When Neechee’s owner had to be hospitalised and couldn’t keep her little black cat anymore, the Thompson family decided to adopt her. Neechee needs to be given an insulin injection twice a day so is perfect for a family with two vets. Their two boys, Hamish and Marcus, love to help out and give Neechee lots of cuddles during her injections and she gets a Fit n Flash treat each time, so being a real foodie, barely notices the needle. 

There are lots of cat owners that learn to inject their cats with insulin, even if they have had no prior experience with giving injections. It’s a skill that can be learned by almost anyone. Read our article on feline diabetes to find out a bit more about what to look out for. 

What is type II diabetes?

Just like us, cats can develop type II diabetes and this occurs more commonly in cats that overeat, particularly overweight Burmese cats. Insulin is an important hormone that drives glucose into the cells in our body for energy. If the pancreatic cells are not producing insulin anymore, then insulin needs to be given via an injection in order to survive. Sometimes treatment can result in remission of diabetes, but in other cases, insulin injections are twice daily for life. In cats, type II diabetes is caused by glucose intolerance if a cat is fed a diet too rich in carbohydrates, as opposed to type I diabetes, where the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas are destroyed via an immune-mediated process.

What are the clinical signs of diabetes in cats?

Cats with diabetes tend to drink a lot of water, which is usually obvious, because being desert animals ancestrally, cats don’t usually drink much water at all. Eventually if the diabetes is left untreated, cats get very sick and enter a diabetic ketoacidotic state as their bodies find alternative ways to source energy through breaking down protein in their body. This is dangerous and requires intensive care. Diagnosis is straightforward in cats with a blood and a urine test. If your cat is drinking more than 50mls/kg/day of water (i.e. a 5kg cat that drinks 250mls of water per 24 hours) then your cat should have a test for diabetes and other diseases that cause excessive water intake.