Feline Diabetes or Living with a Diabetic Cat

"Keep your cats indoors--they'll live much longer lives."

That's really bad advice. You may as well say "keep your children in a cage".

Sorry to hear about your feline mishaps. I, too, was going to raise the question of keeping your cats indoors. I'm sure they will live longer, but what about their quality of life. Surely an outdoor life is a richer one?

You may recall that my cat, Vader, had the Hyperthyroidism and that we opted to do the RadioCat treatment. That was followed by a couple of years of daily fluid IV after which he died. At that time I vowed that unloved cats and kittens are free just about everywhere you look and would not do anything heroic like that again. Since then, we've picked up new cats and one of them, Squirmy, has developed a growth in his throat. The short version of the story is that the vet tried to remove it without authorization, could not get it all, and charged us for all this anyway. If they could have gotten a hold of me I would have just put him down right then and there. I've managed to stay out of the decision loop and he has had the growth removed one more time (you really can't kill your daughter's cat at Christmas time). The fix seems to work for 9 months or so and he is quite happy after he stops being all hissy-pissy with his brothers upon return from the vet. We have decided that there will be no more operations though.

I guess my point is that just because you can, it does not follow that you should. Our pets receive better care than most humans do in several parts of the world. I guess the vets can't make enough money off of them though even if they were allowed to treat them.

I know it is a tough choice either way and wish you all the best in dealing with this.

When my thirteen-year-old cat developed diabetes a number of years ago, I was worried about the twice-a-day insulin injections. It turned out to not be a problem at all once we had figured out the correct dosage for him, with our vet's help, of course.

My wife and I controlled the cat's food intake much more carefully after he became insulin-dependent and we just injected the insulin into his scruff while he was busy eating. Those insulin needles are tiny, and once he was used to us grabbing his scruff while he was eating I don't think he even felt the injections. The cost of the insulin and needles wasn't too high -- maybe $50/mo, and each shot took maybe 1 minute of our time. I wouldn't call it "heroic".

Our cat lived more than 3 happy years after he became insulin dependent, and ultimately died of pancreatic cancer.

My favorite cat, Alex, was diabetic. Some tips from our experience: 1) Do home glucose testing. Alex didn't mind at all and it sure beat going to the vet. The vet will still need to do curves to choose the right insulin regime. 2) Use wet (canned) prescription food. Canned food has less carbohydrate in it, the cats can use the extra moisture, and it tends to be a more precise dose, which is how to think of food for a diabetic. We couldn't get Alex regulated until we switched to canned.

Alex lived a good many years after his diagnosis - to the ripe old age of 15. The extra care was indeed a switch from his younger days but he actually enjoyed the attention of daily testing and shots and was a happy and healthy guy.

Good luck to you and Barnes.

Thanks for the update, Jeremy. I've been following Barnes' progress this week on FF; I'm glad you found the issue, and I hope he lives happily and healthily for many more years.

Dom:

What makes you say that? It's completely opposite of all the advice I've heard from vets and others who work with cats daily.

Jeremy: I'm a country bumpkin and we've had cats since I was a very young age, giving them the choice to go outside or stay indoors imparts freedom and cats are *much* more individual creatures than dogs who'll follow you around. Letting them go outside to stalk birds, hunt field mice and climb trees to sunbath on thick boughs makes their lives much more fulfilled than being cooped up in a big farmhouse.

Whilst your situation may be different and there may not be many field mice around, there is a world of excitement and variety outside for your doubtless highly intelligent feline. Keeping him inside would be like me saying sternly, "Only MS-SQL for you. That MySQL stuff is for 'outside' developers and database administrators". :P

I don't claim to know better than a vet. I don't work with cats daily, we've just always owned them and I doubt you'll find many country vets saying to keep them indoors or do something a 'lil crazy like declaw them.

If you live in a non-rural area, cats should be kept indoors. Otherwise they'll probably end up in an unfortunate meeting with a motor vehicle.

And some people's kids should be kept in cages. :)

I feel for you. We have two rescue cats who are FIV+. They are required to be indoor only no matter how much they whine at the screen door. We monitor them for illness and infections and thankfully the vet is just down the road. It's not easy and we know we won't have them on this earth as long as we would like, but they are worth every day we can spend with them.

Kudos to you for stepping up and may Barnes have many more years.

[ Keeping your cats indoor ]
Dom said: "That's really bad advice. You may as well say "keep your children in a cage"."

Hah - you must not live in a place with roads or coyotes.

I'm surprised noone mentioned raw food. Jeremy's cats are probably too old to risk that, but homemade food at least ...

- ask

Jeremy, I'm pretty sure Dom doesn't know what he was talking about; I grew up with outdoor cats, none of whom lived very long (4-5 years, max).

