Looking for inspiration and support!

I am thankful for the advice, support, friendship and love that I have received from the people on his site.

It is a real help to be able to talk to like minded people, who know and care about animals.

Thanks to all of you and thank you Michael for the site.

We can never say thank you to Michael often enough for keeping Sugarcats going. And we can never thank Mask enough, for letting us get to know her. Thanks again, both of you.

James

Hi! We're new here. We're from Cleveland, Ohio, USA. Sweet tooth Charlie (9 yrs old) was just diagnosed on Friday. I'm looking for advice and support as a sugarcat newbie. Do many of you do home glucose testing? What kind of diet is your sugarcat on? Has anything reduced their insulin dependence? Any tips or help would be appreciated!

Yipee! You have found the right place!

You can also get info from FDMB, however most of us here either have a sugarcat, or were sugarcat carers.

Check out Janet & Binky's food lists for the best US foods.

In general wet (Tinned) food in JELLY (any make) are the best as they are the lowest in carbs. Katy (our second sugarcat) went into remission after changing her diet from the dreaded dry!)

You can test your cats blood glucose using an ordinary glucometer. you DO NOT need a special pet one which will be more expensive. You can buy meters and strips cheaply on Ebay.

Always keep Karo syrup handy in case of HYPO (b/gs too low, too much insulin, too little food)

If your cat has a sense of humour you should get him to enrol as a Secret Agent, where he will find a lot of support!

Keep asking questions, and go on the General page to meet the otherrs

Mary from UK

Hi Claudia.

There is so much information on www.felinediabetes.com plus a wonderful group of folks presently caring for their sugarcat. But it can be entirely daunting and depressing at first.

You will get very used to giving injections and eventually taking that teeny drop of blood from the outer ear. Two of the best glucometers are OneTouch Ultra from Johnson & Johnson. And the Bayer Ascensia. I've used both.

When you get in the groove (as it were), sign up Sweet Tooth Charlie as a secret agent and join the fun. Humor is the best remedy.

And from the fun of the secret agents, I've gone to visit at least 7 people, 3 of which live in the UK!!

-Judy and The Tribe of Mischief

Thanks so much! I have done a lot of searching online and have signed up for the fdmb. This one is very cool-I like how everyone seems to know each other! Today we learn how to inject the insulin. I'm a little nervous and have a long printed-out list of questions to ask the vet, but I'm also excited to get my Charlie back to his old self again. Yesterday his ravenous appetite made him clamp down on a loaf of bread that I pulled out of the cupboard and he got mad at me when I pried his death-grip teeth out of it!

A good vet who will work with you is a treasure. Between that and the experience of people at FDMB, my BJ and I had an extra two and a half years together after the diagnosis--and we were pikers compared with some sugarcats who had many, many good years as controlled diabetics.

Sharon (in Michigan)

My dear Snowball just spent a week in the animal hospital. He is 10 1/2 and just diagnosed with diabetes. I am so happy to find this site. I myself am an insulin dependent diabetic, so it's not as scary. I was happy to find out that you can use human glucose monitors as my vet is trying to get me to buy a special one. He has also put Snowy on expensive prescription food. Help!! Is that really necessary?

Hi Jojo! And welcome aboard. :)

You should start your own thread so you don't get lost in this one.

A couple of quick questions before I start pontificating:

- where are you located?

- what type of insulin has Snowball been started on?

- what is the starting dose?

As a diabetic yourself, you have a head start on understanding the disease. As you know, watching carb intake is vital in managing blood glucose levels (BGs), which is easy with cats since they are obligate carnivores to begin with and don't need carbs, anyway. (And yes, use your own glucometer.)

OK... here comes the novel about food:

1. Most vets are not taught nutrition in their training, so they repeat what they learn from the pet food salesmen. The Rx canned diabetes food (Purina DM or Hills MD, for example) are low carb food, but can be expensive, and the cats get tired of them. They also have low quality ingredients. There's nothing magic about them- they are just low in carbohydrates. Regular ol' Fancy Feast or Friskies canned cat food have lots of good, low carb, good quality canned food, for example.

We can direct you to a great site with all sorts of foods broken down and analyzed for you. If they are not on the list, the next best thing is to label read- avoid obvious grains (wheat, rice, corn) and other carbs (potatoes, peas) and things called "food starch".. which I assume is cornstarch, but the "starch" part says "stay away" to a sugarcat.

2. people have come to love the convenience of dry food. A couple of common myths:

a. dry food is better for the teeth.

Nope, no truth to that at all

b. dry food is complete nutrition

Nope, again. Check the ingredient list. Remember that cats are pure carnivores and need fat and protein. Their bodies can barely digest carbohydrates. Your average dry food is filled with corn, other grains, starches and "meals". Real meat is generally missing. It does not meet their needs at all.

A cat's most vulnerable organ is their kidneys - kidney failure is probably the leading (disease) cause of death in cats. Moisture intake is VITAL for good kidney health. Dry food is... well... dry. And cats have very low thirst drives, so never get enough water by drinking. The moisture has to be in their food. ESPECIALLY for diabetics!

Here's a website by a vet who has specialized in feline nutrition :

http://catinfo.org/

It will open your eyes!

I think I should stop before I make you dizzy. Welcome aboard and good luck!

Karen

Hi, nice to meet you.

I am in the UK so our foods are different.

Saying that, look for tinned food in JELLY, as there are less carbs.Believe it or not makers put a nice brown gravy in made of sugar, to impress humans, not cats.

Sorry, pooter glitch.

I spent many happy hours in the pet food ailse comparing carbs!

