Sick Kitty

As I have been reading about diet and health these last months it has been obvious that the effects of "western diet" involve more than just people. It has been harder to find information about what to feed our cats and, to some degree, I have delayed long enough to see what effects diet changes have on the humans in this household first. Not too long ago, the light came on that there are large amounts of grain in many prepared cat foods -- even the supposedly better-quality ones -- and we took action as soon as we fully understood what that implied.

Not soon enough, though, it seems. Our smaller cat, Cassie (Cassiopeia), has diabetes. She is prone to health problems -- she's a very expensive little rescue cat -- and this is just the latest, and worst. The vet thinks she has a good chance of pulling through, though, and wants to start insulin. We are not so sure. She is a survivor, though, and has healed a lot since we took her in two years ago (she is about 2 1/2 - 3 years old). We never found what was wrong with her at first, apart from parasites. She was weak and had trouble jumping. She wasn't fond of being touched.

I am concerned that the withdrawal from the grains may have created new problems. Fortunately the vet seems to understand the situation a lot better than my own MD understands such things. I really don't know what to think. She is fairly energetic most of the time, but we don't know whether to be hopeful or not. After all this reading I know full well what high glucose can do. Does anybody have experience with diabetic cats?

"The Rational- wild cats, leopards, lions or any others, eat the organs of a fresh kill first in case they loose it to another predator. When they are full, the leave and only return if they do not have a fresh kill to eat. This indicates their preference for the organs. You’ll also see your cats pick the organ morsels out as well, once they become accustomed to it. Scientifically speaking, raw meat is rich in enzymes and amino acids that are destroyed in the cooking process. The most important is taurine, which is essential for cats and the building block for short twitch muscle mitochondria, is found in all meats but destroyed during cooking."

Also
"
Lions hunt in groups. They prefer hunting in the morning or at night. They wait in ambush, encircle the prey, and then take it down by using their claws to attack. The act of striking usually results in a tear of the prey’s aorta. Hence, it bleeds to death. Most often, lions attack antelopes, gnus, buffalo and zebras, but in the national parks of Botswana they even hunt young elephants and hippopotami.

First, the mouth is eaten, intestines and organs follow. Lions also enjoy eating the entrails of ruminants, as they are highly rich in vitamins. Whoever is initially at the kill and begins eating first claims primacy. However, lions do eat collectively. Unlike leopards they will eat carrion. In fact, they account for 1/7th of a lion’s diet. An adult wildcat will typically eat up to 20 animals a year."


Although I have NO idea if this would still apply to a cat with diabetes, but it is their natural diet. Also a heavy bone marrow broth w chicken fat and skin may help. Be sure to ask the vet.

_http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/dr-karen-becker.aspx She is the "DR Mercola for pets" although I don't, personally, read her articles because I have no pets now.



Hope this helps

Megan said:

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She's a cutie! :)

I don't have any experiences with a diabetic cat, Megan, but we had a terrible time with one of ours (Morticia) growing weak and nearly dying on us last year. The vet had no certain answer for what caused her to enter into such a condition. He didn't, but I had my own suspicions and they center upon her diet.

Morticia and her brother live with us and are two cats from a feral litter of 4 that my wife rescued over a decade ago. She found homes for 2 of that litter, and kept Morticia and her brother Famine. This was before we met and eventually married.

A few years ago I championed the idea of changing their diet to dry, pelletized food (she had been feeding them canned food). In hindsight, my suggestion nearly cost Morticia her life. This is an 11 year-old cat who behaves much like an inquisitive, bright and highly social kitten...my wife obviously cared for her very well when she was a sick little kitty. Not long after I replaced their canned food with the dry ration, I began to notice that she vomited frequently, and that her vomit was primarily undigested pellets of feed. She seemed okay at that point, so I resolved to keep an eye on her. Her brother seemed fine in comparison and had no issues with vomiting his food.

The problem seemed to subside for a few months until one particular night arrived when my little sweetheart was vomiting repeatedly in cycles. I noticed then how dim her eyes seemed to appear (like your cat Cassie, she has big, bright eyes)...and saw that the skin under her black fur was turning yellow. When I pointed this out to my wife, she became frantic...and after she told me what that meant (I had no prior experience with cats), I joined her in worry. Hepatic lipidosis! The fact that she was dying scared me to death. We rushed her to the vet!

