New member - confused and overwhelmed

[Hằng]

Hi everyone,

My name is Hằng, I'm from Vietnam and my cat Púca was just diagnosed diabetic. Only after we got home did I realise that the vet did not provide any further information other than telling us to go back there tomorrow for more shots. So I've been researching feline diabetes so that I'll know how best to take care of him and what I should ask the vet. However, I've been overwhelmed with all the information, and I do not know where to start. Maybe there is a FD 101 post here somewhere, but I have not found it.

Some information about Púca:
Age: 10 years old
Gender: Male - neutered
Weight: 3.2 kgs - 7 lbs
Diet (until today): homemade cat food. I used to make my cats food with pumpkin, ground beef, ground quail, some shrimp, and some dried fish. A couple months ago I switched to buy homemade cat food, which the seller said is made with pumpkin, carrot, chicken, beef, and fish.

Púca's previous owner fed him a common brand of dry cat foot here, but my childhood cat was on it and got kidney stones, so I changed his food once I adopted him. It was difficult to find a food he likes, but we found it with my pumpkin cat food. However, from what I'm reading, homemade food is not nutritious enough for cats. I don't know what to do regarding his food, as fancy feast pate is very expensive here.

Any advice on where to start and food will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

[Billy the Kat Parent]

Welcome! Everyone starts off confused and overwhelmed (and often underinformed by their vet) but we figure it out and get the hang of it. This site might be hard to navigate at first, so start by going to felinediabetes.com and in the right side there are some pages in the"getting started" and"education" sections. Catinfo.org is another good resource, it has pages in diabetes and a database where you can search low carb food. I use canned food but other people have homemade using nutrient addatives, hopefully someone else can let you know about that.

A couple important things to know at the beginning are getting a meter and doing home testing before each shot, and knowing what are the symtoms of hypoglycemia (an immediate danger) and hyperglycemia (less immediate but still important), so make sure to look at those in the getting started section and education sections. And idk why they didnt give you shots to take home, i think most kinds of insulin and diabetes you need to give shots every day. Testing blood and giving shots might be intimidating at first, but it will become a part of your routine.

When you get the chance there is like a "help us help you" page, where it talks about how to make a signature for your posts and how to make a spreadsheet with your cats blood sugar levels. This will help people be able to more quickly and accurately give advice. I can't find it right now, maybe someone else knows where it is? Those were pretty confusing to me so some members here helped me out.

Feel free to keep asking questions!

 

[Bron and Sheba (GA)]

Hi and welcome to the forum to you both.
I’m not sure why the vet did not give you insulin to give at home. That is a bit unusual. You need to have the insulin at home so you can give it twice a day.
I’m not sure what is available in Vietnam as far as glucose meters for hometesting but maybe you could go into a pharmacy and ask what is available. Any human glucose meters would be suitable.
And I am not sure what insulins are available in Vietnam. Lantus (glargine) or a bio similar would be best if you can get it. I don’t know if they would have ProZinc there but that is good also.
As far as the food you can feed, a homemade one is suitable as long as it is nutritionally complete. Do you add anything to it apart from the main ingredients?
And does the homemade food you buy have added ingredients such as taurine in it? I am concerned the food may not be nutritionally complete.
Can you buy canned cat food in Vietnam?

Here are some links for you

HOMETESTING HINTS AND LINKS

HELP US HELP YOU