Have to find new food

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Olive & Paula

Olive & Paula

Member Since 2015
I will update Smokey condo soon. Wanted to get this out.

At his visit today, vet said Ziwipeak was to high in fat for pancreatitis. He said the fat should be under 5% and fiber 2-3% as fed. Of course low carbs.

I am going to start looking at the food lists but hoping some of you can weigh in.
 
Also on that I'd ask the vet why on fiber. Because to me fiber implies a bit of carb.
 
Ferndoc said:
Also on that I'd ask the vet why on fiber. Because to me fiber implies a bit of carb.
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It was decided between vet and ER vet Smokey would benefit being on a Bupre maintenance dose every other day long term. More if needed. Since they say it's constipating, the little bit of fiber would help.

He is also going to be staying on metronidazole another 10 days then every other day long term.
 
Woodsywife said:
It was decided between vet and ER vet Smokey would benefit being on a Bupre maintenance dose every other day long term. More if needed. Since they say it's constipating, the little bit of fiber would help.
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Bupe is constipating. I can't give any to Saoirse at the moment because I'm trying to resolve her constipation issues (a worry because she still has some sensitivity on the right hand side of her face and I want to sort that out for her). I'd be very interested to hear more about the treatment plan your vet has recommended for Smokey; I'd like to run a similar idea by our vet. What weight is Smokey and what maintenance dose did the vet recommend?


Mogs
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Woodsywife said:
I will update Smokey condo soon. Wanted to get this out.

At his visit today, vet said Ziwipeak was to high in fat for pancreatitis. He said the fat should be under 5% and fiber 2-3% as fed. Of course low carbs.

I am going to start looking at the food lists but hoping some of you can weigh in.
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What did your vet mean by "5%"? Did he mean the as-fed value before it's broken down into % of calories? An as-fed number of 5 comes out to be around 45% of calories from fat, I believe. Fiber is not broken down into % of calories, but rather grams/100 kcal, so I'm confused on what he meant by that.

Low fat diets help some cats have less pain during a pancreatitis attack, but feeding a low fat diet full time has not been shown to have any benefit over a moderate fat diet. Any moderate fat diet (<50% of calories) should be ok to feed once the attack has resolved. Some cats with pancreatitis also seem to do better with novel proteins.

If Smokey is currently having a flare up, I would recommend the low fat Weruva flavors if he'll eat them--it's what I try to feed Bandit if he's having a flare up, but he pretty much has no appetite and we usually end up feeding Sheba pates or the lowest fat non-fish Fancy Feast flavors I can find while he's recovering because it's the only thing he'll eat (we almost had to do a feeding tube with him last time). We go back to the Weruva once he starts to eat normal again, and add Wellness Core back into the mix once he's completely recovered. So far we've only had one flare-up of Bandit's pancreatitis in the past 8 years or so (prior to his attack in 2015, his last bout was in 2007), but his vet warned us that they may get more frequent after this last, severe incident.
 
Critter Mom said:
Bupe is constipating. I can't give any to Saoirse at the moment because I'm trying to resolve her constipation issues (a worry because she still has some sensitivity on the right hand side of her face and I want to sort that out for her). I'd be very interested to hear more about the treatment plan your vet has recommended for Smokey; I'd like to run a similar idea by our vet. What weight is Smokey and what maintenance dose did the vet recommend?


Mogs
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I will PM you. I don't want anyone to think it's okay for them to copy. Give me a few minutes.
 
@Julia & Bandit

He said the fat should be under 5% as fed. He didn't do or say anything about calories. Best guess is he was talking before break down. Smokey is on novel protein Ziwipeak. I bought a can in with me, he looked at it. Of course it only has the minimum listed which is 9% fat. Fiber I'm not to concerned with at this point.

Although this is new for me, I think Smokey has had chronic p'titis for well over 10 years. He has always had stinky, vomits, bouts of diarrhea (but not since I had him) . Was never treated.
 
@Woodsywife , Ziwipeak flavors are in the 59-64% range for fat (percent of calories), which I wouldn't consider low, but it's not super high either. It's about the same as the Wellness Core (I feed Bandit about 60% Weruva and 40% Wellness). If he's not having a flare up for his pancreatitis right now, if you added a lower fat food in your rotation for about half the time, I don't think you'd have to fully stop feeding the Ziwipeak if he likes it. I would aim for a goal of less than 50% fat in his total diet, and if you can get it even lower it certainly wouldn't hurt anything. If you want to stick to your vet's recommendation for low fat (which I understand if you do!), pick out something less than 45% fat.

Both the Ziwipeak and Weruva are on Dr. Lisa's chart: http://catinfo.org/docs/FoodChartPublic9-22-12.pdf. Weruva is the only food I currently know of that has very low fat options for diabetics.
 
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Julia & Bandit said:
@Woodsywife , Ziwipeak flavors are in the 59-64% range for fat (percent of calories), which I wouldn't consider low, but it's not super high either. It's about the same as the Wellness Core (I feed Bandit about 60% Weruva and 40% Wellness). If he's not having a flare up for his pancreatitis right now, if you added a lower fat food in your rotation for about half the time, I don't think you'd have to fully stop feeding the Ziwipeak if he likes it. I would aim for a goal of less than 50% fat in his total diet, and if you can get it even lower it certainly wouldn't hurt anything.

