Hi Sylvia,

There’s quite a few thoughts I have here. It may be better to speak about this in a conversation rather than over email, but I’ll just give you some thoughts.

First, it doesn’t matter at all if you feed wet or dry to a diabetic cat. It makes no difference. You can feed either, or a combination. It only matters how well their glucose control is while they’re on it. The DM had complex carbohydrates that slowly break down and therefore, slowly release sugar over time. This is ideal for a diabetic cat. So a diet with long chain/complex carbohydrates is best.

This insatiable appetite is interesting. My first thought is that she may be more diabetic now since cats that are diabetic eat aggressively. I’d perform a blood glucose curve to check that out. It doesn’t matter what I think about the food, the only answer we need is: what is her glucose control like when she eats it. I would give her a food she likes to eat (preferably a diet for diabetics), then check her blood glucose curve. If you can regulate it well on that diet, then that is a good diet for her.

You are wrapped up in the ‘she eats this but not that’ conundrum. My point is that you should be in the ‘what will she eat consistently so I can regulate her glucose the best’ conundrum. I don’t think it matters if it has 1, 2, or 3% phosphorus or calcium. It matters how well her blood sugar is controlled.

So I say feed her a food she eats well, then adjust her insulin to control her blood sugar. And that’s it.

Hopefully this starts to help.

Dr. Clayton Greenway