Re: 4/28/14 Max Good News PMPS 223+3=199
I'm sorry Elise.. I'm not trying to bum you out about his food, honestly. I am just having this funny thought that maybe Max's grunting noise is an acid reflux burp, kind'a like the one Rocky has. :lol:
I believe that Rocky may have a peptic ulcer in his stomach, or ulcers in his throat, from eating so much junk food high in carbs and phosphorus before I took control of his care. Apparently you can tell if there is an ulcer from an x-ray and sonograms of the stomach. I would really like to have this done for Rocky but I just don't have the money to do it. I think I will do it though, when I can. In the meantime I could give him like 1/2 pepcid about 1/2hr or longer before the start of his 4 (mini-meals) in his AM and PM cycle, which would at least reduce the stomach acid. And, I am going to begin rotating Rocky's food so that he gets some of the low phosphorus foods as well. The other thing I would like to do, if he has an ulcer, is to give him the Sulcrafate because it will coat his stomach to help it heal. One thing I know for sure is that SOMETHING is giving Rocky acid reflux and it most likely IS causing his stomach lining some problems.
I was feeding Rocky the NV for the past 5 months but have recently begun feeding him the Artemis Turkey Formula. I also switch it once in awhile between that and the FF Classic Chicken. I'm not certain but Artemis may have changed their 'Turkey' food because they no longer call it 'Turkey and Giblet' but instead call it 'Turkey Formula.' The Artemis Turkey on Dr. P's list has phosphorus as 409, so I think it is kind of high too. I was trying to avoid the fish added to the so-called "chicken' and "turkey" foods and Artemis has no fish in their recipes. I do still use the NV Venison 0% carb canned when Rocky is in red or black numbers at AMPS or PMPS time. So, this morning I did feed him the canned venison.
That link I posted for Dr. P is different than the one she created for FD. This list has the lowest phosphorus canned foods listed first on the list, and then the phosphorus values get greater and greater as you go down the list. It also has the "as fed" carbs on it so you can use it for the FD too.
Rocky didn't like and wouldn't eat the Nature's Valley Instinct Canned Venison for me either. But, I played a trick on him. ;-) One of my vets, a DVM as well as trained in cat nutrition and acupuncture, told me that *IF* a person just had to feed their cat fish for some reason, that sardines FOR HUMANS (not cat food) would be OK. She said you could give a cat (1) sardine a day from a can packed in spring water with nothing else added to it. So, I took 1/4 of a sardine and hand fed it to Rocky first to see if he even liked it or would it eat. Lucky me, he DID like the sardine and did eat it. So, then I crumbled 1/4 of a sardine on top of the 1/4 can of the NVIV, and Rocky ate it all!!! :shock: :lol: I did this for every meal for about two weeks, and then I slowly, slowly started tapering off the amount of sardine I would put on top of the venison until there was nothing on top of it at all. Guess what? HE STILL ATE THE VENISON!
You might buy one package of sardines in spring water and see if Max like them. It might be a trick that you can play on Max too, to try to get him used to eating foods that are lower in phosphorus. I don't believe that the sardine has any significant amount of carbs to it.