Probiotics

Hey,

I'm new to the forum, so allow me to give you some background.

I have a 10 year old cat who last year was diagnosed with Diabetes and has been on Caninsulin ever since. He has not been well regulated - our old vet made us believe that home testing wasn't advisable and basically kept bringing our cat in for curves and fructosamine tests. Unfortunately our cat didn't have insurance so we are paying for all of this ourselves.
I finally bought a home (human) glucometer and the handy thing is that my dad (being diabetic himself) gets hundreds of test strips for free, so I can use them to test my cat at home.

I received the glucometer yesterday and have been randomly testing his blood, but at the weekend I will be able to carry out a proper curve - basically, his BG levels were all pretty high, round about 16 mmol or thereabouts. I really want to get his BG under control because he has neuropathy and is pretty skinny so I want to get him to a place where he is feeling better and fingers crossed, maybe his neoropathy will improve.

Anyway, ever since he started the caninsulin, he has diarrhea a lot. The vet stated this was a food issue, but it was the same food he had been eating for 10 years without issue. We changed him to Royal Canin diabetic cat food (he has always ate dry food and refuses to eat wet) and it made no difference. We are now using the Purina Pro diabetic cat food and he is still suffering with diarrhea. The problem is that because he is a long haired cat who also has neuropathy, when he has diarrhea, he doesn't realise that he has stepped in it and regularly traipses diarrhea all over the carpet and we have to then wash the carpet AND the him and it's stressful for all involved.

I am working on getting him regulated, but in the meantime, just getting his diarrhea under control would be fantastic. I know that Probiotics can help with this and I know that Fortiflora is an option, but as with most feline specific products, it is expensive. I live in the UK and can find other probiotics for a fraction of the price. Does it matter which brand I buy? Are there probiotics that are dangerous for cats or can I just use any brand, so long as it's a good product?

Any advice anyone could provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

Welcome! Good job getting the meter and starting testing. It's a much more aculture picture of what's going on. And bonus that you can get the supplies through dad for free!!!!!! Wow!


OK a few things to help us help you.

1. Set up a signature with info so we don't have to ask the same questions repeatedly.

Click on your name at the top right corner and choose signature. Add info such as your pets name, date diagnosed, insulin type, food you're feeding and any other health concerns such as the chronic diarrhea. Be sure to save after entering the info.

2. Since you are home testing now, setting up a spreadsheet and adding it to your signature will allow us to give dosing advice. Here's a link to how to do that. If you need help setting it up let me know.

http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/fdmb-spreadsheet-instructions.130337/

Sounds like you need a dose increase but I don't want to suggest anything without seeing numbers. What is his current dose?

3. I think a probiotic is a good idea. The only one I have personally given is FortiFlora.... But there are others you can give. If you do a search you will find some that others use such as in this thread someone said they use one called Renew Ultimate Flora. http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/...133-pmps-171-3-61-4-5-65.197965/#post-2215493
The search button is at the top... Just look for probiotic.

Plain pumpkin is also good for both constipation and diarrhea but not sure how you would get him to eat it on dry food. Syringe it maybe?

4. The food you are feeding us fairly high in carb even though it's marketed for diabetics. It's somewhere around 18% carb. Diabetics should stay under 10 percent carb (under 7 is even better). Truely your best bet is to try again to switch to a low carb wet food such as fancy feast classic or Friskies pate. There are a few drys that are acceptable but not sure what's available by you. Youngagainpetfood.com is 1%, Dr. Elsley's Clean Protein chicken is around 5-6, epigen 90 is around 5-6... I believe natures variety is under 10.

5. Clippers may help with cleanup on the back of legs and butt area so it doesn't stick to long hair.

 

For some reason, it's not letting me reply - it says my post contains possible spam???

 

Try a shorter post. We were having spam issues and the filters are tightened.

 

I'll try and split this into smaller replies as it seems to be refusing to post anything.

 

Thank you so much for your detailed reply. I have updated my signature and spent all morning ordering new items for Crockett.

 

I have ordered the following : Cosma Snackies, Porta 21 Feline Finest Sensible - Grain Free, Thrive Cat Treats, Thrive PremiumPlus Chicken Cat Food, Miamor Pate Pouches

 

100% Pure Tinned Pumpkin, Saccharomyces Boulardii - Probiotic, Doctor's Best Fully Active B12 methylcobalamin

 

My plan is to do a glucose curve (hourly) on Saturday and fill in the spreadsheet. He is currently on 2.5 units of caninsulin which, from reading, sounds quite high in comparison to others, especially since his BG is still pretty high.

 

How would you proceed with the introduction of all the other things i.e. Low carb food, B12, Probiotic? I don't want to be giving him 2.5 units and have him take a hypo due to a food change. I want this to be as easy for him as possible - he has already been through so much (we have just moved house and this was stressful for him) and I don't want to stress him out any further. We do have clippers for his fur, so I think we will need to start clipping his legs, hind and tail.

Any advice is welcomed

 

They need what they need. 2.5 is high for a starting dose, but in general is not super high. My cat often needed 3 units, and now recently with dental issues.needed as much as 6.25 units. We will help you figure out the dose.

 

I wouldn't change the food until you get the testing down. If he's consistently high then the food change should be safe. If you find he dips down into near normal levels mid cycle, then you may want to lower the dose slightly until you see if the food change lowers his numbers. Good job getting the signature and spreadsheet set up!

 

The b12 and probiotic won't effect numbers, so you can add that to his diet right away.

 

Thank you for all this amazing information. I will do as suggested and introduct the probiotic and b12 straight away, but will leave the food change until I have a proper curve done. Everything I ordered should arrive today, so fingers crossed we see an improvement in the diarrhea fairly soon.

I'll start a new thread once I've done the curve is done this weekend and get some advice regarding his food and units.

Thanks once again for all this amazing information

 

So, we are half way through the curve today - couple of small hurdles....mainly me not realising that the test strip takes the blood on the side and not the bottom, so was having trouble getting a reading, but now that I've sussed it out, I only need the tiniest spot of blood for a decent reading.

It seems he reached NADIR at +5 hours. We give him a mid day low carb snack that I am now using to give him his probiotic and his B12 and the good news is that he doesn't seem to mind the additions and happily scarfs the lot down in about 3 seconds flat (weebox lick e lix are like crack for cats). I tested him 30 minutes post snack and his BG is rising again - not sure if it would have continued to drop by much had we not given him his snack. The only reason he gets the snack is so that I can get his B12 and probiotic into his system.......maybe this would be better given at either morning or evening feed? I will say though that because we have two cats, we generally free feed throughout the day as my other cat will not eat all of his food in one sitting and prefers to nibble throughout the day and it's impossible to stop Crockett from eating whatever food is available if it's left out.

I know I'm only half way through the curve, but since NADIR has been reached, I feel like it's fairly safe to introduce the grain free low carb diet tomorrow?

On another note - pumpkin was a waste of money....Crockett wouldn't even touch it lol