Tonka 23/3 AMPS 92, PMPS 103, +4 128 (OTJ Trial Day 11) - questions about dentals

Yesterday: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/...pmps-95-otj-trial-day-10.135019/#post-1392117

The house sounds like a herd of little rhinoceroses is stampeding about tonight. The boys are in fine form, apparently

I'll be testing Tonka before bed tonight, to see where he goes after tonight's low blue. He got a fairly low carb meal tonight, so it'll be interesting to see if that has any effect on how much his pancreas decides to kick in (the 1.5 oz of Fancy Feast turkey and giblets is the only carbs tonight - the Wild Calling portion of his meal is supposedly a 0% carb food - it actually came out as a negative percentage using the food calculator... not sure how that happens)

Tonka's vet got back to me and we're trying to schedule him in for his dental on April 9. I doubt that he'll be thrilled with the procedure, but hopefully if his teeth are giving him problems, this will fix them up. And if he just has a lot of tartar and bad breath, maybe it'll at least give him a sweeter odour. Should be a win either way.

Hoping that he's still insulin free at that point - that should make dealing with the surgery and potential not wanting to eat for a day or so easier to manage. Are there any special precautions that should be taken for a diet-controlled diabetic cat, assuming that he is still OTJ in two weeks? Teeger had most of his teeth extracted a couple years ago and went right back to munching down food that night, and Tonka is an even more enthusiastic eater, so he might be just fine with eating. But if he doesn't want to eat that first day, should I be doing anything?

 

If he's OTJ, feeding really isn't as important as if they're getting insulin

IF he's on insulin when he has his dental, usually the morning of the procedure we don't feed and don't shoot...and then we just have to go by how they're doing at night. Usually they'll eat at least some baby food so you'll want to have some around. The important thing is to just not overfeed in case the anesthesia gives them an upset stomach. A little at a time until you see how they're doing

Beechnut (meat and water only) or Gerbers (meat, water and cornstarch) are what we usually try

 

Go Tonka!
I hope that the dental will go well. Tonka is doing great even with possible dental issues.

Have a fine evening,

Ella & Rusty

 

Most people prep by having some plain meat baby food ready for after the cat comes home. You want to go slow with feeding so you don't get vomiting. Anesthesia slows gut motility. I gave punkin about a teaspoon of baby food or cat food every 1/2 hour until he got a decent amount of food in. There's some information on the post "Where Can I Find?" about dentals - look in the New to the Group? sticky near the bottom and see if that helps.

Happy day 11 of the OTJ trial! Tonka's looking great!

 

Looking great on Day 11. Almost there Tonka!!

Unfortunately, plain all meat baby food does not seem to be available in Canada. They all seem to have broth (onions) or starch in them. I got some across the border for Neko's latest dental but for the previous ones I just gave her some watered down Wellness at first. If he does get prescribed antibiotics (if an extraction), just make sure there's no sugar involved.

 

Thanks for the suggestions and kind thoughts.

I did buy some baby food last week, as an emergency supply. Unfortunately, we don't seem to have any meat only foods at my local stores: huge variety of baby food, but most of them are fruit based, and all the meat ones have some sort of starchy vegetable in it. The lowest carb one I could find was the strained vegetable-chicken, which has 9 g per 128 ml (sorry, I'm not sure what that converts to in imperial - but 15 g of carb is the equivalent of one piece of bread, for reference, so this is just over half that amount; and the 128 ml size is a standard small baby food jar size). That's a relatively high carb count for a small amount of food. Maybe I should just puree up some chicken with broth and freeze it?

Just saw Wendy's post after typing this: so watering down the canned foods will work too?

All good stuff to keep in mind. Thanks folks!

 

I think I'd pass on the baby food if it's not pure meat.

You can go with regular low carb cat food. Water it a bit and dole it out in small amounts. That will be fine - i've done that after dentals as well. It works.

The main thing is small volumes at a time. You don't want to get him vomiting.

 

Yup, I can see that that would be something best avoided: nutrition-loss and stress increase aside, stomach acids on sore gums can't be a happy thing.

 

if he needs anything more than just cleaning, and most diabetic cats seem to have more extensive work done, you would want his mouth to have the most gentle care. Punkin had something more than cleaning with both of his dentals - extractions, etc.

 

Love the herd of rhinoceroses description! It always amazes me how much noise these small critters can make when they're romping around.

Yay for Day 11!!!

Good info on preparing for Tonka's upcoming dental. It will be interesting to see if his OTJ BG numbers come down post-dental.

 

The bigger little rhino (Tonks) crashed for about an hour, and then turned it back on to play little-rhino-on-speed for another 20 minutes. He may be going on 13 years old, but I cannot conceive of him as a "senior" kitty, by any stretch of the imagination.

Sneaking a bit higher all the time, it looks like. Hopefully he'll be back down by morning.