On the upside, I did develop emotional toughness. I found one kitten headless. Another drowned and froze solid in lake ice. My dad backed over another one. Someone shot yet another innocent pet.

My list of horrific outdoor kitty deaths is almost endless. :)

Our older male cat, Desmond (11), was diagnosed with diabetes over 4 years ago and get shots twice daily and diabetic food.

He's still quite healthy and active despite a scare like yours where we nearly waited too long to take him in to be diagnosed.

I just found out my 11-year-old cat is diabetic. My vet gave me a prescription for Glipizide to give her... Does anyone have any experience with this medicine?

I know that outdoor cats, on average, live far shorter lives than indoor cats. But my cat loves being outdoors so much that we decided that we'd rather have him live a rich but short life outdoors than a long life indoors. I don't think this decision is the right thing for everyone. There's a tradeoff that everyone has to make, and we looked at our cat's behavior and mood to decide. He's been exercising a lot more and no longer overweight. We also have fewer mice in the yard now ;) It does seem that older cats can get all sorts of things like leukemia and diabetes, and I worry about what will happen to him as he ages, so he goes to the vet several times a year for checkups.

Hey Jeremy, This is Bill from way back in the good old St. Pat's days...been following your blog for some time now and thought I'd add my 2 cents on the diet options.

We have a cat and a dog and I've moved both of them over to a better diet after doing some extensive research on food ingredients. For years I fed my dogs Nutro products, and back then it was a decent food, that is before it was bought out last year by Mars and is now going the way Eukanuba did years ago. I started researching for low-carb no grain foods for both our pets and decided on Innova EVO as the food of choice for both.

Our cat (Ozzie, after Chris Osgood #30, Red Wings) is eating this as his dry food in his diet. We had been feeding Science Diet and Nutro Max Cat before. We also supplement this with Avoderm Select Cuts canned food (which looks alot like OUR food). Both of these have excellent ingredients.

Our dog (1 yr old St. Bernard, Buckeye after what else? OSU!) is on Innova EVO dry and supplementing with EVO canned. He was previously on Nutro Ultra until earlier this year. I have been creating a 50/50 mix of Innova EVO dry and Innova Large Breed Puppy since he turned one to lower the protein content down a bit but still be able to feed him a no grain diet. Once he turns 2 he will be strictly EVO dry.

You do not want any corn or corn / wheat gluten in the food, especially in the top four ingredients listed. Anything that is sold in grocery stores unfortunately is not a healthy food. Even the pet stores like Petco / Petsmart / Pet Supplies Plus mostly carry unhealth pet foods...although there are a couple decent brands they carry you just have to source them out.

Be careful with pet food recommendations from your vet. Most vets push Science Diet and some Purina...neither are the best choices when you compare them side by side to other brands readily available. I heard from one vet that the reason most push Science Diet is because Science Diet donates heavily to the veterinary programs in the universities and that they are marketed heavily to the vets to carry. IMO the better people to talk to about food and diets is reputable breeders as they typically are trying to produce the best out of their stock.

Innova is made by Natura Pet Food...they have several different lines depending on what you and your pet's needs are. California Natural is another excellent line of theirs and regardless of which line you choose, none contain corn or wheat products. Both of these can cause allergies to animals and as you know corn is not processed so it's just a filler in the lesser quality foods.

Other brands to look for are:
Avoderm
Canidae
Newman's Own
Natural Balance
Blue Buffalo (Petsmart)

Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul believe it or not is another excellent brand.

I found a local feed store that was able to order me in the exact foods I wanted so I just order in bulk every other month. With a St. Bernard I do go through a bit more food than with just a couple cats, lol...

I hope all is going well with the move over to craigslist. I was suprised to read you jumped ship but can understand the excitement and prospects of a new opportunity when it falls in your lap. My fiance and I were out in San Fran last fall for the Intel Developer's Conference and really fell in love with the area...so much so that we are having a cliff wedding and getting married in the San Pedro area next valentine's day! She keeps telling me we should up and relocate to somewhere in CA...My brother lives in the Fresno area and they seem to be pretty happy out there.

Anyway's good luck with the cats...I about fell over when I saw the plastic bag pictures, ours was doing the EXACT same thing last nite with a Kroger's bag!

kaxxina,

I have been taking glipizide for years and am healthy, if not happy. Not sure about it's use in animals, but is a standard treatment for mild type-2 diabetes in humans.

On the subject of cats, my boy cat was an indoor/outdoor cat, and recently died at the age of 12 at the hands of a neighbor's dog. The dog was on a leash but got away from its owner. So sad. I didn't find out until a day later, after being up all night hunting for him with a flashlight, leaving messages with the local animal control, checking the streets for evidence, etc. A terrible way to lose a loved pet but I would do it again because he loved being out so much. He was a huge hunter and loved the chase.

