Vet's recommendation for food? Pancreatitis

We have a wonderful 10 year old cat who has just undergone treatment for pancreatitus at a specialist-type vet. (Just means that it costs even more than the regular vet!) He is now bright eyed again and is on Lantus twice a day as he has been for about a year. We are concerned because the "specialist" recommended dry high protein kitty food, and with that Lucky seems to be constantly hungry. We cannot afford to take him for the $250 testing at the clinic, and would like to test his glucose levels here at home, to ensure he does not get sick again. Two questions - can anyone recommend the best testing product, and should he really be on dry food as the vet recommended? Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

 

Re: Vet's recommendation for food?

Hi and welcome to FDMB. I use the Walmart Relion glucometer. It costs $8 here in NC and I get 100 test strips (about 1.5 months worth) for $42.

Feeding a diabetic cat dry food increases their insulin needs. It's sort of like feeding a human diabetic doughnuts instead of veggies. Most of us use this link to find canned foods that contain less than 10% carbohydrates: http://binkyspage.tripod.com/canfood.html

 

Re: Vet's recommendation for food?

Hi there and welcome! First of all the answer is simple for the food. NO! dry food is not good for cats period. To find out why read http://catinfo.org/ then it should be pretty clear.

Hometesting is a greaat idea and although it does take some patience, practice and a some money, it is much more convient, safe, and cheaper than going to the vet for testing. ANY home glucose meter for humans is sufficient. Most important should be price and availiblity of test strips (which you will need often) and a meter that uses a very small amount of blood. Most meters today use a capillary filling mechanism in which the strip "sucks" the blood and you don't have to "drop" the blood on a circle. The meters that use less than 1 microlitre are best (most are between .3ul and .6ul) Many people in the US use Walmarts Relion Micro meter which is fairly cheap and test strips are available at any Walmart (which most people have nearby) Meters can be purchased at any pharmacy or Target, Walmart, Costco etc. You can request from the forum here a meter kit be sent to you http://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=6 to get you started. Look around here on the board at the health links, there are links to videos on how to test and lots more.

Just wanted to add this link http://www.childrenwithdiabetes.com/d_0i_000.htm they have a comparison of blood glucose meters for children, which compares things such as price, amount of blood req. time of test, etc. it doesn't include all brands (mostly the name brand ones) and it is slightly older (2007?) so the prices may not be actual.

 

I changed the title of your post to focus on the pancreatitis. There are special considerations in a diet for pancreatitis, but what they are escapes me. Yes, stay wet, but it's not just carbohydrates you need to be concerned about.

Someone with a complete brain and memory will be along soon to help on this point.

ETA--ah, here it is. The pets with Diabetes wiki discusses diet for pancreatitis. See also this threadon the old Board.

 

You have to balance carbs with fat. Something fairly low fat with an ok amount of carbs is good. Some foods are ok in fat but a little high in carbs which isn't bad at all. You can always adjust the insulin dose. Here is a thread on the old board with food suggestions: http://www.felinediabetes.com/phorum5/r ... ?8,1259368