Prescription wet food benefits?

[chloeh33]

Hi everyone! I am new here, and my cat’s name is Kitty! She was diagnosed with diabetes on December 14th of last year. After informing myself on what I can do to help my girl with more than just insulin shots, I decided to switch her to an all-canned-food diet. On January 17th of this year, her glucose was low enough that we stopped giving her insulin shots. I just got an update of her glucose today after about seven weeks of no insulin, and she was at 277. The vet that was in-house is not the vet I usually see, and he prescribed me Purina Pro Plan food for diabetic cats. After reading into it, I feel like giving her this wet food is not going to be any more or less helpful for Kitty. I can’t find the calories per can, let alone the protein/carb/fat breakdown for this food, and I don’t know what is different about it that will make my cat better. Does anyone have any experience with this type of food? Any reason why I should absolutely feed it to her? Any advice is appreciated. Thank you!!

 

[Idjit's mom]

Hi and welcome to FDMB. I'm glad you found us so that we can help you work on effective diabetic treatment for Kitty. She's a sweetie! A low carb wet diet is one of the three basic components of an effective treatment, with insulin therapy and home blood sugar testing. Not all canned food is low carb. HERE is a food chart and you can look up the Purina Pro Plan diabetic canned food.
If you have to purchase this through the vet, it's going to be much more expensive than other canned foods that are low carb, nutritious and more affordable.
Many of us use Fancy Feast classics and Friskies pates. You can look those up on the food chart and see the carbs and calories. There are other varieties that some members use also, the Tiki Cat and Weruva brands come to mind.
Edit: we recommend carbs below 10%, the lower the better. Please visit www.catinfo.org for feline nutrition information. The website is authored by Dr. Lisa Pierson, who compiled the food chart. Dr Pierson recommends " start with protein minimum of 40, fat maximum of 50, carb max of 10, and for cats with kidney issues....phos less than 300."

Home testing is going to save you money at the vet also. You will not have to take Kitty in, possibly have her stressed from the ride and the visit, and you will know real time if her BG is going up, down or staying within normal non-diabetic range. Kitty may need additional insulin therapy, and testing before injections is very important. My cat is in remission, and I test him every month just to be sure he's staying there.
We can help you learn to test, choose supplies and offer suggestions along the way.

 

[Kaylie]

When my cat was first diagnosed I was also told to feed him a type of food that was sold at the vet's office. I have had much better success with Fancy Feast classic in the chicken flavor. I also really like Tiki Cat (they have great ingredients and are low carb) but my cat was not feeling it. I wouldn't go out of your way to buy a special food from the vet unless it's a necessity and even then I'd still do your own research and read on here. This forum is full of amazing people with loads of experience. The food chart linked above is a great place to get information about lots of different food choices.

 

[chloeh33]

This is already all such amazing information!! My original vet already has me using catinfo.org as my reference, and I’ve loved looking at that food chart! I have been feeding Kitty Fancy Feast pate, as it doesn’t upset her tummy and has a few flavor choices that keep her interested in eating.

Thank you so much for you advice and help. I’m so glad to have found this forum. I believe my next step is being able to check my cat’s glucose at home!

 

[Idjit's mom]

This is already all such amazing information!! My original vet already has me using catinfo.org as my reference, and I’ve loved looking at that food chart! I have been feeding Kitty Fancy Feast pate, as it doesn’t upset her tummy and has a few flavor choices that keep her interested in eating.

Thank you so much for you advice and help. I’m so glad to have found this forum. I believe my next step is being able to check my cat’s glucose at home!

I'm glad you have already found catinfo.org. Isn't it an amazing resource? Yes, testing Kitty's BG at home is the best way to tell what's happening. Take a look at the FAQs forum http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/forums/health-links-faqs-about-feline-diabetes.14/, in particular: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/hometesting-links-and-tips.287/
One of our members, JanetNJ has an excellent video in her signature of her testing her cat CC .
Would you create a signature so that Kitty's info is available with each of your posts?
(light grey text under a post). Here's how:
click on your name in the upper right corner of this page
click on "signature" in the menu that drops down
type the following in the box that opens: kitty's name/age/date of diabetes diagnosis/insulin you're using and dosage amount /glucose meter you're using/what (s)he eats/any other meds or health issues (s)he has. You can add your name, and a geographic location (sometimes the time zone matters)
We also use a spreadsheet here to record insulin and BG data, that way members can see it and review before offering advice. You can look at the spreadsheets in the signatures of other members to get an idea of how it works. Mine is not a good example, so please don't judge by that. We didn't get good advice from our vet, and before we got straightened out, Idjit just slid into remission, much to our surprise!