bear
Full Member
Posts: 104
|
Post by bear on Sept 20, 2009 18:32:58 GMT -5
Our little black cat has been having some problems. He's about 14 years old. He's been showing his age for the past 2 to 3 years. Over the last couple weeks I noticed that he started drinking and peeing a lot.
I took him to the vet Friday. Sure enough, he's diabetic.
I've read a lot of good things about how if its caught early, that it can be managed in cats with diet change alone. Our cats have been eating the Science Diet Light for a long time. Turns out that it's just about the highest cat food for carbs, because of the fillers that make it "light".
This afternoon I switched him to M/D which is prescription diabetic food. Its only been about 3 hours since he got it and he looks so much better already.
|
|
|
Post by blackrose on Sept 21, 2009 7:34:16 GMT -5
Good luck, bear. I hope he does well with the new diet.
|
|
bear
Full Member
Posts: 104
|
Post by bear on Sept 21, 2009 12:06:29 GMT -5
Thanks.
He was looking even better this morning. I think we may try managing it on food alone this week and see how he does.
He's about the same age as Ginger Tom when he went two years ago. I think he's also having some arthritis problems. I'm not sure I want to subject him to a lot of trips to the vet for blood work plus all the poking and prodding of insulin for not a great increase in life expetancy or quality of life.
|
|
bear
Full Member
Posts: 104
|
Post by bear on Sept 22, 2009 14:32:57 GMT -5
Update: He led the charge to breakfast this morning. He hasn't done that for a long time. So he must be feeling tons better.
Also, I spied on him using the litter box. He isn't peeing for 5 minutes anymore either.
Tonight I'm going to try to get a feel for how much water he's drinking.
|
|
bear
Full Member
Posts: 104
|
Post by bear on Sept 23, 2009 23:35:47 GMT -5
Fucking funny, the comedy of errors that was my first attempting to test my own blood glucose and then attempting to do it to the cat.
I think the cat hates me now. But after 3 attempts we finally had a success. I doubt it's reliability. In cats, the blood sugar will spike with stress between 50 and 100 mg/dL.
Normal is between 100 and 200. He tested at 296. Without the stress it would be more like 246.
It's high but not as extreme as it was last Friday (600).
I'll test him in the morning to see if we can do it with less stress now that I've got a little confidence.
|
|
hydra
Junior Member
Posts: 81
|
Post by hydra on Sept 26, 2009 9:42:33 GMT -5
My father had a cat that became diabetic later in life. I am thinking Dusty was around 14 or 15 when dad started giving him shots from the vet. Dusty lived to almost 20 and led a very good life indeed. I hope your kitty is feeling much better, sounds like he is.
|
|
|
Post by Denethor on Sept 27, 2009 21:47:15 GMT -5
I had a cat go diabetic also, some months after I started him on the diet for "less active cats". I'd though it a good idea because at that point the lovable old dude had developed his own gravity well. (My animals always get fat. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that now that I don't have any animals any more...well... ) I didn't catch it early, unfortunately. I wasn't home enough. I didn't see it until he started having "accidents". I'm glad you caught your kitty's illness early.
|
|
bear
Full Member
Posts: 104
|
Post by bear on Sept 30, 2009 22:03:03 GMT -5
We've had a lot of pooping drama over the ear testing. We decided he's not going to do well with all the testing and shots. So we will do the best we can with food only for as long as we can.
|
|