1. Feline diabetes is tricky but manageable. Just as humans do, you need to do blood sugar test just about daily. The ear is easiest.
2. Be forewarned, between the change in diet and the insulin shots, you run the risk of too-little sugar (diabetes coma).
3. We've had extremely good success combining conventional vet care with acupuncture/Chinese herbal treatment by a vet who is licensed in both in Sacramento, CA. Case in point, Sake is 21 (sic!), in excellent health despite being diagosed with both chronic renal failure and hyperthyroidism over a decade ago. I'm not sure where you reside, but email me and I'll see if I can get you a local referral.

Cats living indoors have an active, healthy lifestyle if you are a responsible cat owner. Cats going outside become a nuisance and a pain to other neighbors and people who don't want a "pet" bothering them.

In fact, most communities now have a no-tolerance policy for free roving cats.

Responsible cat owners train their cats to leash up, they enjoy it, and you can spend time with your cat and they get some sunshine.

My cat would come over when I jingled the leash and stand *still* as I attached it to her.

Responsibility. It is yours.

-- rob

One of our cats---a stray that adopted us a couple years ago---was diagnosed about a month ago with diabetes. We've increased his insulin from one unit twice a day to four twice a day (the vet says the max for a cat his size, 12 pounds, is 8 units per day), and he's not getting any better. We've switched him and our other two cats (since they all eat out of each other's bowls) to diabetic cat food (Science Diet w/d dry and Purina D/M wet a few times a week), but he still is so dehydrated. He has a huge water cooler thing available to him all the time, but still, whenever we're home he wants to only drink out of the sink. We try to leave it running for him as much as possible, but we really can't afford a $100 water bill every month. He fills up an entire litter box every day by himself, too.

I don't know what we're going to do. We took him back to the vet yesterday for yet another glucose curve, and the vet told us he doesn't think he's going to respond to insulin and there's no point in us coming back every couple of weeks. In one month we've spent more than $1,000 on food, insulin, needles, tests and cat litter).

He doesn't act like he's in pain at all, just really thirsty. And, of course, he hates getting his shots. But I feel like it's not time to put him down yet. I just don't know what to do. :(

Geez Megan - your story could be our story - we have a cat who is about 7 years old and we found out it was diabetic about 6 weeks and ago and our story is exactly the same as yours. We have tried two different insulins - different doses, food, etc. and she does not appear to be getting any better. She, too, is thirsty all the time, is ravenous and pees like crazy. We do not know what to do either. She does not appear to be in any discomfort but the cost is getting our of hand and my husband is getting tired of cleaning and refilling the litter box! Anyone have any ideas on what to do??

For Karen and Megan. Ditch the dry food it is too high in carbohydrates and dehydrating your cats which is why they are so thirsty and may even have caused the diabetes in the first place. Give your cats a low carb diet of wet or raw food cats are obligate carnivores they HAVE to eat meat and are not built for high carb cereal based foods. Chck out YourDiabeticCat.com
Best Wishes to you and your cats

My 16-year-old diabetic cat has been on insulin for maybe 4 years, but we've had numerous incidents of shocky behavior that required vet interventions. All that we can deal with.

About 3 weeks ago we had to rush him to the vet after one of these incidents (he'd been throwing up his food and we didn't realize it) and now he has started peeing anywhere near his catbox, but only sometimes in it. We are spending so much time cleaning up pee. We've tried canine weewee pads, but sometimes he uses them and sometimes not. The vet tests were all normal after his glucose leveled out.

Does anyone have this problem and know what to do?

I should have mentioned, we've tried changing the litter (Yesterday's News from TidyCatsScoop; ow we have one box with each.)

Why is my 15 year old diabetic cat lying next to her water bowl with her head hanging in it? She just started do it a few days ago. I check her glucose twice a day to determine how much unsulin she needs, and I feed her grain-free Wellness canned food, and Evo, etc.

My 9-yr-old cat, Toby, was just diagnosed with diabetes and is at the hospital for a couple of days til they get him stabilized and figure out the correct medication and dosage for him. My original reason for taking him in was excessive drinking, along with lots of "pee clumps" in his litter box.

I wanted to add a few more facts about letting a cat go outdoors. They are prone to lots of diseases and parasites due to the birds, mice, and insects they will eat outside. They will almost certainly get fleas every summer. Fleas are annoying when they bite, but some cats are allergic to flea bites. Also, fleas can give a cat tapeworms or ringworms. Outdoor cats can get into fights with other cats and also dogs, and they may be caught and mistreated or even killed by cat haters and mischievous boys. One of my cats got worms in his eyes (the larval stage of some flying insect). I keep my 2 boys inside, and they don't even try to get out when the door is open.

Indoor cats can watch other wildlife through a window or door. They can play, climb, and chase toys. You can grow kitty grass for them, and give them catnip for a little stimulation.

I would never let a cat outdoors.