my cat has diabetes, is there a cure for that.

[Rachel1009]

my cat has diabetes, water all day and urine constantly, went to vet,is on insuline, has gingivaties, my son says there is a special diet of raw meat, what i want to know if this diet will cure his diabetes or is just a temporary solution, i heard eventually will kill him due diabetes is not curable, he is 12 years old, i can not afford vets or constantly after him would be humane to puttin to sleep, please respond;

[sugarcatmom]

I'm just on my way out the door, but boy do I have a ton of info for you. For starters, please go to this website: http://felinediabetes.com/ and read. Then read some more. There's a lot to learn about feline diabetes, but it can easily be treated and with the right combo of food and insulin, SOME cats do eventually go off of insulin.

Some questions for you to answer in the meantime:
- What insulin is your cat on? And how much?
- Has your cat ever been treated for anything with steroids?
- What does your cat currently eat?

And what's your cat's name?

[Rachel1009]

Hello...Im not good at the internet and forums. I really needed help so thank you for your time and advice. My cats name is Hennesy, like the liquor. He is 12 years old and weighs about 19 lbs. He is a grey tom cat(not sure actual breed name, but look like Tom from Tom and Jerry).

Hennesy has never been treated with steroids or anything like that. As for Insulin, he takes a very small amount at least according to myself but I am no doctor. Also I was wondering about the BARF diet. Feeding your cat raw meat and bones scares me. Will it be expensive, can I feed him something like blended raw chicken wings? Raw turkey or chicken with bone meal? What is bone meal? HELP I NEED ADVICE....

P.S Is my son crazy? or does this raw meat and bones diet work...

thank you for your time.

[sugarcatmom]

Originally Posted by Rachel1009

My cats name is Hennesy, like the liquor.

Well hello to you and Hennesy! Welcome to pets.ca, and I'm sorry it isn't under better circumstances.

Originally Posted by Rachel1009

Hennesy has never been treated with steroids or anything like that.

Okay, just checking. Sometimes cats can develop transient diabetes from steroids.

Originally Posted by Rachel1009

As for Insulin, he takes a very small amount

What line on the syringe do you pull the plunger down to when you're filling it? This would be the number of units. Also very important to know what kind of insulin, because different types have different concentrations. Do you have the vial of insulin near you? Can you check the label and tell me what it says? (it might say something like "Humulin N" or "Vetsulin" or "Caninsulin" or "Lantus" etc).

Originally Posted by Rachel1009

Also I was wondering about the BARF diet. Feeding your cat raw meat and bones scares me.

I know. But if you think about it, raw meat and bones (from prey animals like mice and birds) are what cats evolved eating, what they've been eating for millions of years. They're ideally suited to eating raw meat, from the shape of their teeth and jaws, to the length of their digestive tract. If it's the idea of bacteria that you're worried about, just make sure you feed good quality meat and the cat can handle the rest. As for bones, as long as they're raw and not cooked (which makes them brittle and likely to splinter into sharp shards), then they're fine too.

Originally Posted by Rachel1009

Will it be expensive, can I feed him something like blended raw chicken wings? Raw turkey or chicken with bone meal? What is bone meal? HELP I NEED ADVICE....

Lets slow down a bit. While a raw diet is an excellent choice for cats, it does take a bit of research to make sure it's balanced. The calcium/phosphorus ratio is very important and blended raw chicken wings would have too much calcium. Not to mention, at 12 yrs old, Hennesy may not be so keen to switch right away.

Bone meal is what some people add to raw meat that doesn't contain actual bones, in order to increase the amount of calcium. I won't go into reasons why it isn't ideal. For now, I think a better idea would be to find a pre-packaged frozen raw food from one of the higher end pet food stores. Depending on which one (Nature's Variety is good and commonly available), these are already balanced and ready to feed. Until you've done more reading on feline nutrition, I wouldn't recommend making your own at this point.

Originally Posted by Rachel1009

P.S Is my son crazy? or does this raw meat and bones diet work...

He isn't crazy, but it's not specifically the fact that it's a raw meat diet that is good for diabetics. Rather, it's that raw diets tend to be high in protein and low in carbohydrates. Dry food on the other hand, is extremely high in carbohydrates, and this is the reason that cats become diabetic in the first place. They just aren't built to handle such a high sugar diet over their lifetime, and their pancreas gets so overworked that it eventually "burns out". By giving it a rest with a low-carb diet and insulin, sometimes it can come back to life (this is a very simplified explanation).

So I guess what I'm saying is that if you aren't ready to feed raw, then a low-carb canned will do just fine. Here is some more reading for you (sorry to overload you! - maybe you can bookmark some sites and refer back to them later): http://www.catinfo.org/felinediabetes.htm

Good brands to feed: Wellness (grain-free varieties only - look for a little yellow triangle in the corner), Innova Evo 95% meat, Nature's Variety Instinct, even the gluten free Fancy Feast would be okay if you can't locate some of the better brands.

So if Hennesy likes canned and doesn't mind if you stop feeding dry, that would be the way to go. However - DO NOT MAKE ANY DIET CHANGES UNTIL YOU READ THIS: Going from a high-carb dry food to a low-carb canned food can dramatically decrease a cat's insulin requirements. This would mean that if you are shooting 3 units of insulin and all of a sudden he only needs 1 unit (or maybe none!), you could cause him to become hypoglycemic by giving him the 3 units.

Did your vet go over how to recognize hypoglycemia and what to do?

What about home-testing Hennesy's blood glucose? Here is an explanation of how to do that, and I must insist that you learn how before making any diet changes. It's not as hard as it sounds, and I can give you lots of tips if you need them: http://www.felinediabetes.com/bg-test.htm

So anyway, what does Hennesy eat now?