In 2009, my cat was diagnosed with Feline Diabetes. Whisper had been ill and losing weight for a couple of months, yet she ate all the time. She’d always been a “healthy eater”, so at first I thought nothing was wrong. But when she got down to 8 pounds, I knew that something wasn’t right. I brought her to the vet and she was diagnosed the day before Thanksgiving. I spent the rest of the week learning about insulin, how to give shots, and what to feed her. Unfortunately the vet gave me a big bag of Purina DM food. I was told that though remission was possible, it wasn’t that common and that I’d likely be giving her insulin shots for the rest of her life. After thoroughly researching Whisper’s illness, I came to realize that there was a better way of treating her than what the vet was telling me. It was very scary at first, but there were a number of people on one of the feline diabetes websites that spent a lot of time and energy helping me get acclimated to testing and feeding the right foods. As a result of this, Whisper was in remission by February of 2010.

I have been working as a software developer for over twenty years. My way of giving back to the community that helped me so much when I needed it is to give freely of my technical abilities. In addition to this website, I help to run the Diabetic Cat Help website. I am their technical guy. I keep the forum running and recently rewrote the WordPress webiste. I’ve also written several applications to assist people in caring for their cats. These apps can be found on my Downloads page. They are all free for anyone to use. My latest app is a carb calculator for Apple devices. I am always open to taking on new projects, so if anyone has ideas, please submit them on the Contacts page. I look forward to hearing from everyone.

Whisper was diagnosed two days before Thanksgiving, 2008. When I brought her in, she was a wreck. All she did was drink water and beg for food. She spent the rest of the time grooming herself and pulling large clumps of fur out of her tail end. Her fur was all matted and greasy. She’d lost a total of four pounds – a quarter of her normal weight. Her highest number at the vet was 595. I look back and wonder if I should have seen it sooner and brought her in more quickly, but the thing is, this came on so FAST! It seemed like she was fine one minute, and the next, she was very sick. She was immediately put on PZI Vet, .5 units, once a day. I am very thankful that my vet not only recommended PZI, but pretty much insisted on it. Over the next two months, she worked her way up to 2.5 units, once a day, and was called “controlled” by the vet. I found this site in late January. The first test I successfully took, she was at 150, and that was 24 hours after her last dose of insulin. She started out on dry Purina DM, but I started feeding her canned DM in the morning, because I had to mix antibiotics in for a bladder infection and her teeth. Once I found out how bad dry food is for cats, I immediately switched her to all canned DM, and her numbers dropped and stayed within the acceptable range. I switched her to all approved FF flavors, and her numbers came down even more. Now, she mostly stays in upper DD, with the occasional TD when it’s been too long between feedings. She’s gained back most of the weight she lost, and she’s once again her usual playful, goofy self.

To anyone who questions the wisdom of feeding a cat all canned food, I say this – IT WORKS! Obviously not every cat comes down into acceptable range from canned food alone, but there is simply no way a dry fed FD cat will ever become regulated with dry food in the diet. On occasion I’m still questioned about whether it’s such a good idea to feed all canned, and I say “are you kidding me??” Before going on canned food, Whisper needed insulin. Off dry food, she doesn’t. I’m not sure how much more proof I can give.

Whisper has been off of insulin for eight years now. I still test her once a week, to make sure that her numbers aren’t going up. Her last BG number was 61. Tight Regulation literally saved my cat’s life.