Cat problems adjusting to Purina DM diet

Hello everyone,

This is my first post since my cat Nicky was diagnosed with diabetes. Nicky was prescribed a diet of Purina DM wet and dry food as part of her new regimen. She has been eating this solely for 2 weeks now and does not seem to be adapting to it all that well. She has diarrhea and we have not seen any improvement. Prior to the diabetes she ate a diet of Halo. Our question is: does the new Halo grain free or raw tuna in the can packed in water with no added salt sound like anything she could tolerate with no adverse effects? We do not like the ingredients in the Purina DM and wonder if we supplemented it with some of the tuna or Halo (not much) if this could be of benefit to her. Does anyone have any advice as to the advisability of this train of thought or if there are any suitable, healthy alternatives to Purina DM? Also, could the diarrhea be from some other cause? We appreciate any responses as we have been hard hit by this and want to do what we can to make her life healthier and more enjoyable for her.

Thank you,
Dave and Lynda

 

Hi Dave and Lynda,
There are plenty of alternate choices for you. The diarrhea is most likely due to the diet change I think. It's fairly common, mostly when people change from dry to canned. I am not familiar at all with the Halo food, but other are I am sure. Some cats take to the DM, others don't. Most kitties seem to like variety rather than one flavor.
On the tuna, just keep in mind that too much seafood/fish is not a good thing, but I feed my cats two or three "fish" flavors a week.
Here are a couple of links to Binky's food charts if you haven't seen them yet. Many are grocery store brands like Fancy Feast, Friskees, but others are higher quality that you can find in pet stores like Petco or Petsmart. The key with diabetics is low carb food, the lower the better. The charts show the %calories from carbs numbers, and we try to keep it at 7% or less. Not sure but I think the DM is reasonable, like 7-9%? So carbs wise it isn't terrible.
Hope this helps you out, and welcome to the board!
Carl
http://binkyspage.tripod.com/CanFoodOld.html
http://binkyspage.tripod.com/CanFoodOld.html

 

Diabetic cats need to have as low carb percentage as possible, so that's really the number to find out if you can.

My vet put us on Purina DM too, but I wasn't impressed with the ingredients either. To be honest, I think the Purina DM wet food is a racket. There's much better canned food out there where the ingredients don't contain the words "by-product" that is the same price or cheaper. As for dry food, check out the spreadsheet in my signature... when I took away the Purina DM dry food and fed Scout only wet food, she no longer needed insulin. It made a HUGE difference. I feed Blue Buffalo and Evo canned food now.

Hope this helps and keep us posted!

Lori

 

Carl,
Thank you for your response. I have been looking at cat food company websites to see if anyone advertises their food as being low in carbs but have had no look so far. Can anyone tell me how to figure out carb percentage using supplied information on protein%, fat% and so on as supplied by the manufacturers on the websites?

Thanks once again,
Dave and Lynda

 

Dave, you'll find that most numbers you get from a site or a package aren't useful for calculating unfortunately. They aren't based on "as fed" values usually, just guaranteed maximum/minimums.
The charts I linked you to.... there is an explanation of how Janet calculates there. Her numbers were gotten by people contacting the manufacturers directly and requesting as fed or dry weight values.
Here's the specific info from Janet and Binky's site:
http://binkyspage.tripod.com/foodfaq.html
Generally, the numbers calculated as a percent of calories are accurate unless there has been a recipe/formula change by the manufacturers.
Carl

 

Poor Nicky! The food you were feeding was WAY better than the lousy vet food... if you have any left, pack it up and tell your vet you want cash back as Nicky has refused to eat it now. The vet food, in my mind, is crap. You guys are right in thinking the ingredients are poor; they are!
There was only one time that I allowed the vet food, a can of A/D, to be feed to my cat and that was for Oliver when he got extremely sick from his vaccines, and only because it was fine enough to mix well with water to syringe feed him.

Look at the Binky's lists for foods under 10% carbs, but generally you will hear most people are feeding fancy feast, friskies, and a few other pates with no gravies or grilled. The halo is good, but the plain canned tuna can't be more than a treat or addition to the main diet as there is no taurine in the tuna and cats need it in whatever their main diet is. I think the best is the raw type diet, if you want to consider that.
One thing for sure, don't feed any kind of dry cat food.

Feeding Your Cat: Know The Basics of Feline Nutrition

And of course the diarrhoea could be from some other cause, so has the vet suggested anything to clear it up, any meds? When did the diarrhea start? Did it start before Nicky was found to be diabetic or after, and did it start when you changed the food?

OK now that the food has been addressed, how else is the vet having you treat Nicky?
What tests have been done, what insulin are you giving if started, and and dose.

I worry to hear that Nicky has had diarrhea for weeks and nothing is being done by the vet.
I would switch back to the Halo, or any other food you find on Binky's list, and if you don't see the diarrhea clear up quickly, get something from the vet to clear up the issue.

