Learning how to take care of a diabetic cat is critical to the long-term health of your pet. Structure, regulation, and vigilance are vital to your cat's prognosis and quality of life. Both you and your veterinarian must have the skills and commitment necessary for proper care. While it is not easy, supporting your cat through this disease can be very rewarding and give you many additional years of love and companionship.
Diagnosis
It is highly likely that the first clue your cat has diabetes is excessive urination, the by-product of too much glucose in the blood stream. (Other symptoms can include weight loss, lethargy, and increased appetite.) More urine is produced as a way of removing glucose from the body. Not surprisingly, this is usually accompanied by excessive thirst. The vigilant owner will have a good idea of his cat's normal amount of drinking and urination and will take the cat to the vet when there is a noticeable change. Once the disease is diagnosed, and even while being treated, the owner will have to continue monitoring his cat's drinking and urination habits.
Your vet will determine if your cat has feline diabetes mellitus (FDM) or central diabetes insipidus (CDI). FDM is the feline form of classic "sugar diabetes," caused by insufficient output of insulin by the pancreas or by the body becoming insulin-resistant. CDI is a disorder of the brain or kidney affecting the creation or response to antidiuretic hormone (ADH). The diagnosis will determine how to take care of a diabetic cat.
With either form of diabetes, your cat will need to be initially hospitalized and monitored for her response to treatment. If she has CDI, the veterinarian will determine the appropriate dose of desmopressin, a drug that acts as a replacement for ADH. That dosage often remains constant, but your cat will need periodic visits to the veterinarian to check the hormone levels in her urine.
If your cat has FDM, during hospitalization her urine and blood will be monitored for sugar levels.
Treatment and care
Care for the cat with CDI is fairly straightforward: The amount of her urination must be monitored, and she must make regular visits to the vet to check her hormone levels.
Care for a cat with FDM is more complex and time-consuming, involving a change in diet (to one that is high protein and low carbohydrate), exercise, and twice-daily insulin injections. Lifestyle can play a big part in improving your cat's health: Reducing her weight and implementing a fitness program can help lower the blood sugar levels, thereby reducing the need for insulin.
Working with your veterinarian, you will need to develop a plan for testing your cat's sugar levels, which determines if she needs more or less insulin. Both urine and blood test strips are available; blood tests—which call for drawing a small amount of blood between two and five times daily—are more difficult and more invasive, but they also are more timely and accurate. Even though urine testing involves making a "live catch," the results indicate glucose levels four hours earlier, not at that moment.
How often you test will depend on those glucose levels. If your cat is a good eater and gets regular exercise, testing twice daily before dosing with insulin should be sufficient. For the finicky eater or otherwise "fragile" cat, you may need to test every four hours until the levels stabilize. You can take your cat to the vet for testing, but it will become very expensive very quickly and will not be as timely as doing it yourself.
Unless glucose testing indicates otherwise, insulin is generally administered twice a day via subcutaneous (under-skin) injections. With practice, this can be done quickly and painlessly for you and your cat.
No matter how you test and treat diabetes, you must continue to monitor your cat's drinking and urination and alert the vet to any changes.
Time and money can affect how to take care of a diabetic cat. However, with vigilance, patience, and good planning, the two of you will share many more happy years together.
