Sweet solutions: A real-world approach to feline diabetes

This episode is sponsored by Boehringer Ingelheim.

On this week's episode of The Vet Blast Podcast presented by dvm360, our host Adam Christman, DVM, MBA, welcomes special guest Audrey Cook, BVM&S, MSc, MRCVS, DACVIM (SAIM), DECVIM-CA, DABVP (Feline), to the show to chat all about feline diabetes. In recognition of Feline Diabetes Awareness Month, which dvm360 honored this past November, this episode will highlight unique differences between feline and canine diabetes, typical clinical signs, and more!

Below is a partial transcript, edited lightly for clarity

Adam Christman, DVM, MBA: Okay, so let's go over the clinical signs a little bit. So walk us through how a cat with [diabetes mellitus] is likely to present to us the veterinarian.

Audrey Cook, BVM&S, MSc, MRCVS, DACVIM (SAIM), DECVIM-CA, DABVP (Feline): So if I were to sketch out the poster child of the cat, diabetic, the one that comes to my mind is a BCS, about 7 out of 9, about a 7-year-old castrated male, his life is spent going from food bowl that contains dry, high carbohydrate kibbies to the sofa, and then maybe a little bit of bird watching through the window, and then back to the food bowl and then back to the sofa and then maybe, maybe he he gets a little bit of more dental disease or something else That, again, just makes that insulin resistance more effective, or maybe he's put on a short course of steroids for some dermatopathy, no matter what we end up with the patient who had all these risk factors for becoming a diabetic and then kind of crosses that threshold and starts to spill glucose. And so the owners are going to notice increase in thirst, increase in urination, and usually hunger. So this is a cat that's tapping you on the cheek at 4 AM saying, I think it's time for breakfast. But anybody can become a diabetic. So I would never say that you are too skinny or too young or too old. But if I had the poster child, it would be the overweight, sedentary, middle-aged male cat.

Sometimes the cats will present because of signs directly attributable to glucose toxicity. And in cats, what people can see is that neuropathy, that peripheral neuropathy, where you have a cat that has a plantigrade stance and can't jump up onto the furniture. So I've had a few scenarios where that is why the cat presented, [it] presented for “can't jump.” You look at this cat and think you have been hyperglycemic for weeks or months, and you are absolutely a diabetic. It's just the other signs of diabetes, I guess, didn't catch the owner's attention so much.

And then occasionally, if we're unlucky, we get a cat who presents with diabetic ketoacidosis. So that would be a patient that comes in the clinic and they're not eating, maybe they're vomiting, they're dehydrated, they're depressed, [or] they're clinically ill from DKA, but that's not a very common way for diabetic cats to present, fortunately.

Christman: Right.