He checked her out and could find no reason why she was in that condition (no cause for her vomiting). She was dehydrated from the vomiting, and after caring for her for a few hours he sent her back home with us with some medication and instructions on how to care for her through her recovery (he felt she had a good chance of recovery). Being re-hydrated by I.V. at the vet seemed to help her out a great deal. While we were nursing her back to health, I examined my lack of understanding very closely. I felt responsible for almost losing this dear friend - I saw a clear connection between her developing hepatic lipidosis and the change I brought about in her diet. Discussing this with my wife made that pretty clear: Mortie never had this problem before in her 11 years of life. From that moment my wife and I resolved to feed her the canned food exclusively. She bounced back and made a full recovery. I can't tell you the relief that flooded through my wife and I as we watched the yellow color fade from her skin. She returned to her usual spunky self.

I'm no expert nor am I a vet, but I learned that felines are obligate carnivores. This includes our house cat companions. Although her canned food still contains grain (rice), it's in a much lesser quantity than what is present in the dry food. I'm not exactly happy with that. Consuming quantities of vegetable matter does not come naturally tor cats; apparently they typically only do that as an emetic in the wild. Based on what I have learned here regarding the effects of grains on our own bodies - and what you are experiencing with Cassie - I question feeding Famine dry food as well. We are better equipped to consume and process vegetable matter than felines are...but that doesn't necessarily mean that vegetable matter should be grains like wheat or rice. If they pose problems for us, then I can only imagine what they can do to an obligate carnivore like our cat friends?

It would seem to me that taking Cassie off of grains entirely is wise (I need to do that with my cats too), but how to deal with her diabetes? I don't know of any alternatives to insulin treatment, Megan. We mess up our own bodies pretty handily...and it seems our animal friends who live with us share in our condition, too. :(

I can't help but wonder if, as it is in humans with diabetes, at least type II, where cutting carbs enables them to cut their meds, or even in some cases quit them altogether, if putting little Cassie on an raw all-meat diet wouldn't do the same for her. I'd switch her over slowly by replacing some of her food with raw meat, little by little. Take it slowly and see how she responds.

I know that a cat I had loved raw liver and chicken, as long a it was cut into small enough pieces for her.

fwiw

Hi Megan, in my experience most of the cases of diabetes can be cured by switching to raw meat diet. This is especially true for younger cats.
Diabetes was practically non-existent (at least type 2 diabetes) in the early days of veterinary medicine but has now become very common.

It is hard to give prognosis for Cassie as every individual case is different, I usually advise complete switch to raw meat diet, and strictly no carbs . Usually this brings complete healing within very short time. The meat has to be of good quality and if you can afford it go for grass feed beef or free range chicken and nice white fish. Also make sure to supply good quality fish oil.
But as I said it depends in what stage of the disease Cassie is.
Ketoacidosis requires intensive care and constant re-hydration. Prognosis is usually very guarded if you can smell aceton in your cats breath. It also depends on the state of the kidneys. Were the kidney values ( if blood chemistry was screened) high or normal?

Cats were never meant to eat carbs and even small amount of them ( dry food for diabetic cats is just a gimmick and it is full of carbs) is pure poison to their system.
I think they are ultimate carnivores, while dogs can handle small quantities of other food then meat and animal fat, cats cant and this is the reason we are seeing diabetes much more often in cats then in dogs. Siamese being particularly sensitive.

Hi ,

When I was a child I had 2 operations for having hydatid cyst (lung and liver). I may be wrong and correct me please if i am but raw meat (and organs mostly) could be more risky for your pet thus for you if the herbivorous animals meat has this parasit. I don't know though if preventive vaccines for the pet prohibit enough the survival of the parasite inside the pet.

Hi Chien anadolu, you probably contracted these by eating undercooked sheep meat or meat products. Turkey and Balkans are notorious for this type of tape worm.
If you feed your pets raw beef intended for human consumption as well as poultry, some rabbit and fish there is very little risk of parasitic diseases.

Herr Eisenheim said:

Hi Chien anadolu, you probably contracted these by eating undercooked sheep meat or meat products. Turkey and Balkans are notorious for this type of tape worm.
If you feed your pets raw beef intended for human consumption as well as poultry, some rabbit and fish there is very little risk of parasitic diseases.

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Hi Herr Eisenheim,

Could be but i've never been a fan of raw or undercooked meat. As a matter of fact Hydatid cyst parasites does not necessarily pass to humans directly i.e. by consuming infected meat or directly contacting faeces or urine of the infected animals (sheep, dog, cat , etc.) but can be also indirectly, by eating unwashed fruits, berries, herbal etc in the wild which have been contaminated by those.

So anyway if i can get infected by eating this kind of raw meat, so can my my dog, cat. This means their excretions would, could generate risks for me.

But again being a pet owner for a long time (long after my operations) i am not sure if one of those periodic vaccines is in order to prevent this risk. Maybe it is.

