Does anyone have a diabetic cat? Advice please!

[Puppatude]

Been keeping an eye on my larger Norwegian Forest cat for a couple of weeks, and today was the day we took him to the vets as he's been steadily losing weight. Must admit we had feared the worst with either cancer or renal issues, even though he's only six as I've experienced both of those things before.

Anyway, after being a fiesty sod for the vet to get blood, and this is the cat who was purring at her and flopping around too much for examination at one stage, she managed to get blood and put it straight through on site. Turns out he has elevated glucose, and we are now looking at diabetes.

I am aware of the ins and outs of insulin etc, but obviously we'll be looking at changing his diet. Anyone any experience of this? Also complicated by the fact we have two more cats (his litter mate and a ragdoll cross) and a small dog.

Our old girl was diabetic but due to other issues she had we couldn't try a change of diet. I found the insulin injections
quite easy-the problem some times was making sure she'd eaten enough to give her the insulin! If you want to try diet you can get those microchip feeders so only the cat it's meant for can open it. I assume they do them for dogs too.
Had the vet done a fructosamine test? That shows the glucose levels over 3 weeks.
Our poor cat was quite a complex case but luckily for us (and the vets) pretty tolerant and I was able to do glucose curves at home to update vet.

I happen to have a couple of those feeders already, due to my dearly departed old lady who died last year. I suspect however that we'll change all the cats over to the diabetic diet (especially as one is his full sibling) and the dog will have the feeder. Thankfully he's only a small breed, so that will work.

And we're only just starting the process. First blood test yesterday. Second one to find out more tomorrow.

Good luck with it all. It would be great if you can control it with diet then you're a bit less tied with insulin injections twice a day. Our girl had a badly damaged pancreas due to pancreatitis, we knew she was likely to become diabetic so were aware then she just suddenly started drinking lots so off to the vets it was.

My old lady had pancreatitis, so we know how that goes, sympathies. The feeders were bought for her special diet, which the others preferred. Of course.

I've lost a four year old to renal failure before, so that was our major dread. We're actually quite relieved it's diabetes, as I'm type II myself and know the ins and outs!

Snorg had severe pancreatitis/ triaditis last year. How on earth she escaped becoming diabetic I don't know. It nearly killed her. (Sorry no advice)