation amazingly. I found it worked very well.
If you buy canned make sure it is just pure pumpkin not pie pumpkin which has additives. I cook my own and mash it up...nothing added, then freeze it in small lots.
Good luck and welcome

 

Hello and welcome.

 

Since Radar was diagnosed with diabetes, I've learned so much about appropriate food for cats who are obligated carnivores. The catinfo website mentioned above by BJM is where I started reading and I suggest that you start there too.

My little guy is very sensitive to food changes so I have to be wise about what I choose to feed him. Since I started giving him a daily portion of Cats in the Kitchen - Pumpkin Lickin Chicken made by Weruva his system has been much happier.
We are glad you found us and hope you will let us know what we can do to help you help your little one. It's best, once you have some questions, to head over to the Main - Feline Health Board to post them.

 

Thank you all for your responses. Sorry it's been so long to respond. It's been a roller coaster ride. After a month on Vetsulin we switched him to Prozinc. He started that Tuesday. He's getting 2 units of Prozinc (starting over) twice daily compared to the 5 on Vetsulin. He seems to feel better. Doing more of his normal activities. Still a little lethargic at times but not as bad. I've managed to test him twice (it's more difficult when he feels better) and we're still in the 500's. On 5 units of vetsulin, most tests were too high to read. That being said, I feel we're on the right track. He is due for a serum fructosamine this week.

 

Hi Shannon and Alexii and welcome to FDMB!

 

Sadly I had to put my baby down this morning. I took him to the vet, they did a cbc (?) and his kidney values were off the chart. We were just getting a handle on his pancreatitis when the diabetes hit. Had to take him off the steroids. We haven't been able to get his blood sugar under control and now kidney disease. Since he was so sick and now we have another problem added to the mix, the vet didn't think we could get him feeling better. He's been sick for about 3 months now and every time I looked at him it just broke my heart. He's in a better place now, playing with his mice!

Thank everyone for their assistance, it is very much appreciated.

 

So sorry for your loss

 

I'm so very sorry for your loss. Fly free sweet Alexii

 

I am sorry to hear that Alexii has gone to the rainbow bridge

 

Sending purrs and prayers fro both of ou.