What can you feed to diabetic cats?
Short answer: low-carb wet food, and no dry food at all.Longer answer: diabetic cats do best on the diet that works best for all cats: mice and birds. The macronutrient content of this diet is about 45-50% calories from proteins, about the same from fats, and only 5-10% calories from carbohydrate.Unfortunately commercial cat food is far from this ideal, heavily loaded with cheap carbohydrates, since high quality meat is expensive. For most cats, that isn't a big problem. For diabetic cats, it definitely is. They do not process carbohydrates well.Your best bet is to learn and follow the recommendations of a vet who studies feline diabetes and feline nutrition, such as Dr. Lisa Pearson. Here is her food chart for cats: http://www.catinfo.org/docs/Food...A quick summary: cut out all dry food and cat treats containing carbohydrates. If they currently eat only dry food, start adding wet food to the diet and gradually transition to 100% wet. This is because dry food is very high in carbohydrate and will raise a diabetic cat’s blood sugar beyond what any insulin injections can handle.Then look for a wet food in your country that is low (max 15%) in calories from carbohydrate. This info is not listed on the label, so see the calculated values on Dr. Pearson’s chart, linked above. Try to get one with calories from fats balanced with calories from proteins, too. If fats are too predominant, liver or kidneys may give problems later.Then join this excellent and venerable forum for more good advice on keeping your sugarcat alive and healthy! Feline Diabetes Message Board - FDMB
Can one steroid shot cause diabetes in cats?
Steroids work against the proper functions of insulin in cats. Hard to say whether one shot caused it. Some will say not possible but there are definitely cats that have tested newly diabetic after only one shot. The good news is, around 50% of these cats will test normal again if you test them later, after the body has more time to recover. It's also possible that if you start feeding your cat a low carb, high protein, canned food only diet, the diabetes would resolve. It sounds like you need an alternative treatment to the stomatitis though. If not done yet, a dental cleaning under anesthesia is a great start. Also using a water additive to kill some of the bacteria in the mouth can be helpful. I use Be Fresh from 1800petmeds but there are others out there. Although, if you use an all canned food diet you will likely find your kitty doesn't need to drink much water anymore. There also appears to be a link to bartonella and many cases of stomatitis. It may be good to have your cat tested and trying one of the few antibiotics that is effective against it. In the worst cases, they will sometimes remove all the teeth behind the canines. In the worst of the worst, they will remove all teeth and find the cat is much more comfortable. Good luck!
Can my cat's diabetes be controlled by diet alone?
Hi Someone from the community guided me here. I am an expert in feline diabetes and can help you It is possible that cats can become diet controlled but it is more likely to happen after a short stint of insulin. You don't need to feed dm canned and it is very poor quality stuff. DM canned holds no value over commercially available canned foods. For that type of money you can get the best which means grain free canned foods. If you cannot afford that then many flavors of something like fancy feast are fine. If you want email me and I will send you a list of of which ones are ok. You can find out (and should) at home whether your cat will need insulin shots or not. Information gotten at home would be MORE accurate then the info the vet can get. It would cost an outlay of about 50 bucks for something you should especially get anyway if you have to give insulin. If you don't need it then that may be cheaper and easier then a bet trip anyway. Again email me if you want to know what to get and how to use it If your cats need insulin you are going to need to learn how to treat this. I can and will teach you and work with you if you are interested Finally this is not a death sentence, no life span needs to be lost and your cat can live a long happy life if you are proactive in treatment.
Is it possible for the dehumidifier to be dehydrating my cats?
Hi, not only your cats, but any living organism - including yourself. Dehumidifiers are great but should be used sparingly, for instance they can draw too much moisture out of wooden furniture, causing splits & cracks. Give your cats a break & turn the dehumidifier off, especially at night.
Cat diabetes experiences please (also stuffy nose)?
My cat became very ill about a wk or so ago. Stopped eating, stopped using litter box...basically stopped everything. We have taken him to the vet and he was diagnosed with diabetes and also had blood in his urine. After several trips to the vet we are now treating him at home with the help and advice from our vet. I am force feeding, giving insuline, IV fluids SQ, and Torbutrol for pain. I gave him his last dose of Baytril this AM. We have decided that if we still see no improvement in about 4-5 more days we may have to put him to sleep. I want to make him as comfortable as possible in the meantime and hope he gets better of course but I'm beginning to have serious doubts. My question is for those that are familiar with this situation... he now has a very stuffy nose. I'm not convinced that this is due to the diabetes altho my vet seems to think that it is. I'm a bit confused. Does the stuffy nose sound like it could be related to diabetes? Anyone else gone thru this experience? Thank you
Why did one cat littermate get diabetes and the other one didn t?
13 years ago, I adopted two cats from the same litter. The girl ended up developing diabetes and the boy didn t. Always wondered why one got it and the other didn t if they were born of the same litter and were raised in the same exact environment with the same exact diet and level of activity. Was it just a matter of genetics or could there have been other factors and reasons that I m not aware of?
Traveling with Diabetic Cat?
I had a dog that was diabetic. She needed insulin shots twice a day as well. We took her on trips all the time, but never that far. You may want to consult your vet first. If it is ok you do need to make sure that you keep the insulin refrigerated. Make sure you don't throw the needles away while you are on vacation (the tips at least). We use to replace the cap and break the tips off the syringe and stick the tips in a old butter tub and take them to the vets for them to dispose of. We would throw away the rest of it. For legal/safety reasons I would highly recommend doing this. The vet should provide this service for free. It is very important that diabetes is properly taken care of. As long as you give the cat its medicine it should be fine. My dog lived 7 years with diabetes with no complications. Unfortunately cancer took her from us too soon. (This was not linked to the diabetes, we asked.) You should be fine. Diabetes in animals is very similar to that in humans. As long as it is managed properly you shouldn't have any problems. Keep the kitty healthy...if the kitty is overweight get its weight down...that will really help. We had to put our dog on a diet.