Hello, This morning I posted on the main forum seeking some advice about dosing for Maggie. Tiffmaxee kindly suggested I post a follow-up thread here. the original thread is below (I think, if I linked properly): https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/bg-and-dosing-advice-thoughts.243379/ Basically, I'm seeking thoughts about dosing recommendations as information to take with me when I speak to my vet about how to go forward with her. I'm in process of trying to switch her to wet food, and it seems to be making a difference in her BG. I will take another bg test at +3 but she probably will eat some dry tonight, so don't think it will be going further down... Thanks so much, Cecily
Hi Cecily. While she’s still eating dry food you will need to follow SLGS. Since she’s under 200 I would skip tonight. She’s lower than this morning so decreasing the dry is helping. Try to feed her mostly canned food if she will eat it tonight. Does she like canned?
I agree with Elise, I'd try to remove all dry food when you aren't shooting, and see what it does to the numbers. If they don't come down enough, we might have to restart Maggie on a really tiny dose to give her pancreas a little bit of support while it heals. Your earlier post says you won't see the vet until Tuesday, so we have a couple days yet to get this sorted.
She's ok with canned but isn't going mad for it. She's picky, so it's been hard to find something she'd eat. I'm trying to go slow in switch so as to not upset her system as she was on a high carb kibble before. I will try to give her some wet tonight, but feel I need to keep some dry in it as well. Hopefully, in next couple of days I will be on all wet! Thank you so much for the support!
Thank you. Yes, I probably won't be able to talk to my vet until next week (Tues), so I am hoping she's eating enough of the wet to be free of dry and see what it really does for her. Thank you both for your support and guidance!
Have you tried giving her any freeze dried food!? I bought some freeze dried raw to use as treats for Max snd he loved it. Prior to becoming diabetic he preferred dry but when he blocked I bought lots of canned foods. He preferred the slices but they were too high carbs so i finally got him to eat some fancy feast flavors. He was off dry when diagnosed but the canned he liked were too high in carbs. Kee trying.
She LOVES PureBites freeze dried chicken treats, so I thought "great- freeze dried raw". So I bought a chicken freeze dried from a company called Smalls, but she doesn't like it. Do you know of another to recommend? She had been eating FF beef, but now I'm nervous as this morning, she would only eat about 1 oz and wanted to go back to the dry. I am trying different flavors, but the beef is the only one so far. Before diagnosis in December, her diet was mix of wet &dry; she was on- Purina pro plan focus adult 11, along with dry. But in Dec. I gave her a new kind- purina true nature- which she loved. But something happened and she stopped eating, and vet ended up giving her antibiotic and treated it as bacterial overgrowth. During that time, she seemed not interested in her wet anymore, so went to dry. (Also, she also was having a smelly backside back in Dec. which went away after I stopped the wet.) I don't know what triggered the episode. The new food I tried or got a bad batch, etc.? That said, I am thinking of trying purina pro plan focus again, just to see how she does. I really want to keep her on wet as I can see what a difference it is making. She prefer pates, but finding something has been so hard. What flavors are working for you? Does Max get tired of them? I've tried blue buffalo, some weruva, -but no luck so far. I heard some wellness can cause crystals so I haven't want to try that. I gave her a 1/8c dry over night and her AMPS was 194.
I have fed my girls Primal freeze dried. I actually feed them the frozen Small Batch and Primal. Both make freeze dried treats you could try putting on top of the canned food to see if that helps. Try crumbling the Pure Bites on top of the wet food. Max liked Feline Natural lamb freeze dried too. There are two low carb dry foods but honestly even those bring them bg high enough that many cats don’t go into remission. One is Young Again. If you contact them they will send a free sample. It has to be purchased on line. The other is Dr, Elsey’s Pure Protein. That would be a last resort for me. Dr. Lisa has suggestions on switching at catinfo.org.
Thank you for the suggestions! To clarify, you also feed them Small's food? or is "Small Batch" a reference to something from Primal? So you feed them both at this time? I found a store that sells Primal, so I probably will stop by there this afternoon. I've never done the re-hydration thing, so that will be different! The one positive, she did go back to the bowl and ate the remaining wet. So that was a relief, but I think I need to keep looking. I did try the trick of putting the freeze dried treat on top, but it only worked once! Also, I've never ventured out to proteins beyond beef, chicken, salmon/tuna. I guess I worry about other proteins, but maybe it's something I need to try! Thank you so much for your time and guidance. I really do appreciate it!
I don’t feed Smalls although it’s a good food. One of my has skin allergies so she eats only venison and it’s Primal. The other brand I feed is called Small Batch. Unfortunately Small Batch doesn’t make freeze dried cat food. They do for dogs.
Ah. ok. So, i went to a cat focused store, and the nice gentleman helping me was steering me away from primal(he said his 4 cats threw up after 2 days of it). urg. he recommend stella & chewy's freeze dried. I bought it but when I got home, i read that the company is very secretive about the nutritional make-up, so it's unclear about the carb content, and phosporous may be high. i get so frustrated. I gave her one piece dry, and she seemed to like it. but now, i don't think i want to go there. I may go back and just go ahead and get the primal and try it. He also gave me ZIWi's chicken, but she turned her nose against it. And they carry small batch, so maybe I'll try there sliders too. Here's hoping!
I have heard some have issues with Primal but knock wood not mine. Small Batch s on all the food lists as being a good food. Susan Thixton ,Truth About Food, puts out a list of foods she would feed her pets. You make a small donation and get the list. She doesn’t d not include Primal and it was there when I got my girls 4 years ago. I don’t know why. Many here make their own food using EZ Complete and you can cook the protein or go with raw. It’s lower phosphorus as there’s isn’t any bone and I wish I could use it but it contains chicken liver which one of mine can’t eat due to skin allergies.
