Newly Diagnosed

Hi Everyone,

I'm the mom of 15 year old Sophia Maria and she was diagnosed on May 12th. We're starting to get used to the idea. This forum looks like a wonderful place to come for advise and support. I bottled fed Sophie from a week old and she's always been very healthy so this was a shock for us. Thank you for this wonderful community!

 

I also wanted to comment on my vet's attitude about Sophie's diet. She immediately sold me a case of Hills prescription m/d and from what I've been reading, this is 14% carb, much higher than it should be. I've already spent a lot of money on testing and want to learn how to do it myself at home. We've been to the vet's 4 times already and Sophie doesn't like going out of the house. She is on PZI and the vet has increased her dose from 1 to 2 units twice a day already since her diagnosis. Sophie is a very small cat, under 7 pounds. The vet is not very open about the food, saying anything I buy from the grocery store is like feeding her McDonalds! I'm not rich but I love my cat very much. I'm trying to learn everything I can to take care of her myself.

 

Hi and welcome to you and Sophie! I disagree with your vet about the food. There are many low carb wet foods out there that have similar or better ingredients than Hills. Many of us feed Fancy Feast Classic or Friskies Pates with great success. Hills has a money back guarantee, simply take the food back to your vet for a refund- tell him Sophie won't eat it. I'm so glad you want to learn to home test! It's very easy to learn and is so much less stressful to Sophie. You can use a pet specific meter, but the strips are very expensive and must be ordered. Most of us use a human meter, and while they read a bit lower than the pet meters, we know that and adjust our dosing guides. Here's some links to get you started
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/hometesting-links-and-tips.287/
Please feel free to ask any questions you have on the health forum, also come introduce yourself on the ProZinc/PZI forum
http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/forums/prozinc-pzi.24/

 

Hello and welcome. My first advice is to start looking for a vet that is either versed in feline diabetes or one that is willing to work with you. http://www.catinfo.org/#Prescription/Therapeutic_Diets_
You will be able to learn everything here to care for her.
http://jfm.sagepub.com/content/17/3/235.full.pdf html
Walmart is one of the cheaper places to get all of your supplies for testing and needles and food. Do you have one near you?

 

Welcome to the message board, 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.
- 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.

 

Wow...this is quite the opposite scenario, actually. There are no Hills' foods that are appropriate to feed a diabetic (or any) cat, unfortunately. It's all too high in carbs because they contain a lot of fillers and cheap ingredients to increase their profit margins, including wood pulp (powdered cellulose) and corn starch. However, Hills spends a ton of money marketing their food to vets and vet schools and spreading misinformation with bogus claims and heavily biased "studies". Their food is absolute junk food for cats. It would be like if your kid was diagnosed with diabetes after eating a steady diet of doctor recommended Happy Meals, and as a solution your doctor then recommended a "special" Happy Meal that wasn't really any different than the Happy Meals that made your kid diabetic in the first place, but cost twice as much and came with a fancy "prescription" Happy Meal label to make you feel like you were feeding the right diet, all while your kid's blood glucose would continue to remain high because of the junk food diet.

You don't need your vet's permission to change the diet, but if they give you grief about it, I would question your vet exactly on what makes the Hill M/D healthier for cats, and what makes a high quality, low carb commercial food "McDonalds". If you compare the ingredients from Hills M/D:

To something like Weruva Chicken Frick-a-see:

Or Wellness Core Turkey & Duck:

You can see that the quality of ingredients is much better in the commercial foods (no by products or plant based fillers), and they are cheaper than what you're paying for the Hills M/D. They are also much lower in carbs than the Hills M/D at 2% and 5% carbs, respectively, compared to the 14% in the M/D (because corn starch is highly glycemic). According to the AAHA diabetes guidelines for cats, you should be feeding "the lowest carbohydrate levels the cat will eat". We typically recommend less than 8%-10% carbs as a cut off point for diabetics. There are a ton of commercial foods that fit this bill, and you can find a list of their nutritional breakdown here: http://catinfo.org/docs/FoodChartPublic9-22-12.pdf. Grocery brands like Fancy Feast and Sheba pates has the same quality meat ingredients as the Hills, but are actually still better quality overall because they don't contain plant/grain fillers like the Hills does. The only thing you're paying a premium for with the Hills is the label. Purina is better than Hills in that their prescription foods are actually formulated to be generally safe for the conditions they're trying to treat, but in 90% of cases there is usually a commercial food that will meet the nutritional needs the same way or better, with the same or higher quality ingredients, and for a much lower price.

Most vets don't get much more than a single seminar in vet school on feline nutrition (which may or may not be integrated into dog nutrition, who have completely different nutritional needs), and they are sponsored by the prescription pet food companies who want vets to sell their food because they discovered that they can make a ton of money charging twice as much for the same food in a prescription can, because most people don't do their own research and question their vet's opinion on the diet. It's a win-win for the company and the vet's office, who both make money on the food. But it's a loss for the owner and the cat.[/quote]

 

Welcome to you and Sophie!

 

Thanks everyone for your input. I'm overwhelmed right now. I am going to look for another vet that's more knowledgeable about diabetes.

 

These Vet Interview Topics may help you find a compatible, knowledgeable (or willing to learn), vet.