Pumpkin or new food for loose stool

Hi everyone!
I'm new to this forum and was hoping someone here might have some guidance for me. My cat was diagnosed a few years ago. The first couple were rough as the vet had him on dry food. Finally I decided to do my own research and switched him to wet food. That made a huge difference and I was able to decrease his insulin amount significantly. It seems his stools have been looser ever since switching him to wet food, which I recently learned is common and usually due to the moisture content. I was wondering if anyone could give me advice on incorporating pumpkin to help with that OR if there's a wet food that is a better option for diabetic cats. He's currently eating Fancy Feast Classic and he's given Novolin insulin. He's been on that since his diagnosis. I greatly appreciate the help!

 

Dusty had the opposite problem once on FF, he was always constipated so I have to add a little Miralax to his food. My civie Beni on the other hand has always had issues with FF since I converted them both to the same food. He was over grooming and leaving bald spots on his inner legs and started to get loose stool to the point that he just felt miserable. All his blood work looked good and my vet finally put him on some metronidazole for a few days and I switched them both to Pro Plan Prime Plus. Dusty is still doing good in remission and Beni feels great and has a firmer stool. Something in FF especially the chicken flavor was affecting Beni terribly. I think Pro Plan Prime Plus was a good switch since it's also made by Purina so the formula must not be too different from FF but different enough to help Beni. They took to the flavors really quickly so I didn't experience the normal nightmare food switch issues.

 

a higher fiber food can bulk up poops better but, i don't recall one offhand right now.

my cats eat fancy feast pate poultry flavors but, do much better poop wise on friskies poultry pates so i don't feed FF regularly anymore. with friskies poops are normal (at least with the two flavors we mainly feed; xtra gravy turkey pate and the mixed grill pate, was normal with the country style too we fed in past). with FF they have looser stools and pretty stinky ones too that actually smell like fancy feast, guess their flavoring stuff in it is pretty potent! wet foods with fish in first 3 ingredients always causes looser stools with all our cats no matter what brand they eat, if you are feeding fish flavored fancy feast, try switching to poultry ones first or friskies pateswithout fish in first 3-4 ingredients.

Instead of pumpkin (not all my cats like pumpkin at all, let alone me messing up their food) i use benefiber sugar-free, it is tasteless and helped with bulking up my cat's poop when they had issues. You can start by mixing with food 1/8th tsp once a day (or divided in two meals) and after about 3 days raise amount a little or lessen it depending on how your cat does. my 8lb cat did fine with 1/8th. since i have 10 cats i don't mix it in food anymore but, instead fill up a capsule size 3 and give one a day to be sure the right cat/s gets all of it when needed.

 

This was literally almost exactly going to be my first real question here too. Lol. I've noticed my Alice having loose stool and even a bit of diarrhea sort of. (Where do I draw the line between the two?) But ever since I started her insulin I also started her strictly on wet foods with a few dry nibbles from some leftover Purina DM.... And it's been like that. She's also drinking water like crazy still so she is clearly not where she needs to be yet.

How does pumpkin specifically help??

 

Plain boiled pumpkin with nothing else added, mashed, is very good for diarrhoea AND constipation in cats. You can also buy plain boiled pumpkin in the US in cans but make sure it is not pie pumpkin.
Give a teaspoon a couple of times a day to start with and see if that helps.

Also you might like to try changing the food to see if they are allergic to it.

Also you might like to think about changing over to a better insulin for cats such as Lantus, Levemir or prozinc.....nothing to do with the loose poops..

Have a look at this chart for other foods....10% or under carbs
https://catinfo.org/docs/CatFoodProteinFatCarbPhosphorusChart.pdf

 

Thanks everyone for the replies! I actually ordered a new food that I found on the cat info chart over the weekend. Right now he only eats the poultry classic fancy feast and the new food, tiki cat, has a better ratio of protein to fat I think. I put some pumpkin in his food last night and he didn't mind it at all. Not sure I used enough though. I only added a teaspoon and the other posts I've seen on here talk about a tablespoon. My cat, George, is a very large cat as well at 15ish pounds.

Is there a preference on this forum to a better insulin? I've just stuck with the one the vet gave me initially.