_http://www.fao.org/docrep/T0690E/t0690e0c.htm

You may know someone in your community who has been in hospital to have a cyst (water filled bag) removed from their body. This is hydatid disease.

When sheep, goats, cattle, buffalo and camels are killed for meat, cysts, (water filled bags), may be found in the liver, lungs, heart and kidneys. These are the young of a small tapeworm which lives in the gut of the dog.

The cysts are called hydatid cysts and they cause damage to the organs in which they are found. They make the meat unfit to eat.

If a dog, fox or wolf eats the infected organs the tapeworms grow in its gut and produces eggs which can infect more ruminants or even humans.

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edit : added link

I apologize for not replying again sooner. I have been reading every message, but I am presently in a very stressful work situation that has not left me a good opportunity to sit down and compose a reply.

When I heard the diagnosis a few days ago my immediate impression was that it was over for Cassie. My housemate felt the same way, but our vet talked her into considering alternatives. Now she has come back to feeling the way I do. The high glucose is just the latest of Cassie's health issues. She also has had intermittent coughing spells that started in the spring and that the vet has not been able to diagnose, and she has a problem with urinary crystals. They found blood in her urine on the last visit. She has also had what seems to be a craving for fat for quite some time.

A second vet (at the same practice) had prescribed special dry and canned foods for the crystals. These foods were high in carbs and may have been what pushed her over the edge. When we realized what was in the food we took her off of it, and began feeding both cats grain-free foods. Some weeks later she developed severe constipation (we didn't know what it was until we took her in) and fatigue. That is when the high glucose reading was found.

When we took these two rescue cats in two years ago we tried to start them on raw foods, but they wouldn't eat them. We then tried what appeared to be better-quality canned and dry foods but we didn't understand the issues at that time. I have had to learn about my own dietary issues first, and my housemate has been learning from me. We are trying to gradually move the cats in the direction of raw food but we can't just starve them into eating it, and with Cassie's other health issues I just don't have much hope for her.

We have a cat sitter that is a vet tech at a local veterinary hospital and that has been my friend for five years. She knows these two cats personally and she doesn't recommend putting Cassie on insulin. One of her own cats, an older one years ago, had diabetes and, knowing what the cat would go through in treatment, decided to end it there. That's where we are at this point, taking into account as well what we would go through during treatment.

I think I understand why the decision is so hard. We have both been through this before with older cats, and it's hard but it is clear what needs to be done. Cassie isn't even three, though, and her recovery since she has been with us -- just over two years -- has been inspiring. She is an unusual cat, probably due to her difficult start. She is feisty, spirited, playful almost like a kitten, and non-traditional in some ways, not showing much interest in some of the typical instinctive behaviors such as sniffing and rubbing. She wants to be around us but doesn't much want to be touched. She bites (starting with a light warning nip).

For a long time she followed me as I moved about the house (now Bella has taken over that function). She stands up to other larger cats, and she stood her ground when a dog five times her size came up to her at the vet to check her out. She carries on conversations with us, not that we understand each other, and she has apparently taught Bella a little of that too. She puts her right paw in the water dish while she drinks, and she stops to "sing" to the water at times.

It is very difficult to reward all that with what we are going to have to do. But she has always been weak and fragile, probably the runt of the litter, and she shows no signs of being able to maintain her health. I think the decision has been made for us. And I know from my recent reading what the high glucose is doing to her inside. She is alternating between active and lethargic, and she no longer runs up and down through the house even when she is looking well.

A lot of my personal feelings right now come from a connection I have with Cassie. My mother was not healthy when I was born, and neither was I. I had endocrine issues, GI issues, developmental delay, hypogonadism, transsexualism, Asperger's syndrome, and more, and a narcissistic family on top of that. Bad start. In an earlier era I would have been allowed to die. But I had a human body with more resources and alternatives than what a cat has available to call upon, and I am still here 61 years later, having outlived my mother who died when I was 27 (at 54) and my father who died four years later. When I started college I was able to seek medical and other help on my own (my parents didn't feel it was necessary) and I have devoted much of my time and energy to health issues ever since.

But I don't think Cassie has that kind of flexibility, or learning capacity (though she has certainly learned much in her stay with us), and I need to stop confusing her issues with mine. We will be seeing the vet again in a few hours and will decide what we are going to do.

Megan said:

She also has had intermittent coughing spells that started in the spring and that the vet has not been able to diagnose, and she has a problem with urinary crystals. They found blood in her urine on the last visit. She has also had what seems to be a craving for fat for quite some time.

A second vet (at the same practice) had prescribed special dry and canned foods for the crystals. These foods were high in carbs and may have been what pushed her over the edge. When we realized what was in the food we took her off of it, and began feeding both cats grain-free foods. Some weeks later she developed severe constipation (we didn't know what it was until we took her in) and fatigue. That is when the high glucose reading was found.