Both the Ziwipeak and Weruva are on Dr. Lisa's chart: http://catinfo.org/docs/FoodChartPublic9-22-12.pdf. Weruva is the only food I currently know of that has very low fat options.
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He was dx on March 9 with it. I thinks it's still going on but not as bad. Thank you I will look into weruva. He loves the ziwipeak.
 
I just got some Nature's Variety Instinct Originals canned. They seem to have the highest fiber I have noticed at 3%. The chicken I ordered is 6.5% fat but you could take a look at the other flavors and see if something else could work for you. Also, it's a bit lower in fiber than what you are looking for but Stomper has recently been loving the Merrick Limited Ingredient Turkey pate. It is 5% fat but only about 1.4% fiber.

Good luck with it Paula!
 
Diabeticat said:
I just got some Nature's Variety Instinct Originals canned. They seem to have the highest fiber I have noticed at 3%. The chicken I ordered is 6.5% fat but you could take a look at the other flavors and see if something else could work for you. Also, it's a bit lower in fiber than what you are looking for but Stomper has recently been loving the Merrick Limited Ingredient Turkey pate. It is 5% fat but only about 1.4% fiber.

Good luck with it Paula!
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The Nature's Variety Instinct flavors are all pretty high in fat, though--65-70%. But like I said--some cats with chronic pancreatitis do ok with higher fat, while some need moderate fat.

Also--I forgot to mention this earlier--I wouldn't worry about the fiber count. First, the percentage he gave you doesn't really make sense since fiber isn't broken down to % of calories in an analysis. Cats with pancreatitis should be on a low fiber diet, and anything low carb canned will also be low fiber.
 
Diabeticat said:
I just got some Nature's Variety Instinct Originals canned. They seem to have the highest fiber I have noticed at 3%. The chicken I ordered is 6.5% fat but you could take a look at the other flavors and see if something else could work for you. Also, it's a bit lower in fiber than what you are looking for but Stomper has recently been loving the Merrick Limited Ingredient Turkey pate. It is 5% fat but only about 1.4% fiber.

Good luck with it Paula!
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I've tried Nature Variety, he won't eat it. I'm not to concerned with the fiber since I give pumpkin and miralax. The fat is the more important thing.
 
Julia & Bandit said:
The Nature's Variety Instinct flavors are all pretty high in fat, though--65-70%. But like I said--some cats with chronic pancreatitis do ok with higher fat, while some need moderate fat.

Also--I forgot to mention this earlier--I wouldn't worry about the fiber count. First, the percentage he gave you doesn't really make sense since fiber isn't broken down to % of calories in an analysis. Cats with pancreatitis should be on a low fiber diet, and anything low carb canned will also be low fiber.
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I'm not worried about the fiber. I like the idea of alternating. So I just need to find a good lower fat food.
 
Julia & Bandit said:
Cats with pancreatitis should be on a low fiber diet,
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Hi Julia,

What constitutes 'low fibre'? As you may know, Saoirse has chronic pancreatitis. I have to supplement her food with pumpkin to stop her getting constipated. How would this affect her pancreatitis? (The constipation has a highly adverse effect on her, BTW.)


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Tiki cat is very low fat (no fiber though). Might make a good mixer to bring down overall fat content. You could also look at raw. I just noticed Primal has added a venison to its freeze dried raw line.
 
@Critter Mom

If the pumpkin works well for your cat and you don't see adverse affects, I wouldn't worry about it. I also feed pumpkin to Bandit on occasion when he has runny poop issues.

There's really no right diet for pancreatitis, it's just a lot of trial and error. Low fiber works from some cats, and has no effect on others. The only universal guideline is that you want an easily digestible food IF your cat will eat it. This is from the IDEXX treatment guidelines:

Diet Selection
There are no studies to support dietary choices for cats with pancreatitis. Nutritional experts do not believe that high-fat foods are implicated in causing pancreatitis in cats. However, some internists avoid high-fat diets because they have anecdotally recognized an association. Liquid diets are required for use in nasogastric, nasoesophageal and jejunostomy tubes. Commercially available CliniCare® Canine/Feline Liquid Diet (Abbott Animal Health) is high in fat but commonly used. Human-formulated liquid diets are too low in protein to be used in cats. Low-residue, lowfat, easy-to-digest blended canned diets can be used in esophagostomy or gastrostomy tubes. Recommendations for feeding cats with pancreatitis are based upon opinion. Trial and error is often required to find a diet that works for a particular cat. One challenge is that cats with pancreatitis often have concurrent disease. A low-residue diet might be the diet of choice in a cat that only has pancreatitis, but if concurrent intestinal disease is present, then a novel protein diet might be a better choice. The caveat for owners is that the cat must eat. So if their cat won’t eat one of these special diets, they need to go back to whatever they were previously feeding.
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Julia & Bandit said:
There's really no right diet for pancreatitis, it's just a lot of trial and error.
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Ain't that the truth, Julia! One of the things I've found hardest to contend with emotionally since Saoirse was diagnosed was the effect of the errors on my beloved girl. :( It took me the best part of a year to find a food she could eat reliably. It's way too high in phosphorus so I had to start using a binder much earlier than might have been necessary after her early stage II kidney insufficiency Dx last year. I need to make sure she poops regularly because her life would not be worth living if she spent a lot of time constipated (no hyperbole here - it's a really big issue for her).

The passage you quoted from the IDEXX guidelines is a good one: it's 'real world', not textbook. That document has been invaluable to Saoirse and myself since I discovered it.


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