we have a diabetic cat, who required large doses of insulin initially. We have over the last 8 weeks, shifted him into an insulin dependent remission. It is important that from now on, Kitty has no dry food pass the lips..........it is only going to make the diabeties, or near diabeties worse.
A little run down on the reason why we are seeing so many diabetic cats these days.
Cats are an obligate carnivore, meaning an exclusive carnivore. Their bodies, and digestive system are designed to process everything they need from a meat based diet, primarilly made of, small animals (rabbit, small birds, chicken, etc. )
Over years of domestication, and the introduction of the all so convenient dry food, us humans started introducing carbohydrates to our feline friends. A cats digestive system is not equiped to process carbohydrates, so as we feed them, in their system it turns into sugar (as it does with us, but our digestive system is designed to handle some carbohydrates) day in day out, we continue feeding the carbs, day in day out our kitties system not designed to process it, has blood sugar levels going haywire. After years and years, the pancreas gets to a point of beginning to give up, it can no longer respond as it should to control the kitties blood glucose, and give up..........kitty starts to become diabetic.
Luckily there is much research on feline diabeties, as it has been prooven with the right management, that they can be bought back into remission, and their diabeties controlled by diet alone.
For any chance of preventing further damage to the kidneys, and to allow pancreas to begin responding and controlling natural insulin carbs need to be removed from a cats diet.
There are many cats out there that are stable diabetics on dry foods, but require daily insulin to counteract the damage the carbs are doing to the cat, but to reduce even remove the need of insulin, carbs, vegies etc dont need to be given.
Raw can be hard preparation too, there are many canned foods that can be given with along side a raw diet, that have added minerals and vitimins, but the carbs removed.
Diabetic Cat Care great forum, great people, who can help you along the way of reducing any further impact, and decrease chances of further complications. Please consider it, it saved our cats life, who went to the vet full blown diabetic, had he have remained hyperglycemic for much longer would have ended up with renal failure, and chronic liver damage.
Extensive studies have shown the Catkins diet is the ultimate diet for a diabetic, or near diabetic cat (actually quite safe for any cat of any age or health)
Please feel free to keep in touch with me, i have become somewhat passionate about the subject, finding this info saved Montes life!
Good luck
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lunareclipse
Go ahead and feed raw but leave some kibble out all the time so your other cat can snack when he wants to.
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I would suggest the removal of the dry food from their diet all together, you cant risk the temptation of the carb rich food for you diabetic, and also consider that it is a leading cause in the first place to feline diabeties why increase the risk of other kitties heading down the same path?
Trust me a very sick diabetic kitty is a very scary, upsetting sight, and because they cant tell us how they feel and becuase cats can hide illness so well, its not usually until the worst case, that they present horrible scary symptoms......its heart breaking to see, i spent days in tears watching it early in montes diagnosis.
we have a non diabetic cat as well who now feeds under the same diet as monte, she was a dry food addict...........she has now addapted well to the catkins diet, and tucks right in.
We now consider dry cat food, the kitties mcdonalds, great at the time, but not essential for health.......giving kitties biccies, is like us eating mcdonalds every day for breakfast, lunch and tea. Addictive, tasty but no benifit whatsoever to our optimum health.
Feline Diabeties
Here is the thread i started re feline diabeties when we first got montes diagnosis. Just so you can read what went on over the first few weeks, and his progress over that time. Might give you some hope
My cat was recently diagnosed with diabetes.. :(
I've done so much research on dog foods and raw diets and now starts my research for cats. Right now i am feeding dry food, Wellness whitefish along with one can of wellness wet food a day. I have two cats and split the can between the two of them. So i have found that dry cat food is a definite no no for cats. I guess it has a lot of carbs and is hard for them to digest but also the wet food helps keep them hydrated. 
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