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I would definitely check this kitty for hyperparathyirodism, all the symptoms fit, it is becoming increasingly common and it is often overlooked.
I am sure the foods pushed her over edge. I get really angry when I see how some of my colleagues attempt to treat crystals in urine - something that has been caused by dry food is being treated with yet another dry food only this time treated chemically to lower urine ph.

Megan said:

We have a cat sitter that is a vet tech at a local veterinary hospital and that has been my friend for five years. She knows these two cats personally and she doesn't recommend putting Cassie on insulin.

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I wouldn't recommend it either.

Megan said:

A lot of my personal feelings right now come from a connection I have with Cassie. My mother was not healthy when I was born, and neither was I. I had endocrine issues, GI issues, developmental delay, hypogonadism, transsexualism, Asperger's syndrome, and more, and a narcissistic family on top of that. Bad start. In an earlier era I would have been allowed to die. But I had a human body with more resources and alternatives than what a cat has available to call upon, and I am still here 61 years later, having outlived my mother who died when I was 27 (at 54) and my father who died four years later. When I started college I was able to seek medical and other help on my own (my parents didn't feel it was necessary) and I have devoted much of my time and energy to health issues ever since.

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wow Megan, didn't have a clue, respect and a big hug.
The following story has nothing to do with this case, but the parallel you drew reminded me of it.
I have a client who has degenerative kidney disease. So far he has had 3 cats and they all died from kidney insufficiency. He is convinced that cats prolong his life by taking on his illness.
Who knows, I wouldn't say it is completely outside the realm of possibilities, but if I were him I would stop feeding my cats commercial food poison and see what happens.

Megan said:

But I don't think Cassie has that kind of flexibility, or learning capacity (though she has certainly learned much in her stay with us), and I need to stop confusing her issues with mine. We will be seeing the vet again in a few hours and will decide what we are going to do.

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You might be surprised. I have seen cats that have been through much worse ordeal and survived. Cats seems to have extraordinary healing ability - probably this is where the 9 lives saying comes from. In any case experience has taught me that euthanasia in cats has to be delayed as much as possible - some remarkable healings I ve seen were truly miraculous. So please keep your spirits up and take it day by day. I will be with you here every step of the way and try and help with professional advice as much as possible.

Herr Eisenheim said:

You might be surprised. I have seen cats that have been through much worse ordeal and survived. Cats seems to have extraordinary healing ability - probably this is where the 9 lives saying comes from. In any case experience has taught me that euthanasia in cats has to be delayed as much as possible - some remarkable healings I ve seen were truly miraculous. So please keep your spirits up and take it day by day. I will be with you here every step of the way and try and help with professional advice as much as possible.

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We talked some more and we have decided to give Cassie a little more time while we experiment with her food. She certainly seems to have 9 lives but she has already gone through several of them. Another factor is that she had kittens shortly before she came to us and, if what I am reading about humans applies, that could have left her severely malnourished, which might explain why she was so weak.

I understand basically what causes diabetes. What I am looking for now is are there specific foods (e.g. specific organs) that might help stabilize her?

Herr Eisenheim said:

...So please keep your spirits up and take it day by day. I will be with you here every step of the way and try and help with professional advice as much as possible.

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By the way, thank you Herr Eisenheim and everyone that has contributed to this topic. I have too many "situations" going at once and some of my replies are a little too brief.

We want to help Cassie if we can, and whatever happens we want to learn from her experiences. I am amazed at how much I have learned from these two (Cassie and Bella) in the last two years.

Test her for hyperparathyroidism, dont know how expansive it is over there , here it is about 40€. I might be wrong but I have a gut feeling this is the core problem with your kitty

Herr Eisenheim said:

Test her for hyperparathyroidism, dont know how expansive it is over there , here it is about 40€. I might be wrong but I have a gut feeling this is the core problem with your kitty

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I will talk to the vet. The tests listed on the last bill are Superchem/CBC, T4, UA SA705, and Heartworm Ag/Ab. T4 sounds like the not-so-helpful standard thyroid test. The Superchem is perhaps where the high blood sugar was detected. The UA one sounds like a urinalysis, but I don't know. No sign of a specialized test for hyperparathyroidism so far.

A few extra dollars won't matter very much -- that one visit totaled over $750. By now we must have thousands invested in Cassie, mostly the cost of tests, X-rays, ultrasound, etc., but we have not been counting. We are approaching our "enough is enough" limit, though.

Thank you!

OK T4 has been done, so that is not the problem after all. It would show abnormal values if my assumption was correct.