Diabetic Cat - Feline Diabetes Diet

When your cat has been diagnosed with diabetes you will need to work closely with your vet so as to maintain the recommended diet and medication regime.

If your cat is obese, your vet will advise gradual weight loss at between 2-4% of its body weight a week. Whether you use a prescribed diabetic diet or you prepare your cat's meals at home, an overweight cat will probably be put on a high fiber diet, which will help to control the blood glucose levels. Talk to your vet about what to provide, and stick to the diet suggested unless your vet advises that you can alter it. You will probably need to change the diet when the ideal lower weight is reached.

An underweight cat will firstly need to gain weight to reach its ideal level, and this can be achieved by feeding your cat a high calorie diet. Again, discuss this with your vet so as to make sure that high calorie does not mean high sugar or fat. Once the ideal weight has been reached you can then change to the high fiber diet.

Insulin dosage will depend on your cat's blood sugar levels and you will need to learn to take blood samples to test blood glucose. Your vet will give you every support and encouragement whilst you learn the techniques and how to calculate the insulin dosage, and will suggest the best time for the morning and evenings meals and medication.

If your cat is to have one insulin injection a day this will usually be in the morning, at which time you would feed half the amount of food for the day. The second meal would be given at the time of peak insulin activity which you would check at that mealtime.

Remember always to double check the bottle of insulin and its date of expiry, and double check the dosage needed.

If your cat is to have two injections a day, then the two meals can be given at the time of each injection, but you will still be taking blood samples regularly to make sure that the blood sugar levels are at normal levels. You need to make sure that your cat is hungry enough to eat the second meal as a delay between your giving him the insulin and his eating the meal will make his blood sugar levels incompatible with the dose you have given and he may become ill again.

If your cat is on oral, the best way of keeping the glucose levels steady is to feed small but frequent meals throughout the day so that there is a steady level of glucose being made available to the cat.