er the
chewy.com website listing for Purina DM canned, 1.78% carbs as fed, 7.27% carbs on a dry matter basis. (No full 'as fed' nutritional analysis available on the site with which to calculate the % calories from carbs.)
I actually spoke to a vet in charge of the Purina foods company (I wanted answers and took my quest right to the top of the food chain) about the DM as well as the Fancy Feast foods about carb content and what it actually means and just exactly was the carb count in their foods. You all probably know all of what I'm about to say. He said you have to go by the dry matter, not the as fed. I personally don't get that even after he explained it many times as it only seems more logical that "as fed" means exactly what's in the can you feed your cat. Nope, logic doesn't come into play here. Evidently it's the dry matter that we are supposed to account for when looking for foods and the analysis isn't listed in full on many of these cat foods making it impossible to calculate carbs. Purina had the data for me, but it's a shame you have to actually call to get this info. FF turkey, which we had tried her on right before the DM contains 3.9% carbs to 53% protein and the DM 7.14% carbs to 56.9% protein. He did all the research into it because of my need to know exactly what the carb content was as I told him how confusing these labels are and how we simply have to be guaranteed of the content. He was most helpful and actually spent 20 minutes on the phone with me explaining how carbs/dry matter/as fed works. It's dry matter that we go by and often times all the data isn't listed making it impossible to calculate. If anyone needs more info, call the Purina vet line. They've also updated the food analysis data so I got the latest, most accurate numbers direct from the horses mouth.
I think I see the problem here...you keep mentioning 'the vet'.... I'm sorry to have to say this but it's becoming more apparent to me by the minute that your vet doesn't know anything about FD.
It's mind boggling to me how all the vets I've spoken to admit they know just enough to scrape by when it comes to FD. Well, all but that one vet I NEVER want to see again and dismissed in Olive's care. She thought she knew it all and berated us for not wanting to go on the DM and wanting to keep Olive on the raw diet she'd been on. I've learned more from you guys then I have them. Being new to FD the fear factor has been overwhelming. On one hand you are supposed to be able to trust your vet, but when they don't appear to know much it's quite unsettling. This is why my vet handed Olive's case over to the vet I dismissed, because she thought the other vet would know more. Afterwards, I went back to my original vet for whatever help they could offer. I do have an appointment set up with our old holistic vet on the 25th. We used to take our KD kitty to her and Sophie thrived under her care. So we thought she could help us with Olive. Although, I've come to learn she has only a few FD kitties under her care so now I'm not sure what to do. Hubby thinks we should cancel that appointment. I like the fact she's holistic, as we've always been, so hoping she can suggest a diet that will give Olive the fat and calories she needs so we can get her off the DM. I do know the garbage that's in DM and admittedly in FF as well. No offense, anyone. But if it's not holistic, I'm not a fan. I believe animals should eat what nature intended. That's another reason we're glad Olive is still at the 75% DM/25% Raw ratio. at least a quarter of her diet is still raw food and the food we wished she could remain on. It has virtually no carbs. That's our goal for her in the future, to return to raw food, but right now the raw isn't putting the weight back on her and that's what she needs most right now.
Try to get to the store and get some Fancy Feast gravy style foods. If you need more info on which foods have more carbs take a look at the food chart here
https://catinfo.org/chart/index.php
Thank you! For the time being we are doing whatever we have to do whether we like the ingredients or not.
Good for you for shooting.
I see a 214 at +1. That's a good bump up. Make sure you don't overfeed her, just in case she needs to eat a little bit more later.
Thank you! Boy, oh boy was that ever scary. So far so good. We're at +4 and she's 269. You said not to feed her too much just incase. How much is too much? I wish we could go longer periods of time between her feeding. Because we are trying to get weight on her and because we can't get her to eat more than 3 tsp (4 if we are lucky) in her at any given time, topped by the fact she's always been a grazer, we have to feed her every few hours just to attempt to get enough calories in her in 24 hours. We aren't there yet, although she's beginning to show some promise. I can't reduce her food amounts or frequency at this time, unfortunately. Wish we could. Her tummy wouldn't take but a tsp or 2 at the beginning as larger amounts made her sick and we had to feed on the hour so she would be able to hold it all down, and she was still losing weight because we couldn't get enough in her daily. Now she's eating every two hours and a good 3 tsp each time. Even though it's not an ideal plan, it is effective, and a step in the right direction, and I'd rather see her try and get some weight back on and worry about amounts and frequency later. She's definitely made progress though. Baby steps. I'm currently trying to get her to eat 4 tsp in one sitting but it's more miss than hit at this point. Only she knows what her tummy can handle and she's been steadily improving. Olive hasn't exactly been the most cooperative kitty since this began, but she sure is a trooper when it comes to BG testing. Often times she just lays there without even lifting her head. Good girl!
I think I'll call it a night, unless Olive drops by her AMPS, but right now I'm rather surprised quite frankly by her levels staying so level when I thought for sure she was going to dip low and maybe even hypo tonight. I don't want to jinx anything, but at this moment I'm glad I at least tried shooting when she was below 200...and she was 154 PMPS! To you guys her numbers are still too high, but after we've been dealing with BG not only in the black but off the meter's ability to read it any longer, these numbers and the fact they are staying so steady is like a miracle to me. I will continue to monitor closely tonight just for my own peace of mind because I did shoot at 154. If anything goes wrong I'll be back on here. If not, you can find Olive's BG updated in her SS up until I go to bed. I will get some sleep between tests. If you don't see any updates in her SS you'll know all is well until morning when I can get it all entered in. Night everyone!
