Oh So Sad News

Buddy, our almost 14 year old black cat, is very, very sick. He was diagnosed with diabetes on March 11, 2015. In addition to being diabetic, he has pancreatitis and early kidney failure.

Buddy joined us when he was just 5 weeks old and has been an indoor cat with us ever since. We are the only parents he has ever really known. We are still struggling with our fear of losing him and our feelings of being overwhelmed. It tears us up seeing him as he is and sensing his own struggle to recover. We tell him to keep on fighting along with us. We take some solace in the fact we have a good vet and have begun Buddy's treatment plan with ProZinc, monitoring, etc. and even more love.

Attached is a portrait of our three cats we are lucky to have in our family: Buddy on the right, Addie May on the left and Knockoff in the center.

 

I am new to diabetes, so I have no advice to give, but I know all about loving a cat for 14 years. I am sending Buddy healing energy and hoping for a good recovery! Keep fighting Buddy!

 

Hi and welcome to FDMB,

Feline diabetes is a very manageable disease. It can be managed with a low carb/high protein canned or raw food diet (no dry food), insulin and hometesting. There are many cats on this site that have multiple conditions such as pancreatis and CRF. We can help you learn to deal with all of them. So far you are off to a good start with your insulin and hometesting. ProZinc works well in cats. Can you tell us your current dose?

For diet, many of us feed our cats either Fancy Feast or Friskies canned food. Pate flavors are lower in carbs. Anything with gravy in it has higher carbs. So does dry food. If your vet prescribed prescription food, you do not need to feed him that. I am glad that you have a good vet and is supporting hometesting. I am guessing that is what you mean by monitoring.

Many diabetic cats can live for years after their diagnosis with the proper care. You still could have many more years with Buddy. You have a lot of experience on this board. If you have any questions, just ask. We are here to help.

That is beautiful picture of your cat babies.

 

Hi Lisa and Witn. Your black cat looks like a younger version of Buddy!

You asked about his current (initial) dosage which is two units using a U-40 concentration twice a day. His diet is indeed pate flavors of Fancy Feast which our vet approves of. I'll be posting in the Health forum questions about managing multiple conditions.

Thank you for the compliment on the picture of our cat babies. Of course I could not get them to pose like that, but thanks to the miracles of PhotoShop, I merged three separate photos of our family.

 

Hi and welcome to you both, to Buddy and to your other furry family members.

You've found a great place to learn about diabetes and how to help Buddy. My little one, Saoirse, was diagnosed with FD and pancreatitis last June (at 14 years of age). She was very, very sick last year (especially when she had a bad pancreatitis flare). Saoirse was treated with insulin for 6 months and is now diet-controlled (still diabetic but eats low carb, wet food and doesn't need insulin). Saoirse looked absolutely dreadful during the early days and there were times when I feared I might lose her, but the difference the treatment made to her was nothing short of incredible. She looks younger than she has done in years.

Here are some useful links for you:

IDEXX Guidelines for Pancreatitis Treatment - information on symptoms and treatments/medications.

Tanya's Site (information for kitties with kidney issues, but also has a wealth of other information on it. I recommend that you find the page about nausea and inappetence and bookmark it: the information there is very helpful for cats with pancreatitis as well as for those with CKD.

If your vet hasn't done one already, I suggest asking for a B12 check. It's a good idea for diabetics, and doubly so for cats with pancreatitis. If Buddy's levels are low, then a course of B12 could give him a bit of a boost. It really helped Saoirse.
.

 

Wow! I am so glad that Saoirse is doing so well. She is beautiful and an inspiration to us!

Buddy, like Saoirse in her early days, looks absolutely dreadful and that is what is breaking our hearts. However, we are caeful to be positive around him so he will keep up his fight.

And you are absolutely right about this web site and forum. It is helping us put a floor under our sinking spirits. It is now 7:40pm here in California and is the end of Day One of his treatment plan. On to the next day one day at a time.

Thanks for all the good links and info. Will definitely check everything out.

 

She just had good genes. She was about 15 when that picture was taken. She went to the bridge in 2009 at the good old age of 19.

 

When you think of how scared we get when they're poorly, they must be very scared too, especially with all the new stuff like testing and injections happening. As they start to improve, they do tend to quickly join the dots and recognise that the poking and prodding has something to do with them feeling better. Lots of emotional reassurance helps along the way (even if we have to fake it at times!).

 

Now she's over the worst, I really wish I'd taken a picture of Rosa when she was diagnosed so I could show it to people just starting out on this journey and worried about how ill their cat looks. At 11, she looked dreadful - before she was diagnosed I'd been thinking she had cancer or something else relatively untreatable. In the space of a couple of weeks, she'd lost over 2lb (20% of her body weight). She was losing fur and all her bones were sticking out. She looked in much worse shape than our 18 year old severely CKD kitty! And she had no energy at all. She may or may not be early CKD - the vet thought it was possible, but then said that it might be that her numbers were off because of the diabetes. We put her on a low phosphorus, as well as low carb, diet anyway as all our cats tend to steal each other's food so anything we give has to be suitable for both her diabetes and Shadow's much more advanced CKD.

A month in, she'd gained back most of the weight, her fur had grown back and she'd started running around like a much younger cat again. The improvement as soon as she was on insulin and in better numbers was amazing. So please don't think that Buddy's appearance means he doesn't have long left - he will improve dramatically as he gets regulated.

 

The only negative about using Fancy Feast is that it is too high in phosphorus levels and can be problematic for kidney issues. The one food I found that was low carb and low phosphorus was the Friskies Special Diet pate flavors. If Buddy will eat this, you are better off giving him this. If not, please check Dr. Lisa's food comparison chart @ www.catinfo.org and look for carbs that are under 10% and phosphorus under 250 (the lower the better for both).

 

I found the same Hillary. I started off feeding a mixture of Friskies, Fancy Feast and 9 Lives as Rosa was so picky about which foods and flavors she'd eat. I only buy the Friskies now to keep the phosphorus levels as low as possible. We had Shadow, our CKD kitty at the vet this week for blood work and we discussed the food we were feeding with them. They agreed that it's tricky when there are 2 different requirements, but were happy with what we're feeding to keep both Shadow and Rosa healthy (not as happy as if we were feeding them the prescription foods they wanted us to use of course but they did say we're meeting all the requirements for food).

 

Thank you for your words of encouragment and diet advice.

 

Yes it certainly can be tricky when dealing with multiple health issues. I've dealt with same.

Another thing to consider is a raw food diet. There are many commercially available raw diets from freeze dried to frozen, as well as recipes to make your own. I believe Dr. Lisa lists some of these options on her charts so you can see just what the carb and phosphorus content is and if it will work for your cats - either to transition totally or just supplement.

 

Good luck. He has a great family taking care of him by the sounds of things.....

 

Unfortunately Buddy has crossed the bridge. The posting is here:

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/buddy-is-gone-need-to-tell-his-stories.135531/

RIP Buddy..you were loved so much!