Update on Clide, At Vet's for Curve

Hello everyone. Thank you AGAIN for responding so well to all of my numerous questions.

So - Clide is winding down with his curve at the vet's and I'll be leaving in an hour to pick him up (he'll be happy!). My vet's office is owned by one primary vet who I have dealt with since it was just him. He's on vacation this week, but he came in because he heard Clide was going to be there (I give a lot of business to this vet with five cats and all!). Of all the vets there, he and another are my favorites - I think they've each seen a lot in their practices and they're REALLY open to the fact that I do my own research, ask questions and want to understand the best approach.

Clide's regular vet called me about an hour ago and said that his curve levels have been steady throughout the day, hovering right around 300. He knows that Clide gets a mixture of wet and dry food - about half a can of wet food total daily and half a cup of dry food, all prescription (Purina DM wet; Royal Canin DS 44 dry). He asked if I felt I could switch Clide exclusively to wet. That's always been my preference, but Clide is a Kibble Kat. Ha. At any rate, he doesn't want to start Clide on insulin until I've dramatically decreased the dry food, moved him to wet and re-tested. On his advice and on the advice of other messages on this board, I've gone out and gotten some Merrick Cowboy Cookout and I'm going to mix that in and just give him about a quarter of what he would normally get kibble-wise and see how he does. The doctor's opinion is that Clide is OK right now and we have some time to make dietary adjustments before putting him on insulin. And regardless - he doesn't want to start him on insulin (given that this isn't an emergency) until his diet has stabilized.

So, that's the route we're going to take at the moment with a recheck in the very near future. I'm also going to start testing at home with the Newbie Kit when it arrives. I've seen another friend test a diabetic cat so at least I have a sense of how to do it.

Thanks again,
Rena

 

If Clide absolutely, positively refuses to go without kibble, Wellness Core and Evo Cat and Kitten are the lowest carb kibbles out there.

As a supplement, not a regular meal, freeze dried meats crunch and may be enough like kibble that he's willing to eat some of it, rather than regular kibble.

As a weird little side note: my dad did chemical marketing research and at one time reviewed how cat kibbles were produced. He came back and said that if you put the right flavor of fat on it, cats would eat sawdust. Scary, isn't that?