If you have the time you can work it out

you may find

protein 10%

fat etc 1%

water 60%

If you add these together you have 71%

Take that away from 100 and you are left with 29% which is carbs!!

If you go to Janet & Binky's site you will find that a mouse, the ideal food for a cat comes in at 4% carbs.

One thought that convinced me

Have you ever seen a cat hunt, catch and eat an ear of corn?

Let Snowball come to Sugarcats, I think he will find frends here if he sines in

Mary

Hi Karen,

Thanks so much for your reply. My dear Snowball seems to be doing well. We are in the USA, North Pekin, Illinois.I need to start reading some canned food labels, so I can find something cheaper than this DM. I am going round with my vet-telling me to buy a special meter and that I can't monitor my cat at home. Besides being a diabetic, I am a Medical Lab Technician for over 20 years working in a hospital lab. I hate when they treat me like a dummy. I have 4 other cats and a dog--I have my hands full here.

Now I need to try to feed the other cats separately. They are used to constant access to dry food left out and canned food occasionally. Now Snowball will eat it all so I no longer leave it out. I just came home from feeding my friend's cats. She died in November and had 4 cats---I still need to get 2 adopted. I go every day to feed them, play with them and clean litter boxes.

I wanted to stop by here and say "HI" to everyone before I feed myself and take a nap. I have been up since 430 AM and need to slow down a bit. Smiles to everybody-have a happy day. JOJO

As a quick aside, the patent holder for canned Purina DM is Dr. Elizabeth Hodgkins. She recommends Fancy Feast for her diabetic cat patients. That should tell you something. :)

This is an actual quote from her :

"DM canned is a good product (I hold the patent on the

canned formula), but it is not imperative for diabetic cats. DM dry is a terrible diet and should not be fed to any cat, let alone diabetics. m/d canned is Hill's attempt at getting around the DM canned patent (they added wood fiber to change the formula...no matter that indigestible wood fiber is wrong for cats), and m/d dry not only has the high carb that DM dry does, but also the wood fiber of the canned version. Another example of Hills "ingenuity" at the expense of the pet.

As I tell many of my clients, today, for cats, the worst canned is better than the best dry cat food."

Hi everyone, another busy day here. Snowball is fine. He goes to the vet on thurs. AM and PM for BG checks. I need to convince my vet that after 20 years as diabetic I know how to do this.oops gotta go phone

Hi, JoJo-

I hate that your vet isn't treating you like the intelligent woman you are. They should start with the assumption that all owners are smart, and adjust down when necessary.

Anyway ... I had a diabetic cat, Eddie, at the same time I had Priscilla, a cat with chronic renal failure (CRF). Once I switched them both to an all-canned diet, they were fine and both improved. Eddie even went into remission for a year.

The point is, you can find a good food for all of your cats that will address Snowball's diabetes.

I gave them Wellness, which is stupidly expensive. But as Karen points out, there are cheaper options. All of the Classic styles of Fancy Feast are gluten-free. And Binky's Page has wonderful info on diet, including a link to a list of low-carb cat food options, some of which are grocery store varieties: [url]http://binkyspage.tripod.com/[/url]

Good luck with this!

Elizabeth

Thanks so much to everyone helping me. Snowball is just fine. He is on Lantus 0.1 twice a day. But after all I've read, I think he got diabetes because of the 4 months the vet had him on prednisone. He has severe allergies to flea bites. While the other cats were fine on Frontline-it did nothing for him. He got a prednisone shot, was put on Vectra and a maintenance dose of steroids-. TA-DA- now I have a diabetic cat. By the way, all cats are indoor cats-but I have a Schnoodle (dog). adopted from the shelter 6 yrs. ago that brings the fleas in. He was changed to an oral flea inhibitor called Confortis. Nothing aroung here is normal. Just doing it one day at a time and trying to keep my own stress level down to control my diabetes. My favorite saying is "Any day above ground, is a good day"

Talk to you all tomorrow.

JOJO

Hi, JoJo.,

There have been many incidences where cats on steroids have ended up diabetic! And many of them go into remission when the effects of the steroids wear off.

#

Katy Kat came to us after her elderlky owner died, and in care was found to be diabetic. We took her as we had the experience learned fromk Jazz Cat. The clue came from other bposters. Katy had no teeth at all, but there were no medical records and the vet couldnt be found,. It is possible that she had been on steroids for tooth infections.

She went into remission, but whether it was our care or change of diet we shall never know

If only they could talk!

Mary

PS we say remission rather than cure as you always have to be aware that the "Dire Beasties" could return!"

Ah ha! Pred induced diabetes is super common, and has a much higher incidence of remission, so that's fabulous. (By the way, when you say 0.1 Lantus, may I assume you mean 1u? Good starting dose.)

Sounds great. Looking forward to more good news!

Karen

Hi Karen,thanks for the response. You're correct I did mean 1U. After Snowball's last vet visits and FBS of 480 and his 5PM at 385, his dosage was increased to 2U twice a day. We go back in 2 days for rechecks. He has been such a wonderful kitty, I am having more trouble with the others who have always had dry food available at all times-they sure don't like being on a schedule. I am gradually changing them to canned food also. I really appreciate having you all to help me through this. Can't wait to start testing him at home. He gets so upset going to the vet that I think his highs may be stress induced. Bye for now it's after midnight and just wanted to touch base.

JOJO

Yes, One of the posters years ago persuaded her vet to test her cat, sitting in her car in the carpark. She got a reasonable number.

After sitting half an hour in the waiting room, the same vet tested him and there was an enormous jump in the numbers.

My three only went to the vet once a year for jabs and prescriptions, and I took in a chart of numbers and a curve. They couldnt argue with that!

Mary