OTC vs perscription foods

Piper's vet called today and lectured me on not forcing Piper to eat the DM he sent us home with. I told him she didn't want it. And that after assist feeding Piper for 2 months, she is finally eating on her own and she needs a break from getting a syringe thrown at her every 6 hours. So, now he wants her to try MD, which seems to be a weight loss food as well as diabetic. That makes me nervous because once Piper fell into fatty liver and became jaundice, it took her two months to gain back her two pounds. I went out today armed with my list of low carb foods and Piper is happily ate fancy feast classic chicken and liver. He told me there is likely no chance for Piper to go into remission on OTC food. Is this true?

He is knowledge. he saved my cat's life after another vet refused to believe Piper had pancreatitis since November told me it was okay that Piper was only eating 60s calories a day. However, because of her first vet, I am very mistrusting of vets. I am not really sure what to believe anymore.

Jessica and Piper

 

The vast majority of cats that go into remission here do so on OTC low carb canned food, or home made or OTC low carb raw foods. Veterinary foods aren't that high quality, they have a lot of liver in them, and are high priced. Save your money for the insulin and testing supplies.

 

Point your vet to, or print out a copy of, Cat Info by Veterinarian Lisa Pierson.

Maybe he can be educated.

 

My vet was initially encouraging me to feed Gabby prescription food. We had a discussion wherein I pointed out that I could buy a human grade food (e.g., Wellness, EVO) that was lower in carbs and did not contain animal by-products for less money than the prescription food. Since the point of feeding a cat a "diabetic" food is to make sure your cat is on a low carb diet, you can select from a variety of commercial foods that are well below 10% carbs (what we consider "low carb" here). I should also point out that the Hill's M/D is not low in carbs. It's a medium carb food and is 14% carb. The Purina DM is 3% carb. I feed both of my cats (one is diabetic and one isn't) Wellness and it's 4% carb. Hopefully, once your vet appreciates that you understand the basics of nutrition and that a diabetic doesn't require carbs, he'll back off.

BJ provided the link to Dr. Lisa Pierson's excellent website on feline nutrition. This is a link to her food charts.

 

My Wink went OTJ on the OTC Fancy Feast pates and Friskies pates. Before that, the vets had him on high carb prescription food and his numbers were usually in the 300 + range.

So yes, cats can and do go OTJ, become diet controlled, on the over the counter commercial cat foods. You just need to pick the right ones, under 10% carbs for the best chance.

 

Bandit has been in remission for nearly 4 years now, and he's never eaten prescription food. I was very lucky when he was diagnosed--my vet handed me a list of low carb, canned OTC foods in different price ranges and told me to purchase one I could afford and he liked. He went into remission eating the Fancy Feast "classic" flavors. I've since switched his food to Wellness, Weruva, and Sheba Pates to just give him a better variety, but the pate style Fancy Feast are perfectly fine to feed.

One way to possibly drive this home for your vet is to bring in a can of the Fancy Feast and compare the labels with a can of Purina DM (the only prescription food that is ok for diabetics). If you look at the ingredients and the protein/carb/fat values on Dr. Pierson's charts at catinfo.org, you'll see that the two formulas ( both using the same quality ingredients, as it's the same company) are nearly identical.

Ask your vet to tell you specifically what ingredients the DM has that makes it better for a diabetic cat than the Fancy Feast.

And as Sienne mentioned, the Hills prescription is actually not good for diabetic cats, as it's too high in carbs and contains corn starch and cellulose (wood pulp).