 

We greatly appreciate everyone's concern and information. I am so happy to have found this site. One question my wife has if anyone has an answer: she was in the habit of giving all 5 cats a teaspoon of tuna packed in water, no salt added daily. I have been advised that this is not good as a primary diet as it lacks taurine which is essential to cats health. But, given as a treat every other day along with the primary diet of recommended diabetes approved food would this be alright? Also, the tuna was given as a treat and not the primary diet.
Thanks,
Dave and Lynda

 

Tina in water is a great treat!

 

I give mine canned tuna as a treat too. It's their favoritest thing EVER! It is super low carb so fine to give as a treat. You guys are doing great!

Lori

 

if you wanted, you can use the tuna water as a chaser when you cats have to take any medicines.
Lots of meds are bitter, so if you give them some tuna or tuna water after their meds, they will be happier.

You need to watch for some foods and read their ingredients because they may be great for treats but not good for a main food because they lack taurine and other nutrients and vitamins that cats are needing in their diet.

i use the tune for checking to see if my cat is not eating because sick or because being picky. The tuna gets eaten and I know cat is just being picky.

So long as you don't make the tuna a main diet, you should be fine

 

As far as I know, Merricks is the only food that lists they are low glycemic on the label: http://www.gripetfoods.com/CertifiedCatFoods.htm. However, some are higher than carbs than others and may be a little too high in carbs for a diabetic--the Merricks flavors I feed my diabetic cat are Cowboy Cookout, Surf and Turf (this one doesn't say low glycemic on the label even though it is), Grammy's Pot Pie, and Turducken. All of the Before Grain flavors are also low carb, but they aren't certified as low glycemic.

Here's an updated list of the carb content for many premium foods: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8Uu8g1u8Su9YTgxNGE1MDItM2MyMC00Y2Y3LWI4ODMtMzhkYTkxOGM4NThk/edit. It's much easier to just look at the carb count there.

One thing that's very important is to ditch all of the dry--you can return all of your prescription food back (even opened) to the vet and just say your cat won't eat it. It's cheaper to get a canned premium cat food with human grade meat than it is to get the Purina DM, which is about the same quality as the cheaper grocery store brands.

EDIT: I see that you asked about Halo, which isn't on the charts. All of the canned Halo foods are grain free and don't have anything too bad in the ingredients--If you contact the company and ask for the as-fed values (NOT the guaranteed analysis that's on the can) for Protein, Fat, Carbs, Fiber, Phosphorus and Moisture (water) content and post them back here, we could help calculate them for you so you would know for sure.

 

Welcome Dave, Linda and extra sweet Nicky!

Just in case Nicky's a "hard food" junkie, there is EVO dry that's only 8% carb. KT's a HUGE 'hard food' fan - that was the hardest thing to do was take away his hard food completely. I give him a small handful (about 1/8th cup), it doesn't spike his BGs but satisfies his 'need'. Here's a link to the manufacturer's info page:

EVO Cat Food - Dry

One great place to order is PetFoodsDirect - here's a link to that also:

PetFoodDirect

HUGS!

 

This thread has the as fed numbers for Halo's Spot Stew: http://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?p=132397 Further down the thread some people attempted to calculate out the exact numbers using either Janet's Food FAQ page spreadsheet download or another calculator but they got differing values confused_cat

OnlyNaturalPet.com sells a lot of the higher ends foods like Weruva, EVO, and Wellness.

 

It think it's because they were missing a few numbers--fiber, phos, and moisture. Now I'm curious so I sent Halo an email for the values--if they write me back I'll post the values for everyone.

 

Well you've taken the right first step by posting on here. These folks are wonderful and will support you fully.

We came home with Purina DM also but have converted entirely to Fancy Feast Classic with the gravy's for backup hypo numbers.

I've also bought the Blue (something..I think it's mountain but maybe not) from Petco as it is 95% high protein and it didnt smell as strongly as the FF. They will eat both. It was a struggle as I have one cat who doesn't have FD and she wasn't going down without a fight. She relented yesterday so far.

I don't know how your vet will feel. I am in the process of switching vets because mine has gone against my wishes and not supported home testing, etc. Three days after my kitty came home he crashed from too much insulin (while on the DM).

Everyone here has helped me with the switch and supported me during down times and celebrated with the ups!

Every cat is different so you may have to try a can of this and a can of that so see what they like best. I also mix mine with a few tsp of water or low sodium broth/stock.

Welcome and Good Luck!

Tammie and Nudderbaby

 

Just wanted to let you know that the same thing happened to my cat when I changed from her regular senior dry food to PurinaDM canned food. It's normal for a cat to have diarrhea when you switch to another food. But there's one thing you could try though... Filter the rice (which can also cause diarrhea) with a a strainer or something like this. By removing the rice and give her some time to get used to her new food you'll probably get rid of that diarrhea problem.

If she starts vomiting though, you really should talk to your vet!

 

Our cat Chelby is not doing well on the DM canned food either -- he's had awful diarrhea since starting it. The vet has tested him for giardia and other parasites and everything came back negative, so I'm about to switch his food and see if that helps. Hope your Nicky is feeling better now.