Whistle update + thinking about her diet

Whistle has been doing pretty well today. She has an appetite--in fact she woke me up three times last night requesting more food. Her pre-shoot numbers last night weren't great, but I'm hoping for something better tonight. I wasn't surprised by high pre-shoot numbers last night/this morning since the emergency vet didn't give her insulin yesterday morning. Apparently they tried upping her dose above their initial adjustment and found that by morning she was only at 140, so they decided not to give insulin. Whistle's (now daily, due to my paranoia) ketone test was negative. She is sleeping a good bit but doesn't seem lethargic. She is not a fan of the sub-q fluids, and honestly neither am I.

I've been giving even more thought to her diet today. Everyone gave great suggestions yesterday, so I decided to do a little homework since I won't be able to contact my regular vet until Monday (she wasn't in the office today). I searched through Janet and Binky's list again and lo and behold, it looks like EVO 95% Venison may be a candidate for Whistle. I made a little chart comparing the venison formula with the k/d with chicken the emergency vet wants Whistle on and the Purina DM that my regular vet's office sells. I want the vet to have a good reference point between a low-carb, very high-protein/high phosph. food and a higher carb, low protein/low phosph. food. Here it is:

Protein Fat Carbs Fiber Phosph.(mg) Calories

EVO 95% Venison 31 68 2 0.1 146 237
K/D with chicken 22 51 27 0.7 84 183
Purina DM 46 47 7 0.8 259 194

*Protein, Fat, and Carbs are %calories from

I think the EVO falls right into the middle and still has relatively low phosph., so we'll see what the vet thinks. Also, I apologize that the chart is a pain to read. I kept playing around with spacing, but it seems to make no difference.

 

the forum tends to collapse spaces.

best way I found to get around that ---
use dashes or dots to space out the table

like ---- this
0.1 ---- 200 --- 333 --- 111
0.2 ---- 300 ... 111 ... 222
9.0 ___ 444 __ 333 ___ 222
underlines work too

_______________Protein Fat Carbs Fiber Phosph.(mg) Calories

EVO 95% Venison __31 __ 68 __ 2 __ 0.1 _ 146 _______ 237
K/D with chicken _ 22 __ 51 --- 27--- 0.7 ---84 ----------183
Purina DM ----------46 ... 47 ---- 7 -- 0.8 --259 _______194

 

While you are making little charts make a list of the ingredients in each food for comparison. You will be floored at the poor quality of ingredients used to make k/d and all the other phony 'prescription' foods. Yes, phony. There isn't a single pharmaceutical ingredient in any of this junk food, it's stricctly a marketing ploy, marketing to vets because they make a huge commission for selling it. Personally I don't allow any Hills products in my home because I think that the way they handle this end of their business is morally reprehensible. Make your own judgement.

 

Gia,

I wholeheartedly agree with you. Voting with my feet. I will often tell a stranger buying Science Diet to look at the ingredients. Then I tell them that as a human diabetic I have to watch the ingredient list of everything I eat. So now I watch what my cats eat.

The only Hills product ever allowed in my house is A/D. I have used that for babies and very sick inappetant cats. It is easy to syringe feed.

I would now use EVO as a first choice for babies and sick cats. But, I do keep A/D as a back up - something in it attracts them.

Claudia

 

Claudia, it's the liver they find attractive. Try the Eukanuba Maximum Calorie. It's similar and serves the same purpose, but it's not Hills.

 

Well, over the past couple of days Whistle has begun to make the decision for me. I hated feeding her the k/d as I knew from her diabetes diagnosis that the prescription foods are not the best. By day 2 at home, she would barely eat the stuff and when she did eat it her BG tested HI on my meter. I finally took her back to the emergency vet on Saturday and explained the situation to them, and I'm supposed to be hearing from my regular vet today. Whistle used to eat EVO chicken and turkey, which is still too high in phosph. for her. I tried EVO venison and beef, but she wasn't having it. This was very frustrating as she would often eat enough and have high enough BG for her morning insulin, but get too low throughout the day by not eating and then would be unable to have her evening insulin, starting a bad cycle all over again. I finally went out and stocked a variety of foods that people here were feeding their fd/CRF kitties, and as of yesterday evening the winner is Friskies special diet turkey and giblets. The ingredients could be better, but the phosph. and carbs are low and most importantly she is consistently eating it, so hopefully I'll start seeing a turn-around in her BG numbers over the next few days. I saw a newer vet at the emergency vet who finally sided with me--the most important thing is that Whistle eats something period!