How do you put a diabetic on a diet?

I'm starting to worry because Skylar is getting to be very fat. The problem is, she is diabetic and I'm afriad not to free feed her because she almost bottomed out the last time i tried to put her on a feeding schedule. She is currently being fed purina DM. She honestly doesn't eat much to begin with. Maybe about 1/3 cups a day... I just don't want her to end up with other health problems but on the other hand, I don't want to send her into hypoglycemic shock just because i was trying to get her to lose some wieght.

Anyone have any ideas?

can she have wet food???

I give her a very small amount of wet food twice a day when she gets her insulin, so I dont mind giving it to her. I just really want to get some weight off of her. I know the extra pounds can cause a lot of other health problems...

I think were going to have to change her insulin dose too... I've been doing a blood glucose curve on her today and she has been in the 65-101 range all day. I know thats normal for a regular cat, but if she decides not to eat one day, it could get really dangerous for her. I have to talk to the vets at work about it though...

The joys of having special needs cats...

Weight loss for a diabetic cat would be something that you would probably want to do under strict guidance of your vet. I imagine that changing her intake would also change her insulin needs. I think that feeding canned food would also probably change her insulin requirements, because canned food has fewer carbohydrates, hence the need for less insulin. Talk to your vet and discuss your worries about her weight. Your vet will be able to help you decide how to go about it safely for Skylar. Good luck!

I whole-hearedly agree with Pookie-Poo. You will have to go about this very, very carefully and with the assistance of your trusted vet. Wet food is best for diabetics, although the DM was a God-send for my own diabetics (I've cared for three of them over the years - the last one was fortunate enough to have access to the DM and it really did help to lower her glucose levels).

One thing I can tell you for a certaintly - you will have to be checking blood levels a lot more frequently while trying to diet this cat. If you are lucky enough to be allowed to do that comfortably at home, yay for you - none of my Sugar kitties would tolerate it and so we were running in to the vet about twice a month for fructosamine testing. I would have preferred to do it at home due to both cost and stress levels, but that just wasn't to be with my sweeties.

Best of luck, and please, don't forget to come back and update us on how it goes?

GayeF

I do have a glucometer at home. Its makes everything so much easier. She doesn't much like me doing it, but its a lot better then having to bring her in. She always urinates or deficates in the carrier, then she wont eat when shes there... It just doesn't make for a very good glucose curve. (not to mention, its cheaper this way...)

Originally Posted by Pookie-poo

Weight loss for a diabetic cat would be something that you would probably want to do under strict guidance of your vet. I imagine that changing her intake would also change her insulin needs. I think that feeding canned food would also probably change her insulin requirements, because canned food has fewer carbohydrates, hence the need for less insulin. Talk to your vet and discuss your worries about her weight. Your vet will be able to help you decide how to go about it safely for Skylar. Good luck!

Click to expand...

When Scully was first dieting my vet seen him every two weeks to get his insulin needs right and check his progress.

Wet may help but like pookie said will change the insulin needs.

Extra exercise is always an option too

Well, I was right about having to adjust her insulin dose. I called her vet just now... She isn't comforable with how low her glucose gets. If she were to vomit or not eat, she could get hypoglycemic. So we are backing her down to 6 units twice a day...

I guess the diet will have to wait a little until she is better regulated...

Well, we decreased her insulin, and now she is going hypoglycemic... I just did a spot check on her, and her glucose is only 41. I gave her 1/2 a can of wet food and 3 ccs of honey to help. She is coming back into work with me this afternoon so we can monitor her.

She is certainly not going on a diet anytime soon.

Thank god I have the glucometer at home!

Nothing can be simple at my house...

I don't know if you can get this in Florida or not but when I still had Mittens, our vet put her on MD which was the wet food equivalent. Mittens actually preferred it!

Well, the vets think her body may have begun producing insulin on its own. That means she may turn back into a non diabetic cat. Now I have to keep checking her blood glucose to make sure she doesn't become hypoglycemic. We are holding off on the insulin for right now to make sure her glucose goes back up. If its not back up in the 200 range within the next 2 hours, she isn't going to get any insulin tonight, just to be safe.

I guess its a REALLY good thing I did the glucose curve on her!

That's what happened with Mittens! After 10 months of being on insulin, she became a non diabetic cat again. Sadly, we lost her a couple of months later to cancer

I'm so sorry about your baby...

That is kinda wierd though. Skylar has been diabetic and on insulin for about 9 months.

If you dont mind me asking, could the kind of cancer your baby had, caused the diabetes? Or were they unrelated?I'm just wondering in case its something I should look out for...

It's really really hard to say. When she started to inexplicably lose weight, we were referred to a feline specialist who performed all sorts of test on Mittens. The ultrasound showed loads of masses all over her vital organs. Given her age (she was 15), they were reluctant to do a biopsy and said that in all probability, it was cancer. I forget what the results of the blood and urine tests were but the prognosis wasn't good and they said that we would probably lose Mittens in a matter of weeks, possibly months.

One thing I do remember though, is that everyone believed that the cancer was contributory to her diabetes going into remission. I blogged her diabetes so I'll go back and check what I wrote

OK, here's what I wrote in my blog....

Rachel is of the opinion that she is no longer treating a diabetic cat - in her opinion, Mitzi is no longer diabetic and therefore does not require insulin.

Whilst this was great news, this also meant that the number of treatable diseases that my baby girl was suffering from was disappearing. Rachel still believed that she was suffering from hyper-thyroidism but because the bloodwork had come back as normal, she had no proof. She had a theory that because Mitzi was poorly, that was why her thyroid was coming back as normal. Had Mitzi been a healthy cat being tested for hyper-thyroidism, chances were, the results would have been much higher. We discussed what would happen if we decided to go ahead with treatment for the thyroid - if there was a problem, Mittens would feel better. However, if there wasn't a problem, the treatment would make her poorly but reversing its effects would be simple. I consulted David and we decided that we wanted a second opinion before making any decisions

We then discussed Mitzi's other problems - Rachel is 95% certain that our Girl has cancer in her lung, liver and small intestine - she based her theory on age and how widespread the masses were. She said that at this stage, she didn't know what else to do. When Mittens initially went in, Rachel was quite pessimistic but seeing how she improved overnight had given her hope. However, the lack of any visible improvement today had disheartened her and if she kept Mitzi in, she wouldn't be doing anything that we couldn't do for her at home.....

I'm not sure if any of that is useful to you at all, but there it is