Newly diagnosed 16yo male

Hi all. My sweet Shady was diagnosed Monday, and I have to say: I kind of expected the diagnosis due to his frequent thirst and urination lately. He has a history of crystals and pancreatitis as well, which may be why diabetes presented so late in life.

He still has a great quality of life so there was no question that we would start the treatment journey together. I just never anticipated how in depth it could be. To compound that issue: Shady is primarily my dad's companion now (I brought him home in my early 20s), but I have Shady every 6 mos while my dad is overseas. It is imperative to regulate Shady before October so that the transition back to my dad's house and continuing care does not skip a beat.

Any advice as to how the next couple of weeks/months may work out? How about changing him from free feeding to regularly scheduled intervals? We go Friday to learn how to give injections.

 

PS: this picture is from years ago. He has lost his "lion's mane" and about 8lbs since then. He's down to 12.6 now. It was just too cute of a pic not to share

 

Welcome to FDMB, the best place you never wanted to be.

There are 4 things you'll need to manage your kitty's diabetes:
- You - without your commitment, the following won't work.
- 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. Grazing is fine and spreads out the workload for the remaining pancreatic cells.
- A long-lasting insulin such as ProZinc, Lantus, BCP PZI, or Levemir.
- And 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!).

 

Thank you! The 12 hour interval feedings suggested are definitely going to be a challenge. The good thing is he has taken immediately to wet food, whereas he used to abhor it. He's eaten a whole can in the last day!

 

Hi and welcome to you and Shady.

A lot of us here feed our cats mini-meals throughout the day, or allow our cats to free-feed if that's what they're used to instead of making them stick to 2 bigger meals a day. Mini-meals are easier on a cat's pancreas and a lot of cats are happier not being limited to only eating twice a day. Even with wet food, it's possible to allow free-feeding if you add some water to the canned food to stop it drying out (and change the food out every 12 hours). Or you can freeze part of the food so that the cat gets some fresh food during the day as it thaws. It's great news that Shady has taken to wet food - you're already ahead of a lot of us when we started here if you've got him to switch to eating that so quickly.