Anyone still feed dry food? My vet said it's OK!

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LucyCat

LucyCat

Member Since 2013
My vet today told me to "watch out for what I read online" because their is no great advantage to taking away dry food from diabetic cats. He said that wet food does keep them hydrated which can be good for urinary tracts but that's about it. Someone already responded to me with Dr. Lisa A. Pierson's article about NO DRY FOOD...but my vet here is saying completely contradicting information.

I'm just curious if there are people here that have regulated cats that still eat dry food?

Thank you,
Becky
 
I'm sorry but your vet is wrong. All dry foods are higher in carbs than canned or raw foods. Even low carb dry foods will significantly raise the blood glucose levels. If you do find someone on here still feeding dry food, I would not be very surprised if their insulin dose is high also.
 
Sure dry food is ok if you want your cat to be on a high dose of insulin the rest of its life.

But if you want your cat to be one of the 81%of cats that achieve remission and not need insulin any more then you want a low carb canned.
 
My vet today told me to "watch out for what I read online" because their is no great advantage to taking away dry food from diabetic cats.
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The water content in the wet food is very important for diabetic cats. When their BG (blood glucose) levels are over renal threshold, 230-280, excess glucose is excreted in the urine. This sugar rich environment makes diabetic cats more prone to UTI's and kidney infection. It's another reason we recommend wet food as much as possible in a diabetic cats diet.

It's not just the quality of the dry food, but the carb content which will make a difference. There are a couple of dry foods that are lower carb than most of the dry foods available and might help a great deal with the BG control for a diabetic cat.

1. Natura/Innova Evo Cat & Kitten 8% carb but it has been hit by another recall.
2. Young Again Zero Carb, mail order only, expensive, some cats refuse to eat the different sized chunks, a couple of cats have achieved remission on this dry food. Manufacturer claims 0% carb but carb calculators indicate 5%
3. Nature's Variety Raw Instinct chicken 7%
4. Wellness Core Grain-Free Original Formula (tan gold bag)11%

Most dry foods are coated with animal digest and that is what cats love the taste of. There is a product called Fortiflora that you can buy to sprinkle on the canned food. Similar to the animal digest coating of the dry foods and cats love the taste.

Here is a list of some dry foods and their carb content. List has not been maintained or updated in several years,, since 2008, so you will not find some foods on this list. http://binkyspage.tripod.com/dryfood.html

There is also a way to calculate the carb content from the "as fed values" for a number of the ingredients. You have to get this from the manufacturers and they can be stubborn sometimes about giving the data out.

Your vet advised you that those dry foods you were feeding are fine. We have learned that dropping that carb content to under 10% can make a big difference in controlling the BG (blood glucose) numbers.

From your post over in Lantus Land:
LucyCat said:
Everything I have read and been told on here has pointed to the fact that dry food is bad for diabetics and should be taken away immediately. In an e-mail from today with my vet, he told me that there is no harm in giving diabetics dry food. This is exactly what he wrote:

Hi,
That's fine. Your nadir for her was 229 (lowest), which is close to our target range of 80-180 most of the day. So 2.5 units is fine, if not enough to end up the target range of 80-180, then go to 3 units. Looks like you will not need R insulin. Be careful on what you read /take from the internet. There is no great advantage of using wet verses dry foods in a diabetic. Wet food is about 70% water and thus is more expensive on a dry matter basis. It does help keep the urine more dilute and the cat a little more hydrated, but if you feed a good quality dry food like Iams or Science Diet, it really doesn't matter if it is dry or wet, unless Lucy eats the wet better ...
Dr"...

So, with that I'm tempted to continue with dry food since my VET, the one with a medical degree, is telling me it's fine.

Thoughts??

Thank you,
Becky
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The "good quality dry food" Iams that your vet recommended run 29% to 47% carbs and the Science Diet dry foods run 21% to 41% carbs.

I'm just curious if there are people here that have regulated cats that still eat dry food?
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My vet recommended those high carb dry foods for my foster cat Wink. He was unregulated for 4 months before I took him in to foster. He was transitioned from high carb dry to low carb wet. I got him not only regulated, but he is now OTJ, in remission for 3.5 months now. Still on low carb 3-6% canned cat food.

You don't know us. Yes, there is lots of suspect information on the internet. We have that day to day, 24/7 management experience with hundreds of cats that is simply not available to your vet. Suggestions are given and you as the caretaker need to decide if those ideas will work for you or if you want to try them.

I know you are receiving information from DCIN. Jennifer and Venita are both members here. Maybe you would like to PM them and get their opinion on the high carb vs low carb question.

ETA: Your vet has a target range of 80-180. We have a target range of 40-130. Those are normal non-diabetic cat BG levels.
 
My Vet also said it was okay to feed dry food as long as it was "quality" dry food. I told him about what I read on wet food being better. He said there are debates on weather it is or not. The Vet's website actually recommends dry food.
While talking I mentioned Young Again Zero Carb food. He said that companies were only making money off of such claims. There was no such thing as zero carb in cat food. I told him I knew it had some carbs but not like the regular dry foods. He told me cats need carbs and putting them on something like that was like a person going on the Atkins Diet. It was not good for either one. My goal at that time was just trying to get him to eat anything and then regulate on insulin.

So I was sent home with a bag of Purina DM dry food/wet food and the insulin. My cat ate the Purina DM dry one day and stopped. He never has ate wet food. Runs from it actually. If I had my time to go over I would have fed him wet food. I still trying to work it in with not very good results.

With that said, I have been feeding him Young Again Zero carb. He eats around 2 ozs a day of it and he is still eating 2ozs of Cat Chow. This of course is not ideal and my hope is that he will completely switch over to Young Again. He is not on insulin and his blood sugar is within range.

If your cat will eat wet food definitely feed it. You may need to get a second opinion from another Vet as I will be taking mine to another one.

Young Again stinks so be aware of that. My cat eats in the den and it stunk up the house. Of course I did not mind it smelling like a feed store if it would help him. The Wellness Core was actually to large of kibble and he could not chew it. Those are the two I tried. Hope this helps :)
 
Hmm. I must have a high tolerance of cat food odors. :lol: The canned seafoods are the only ones I think stink.

The owner of the Young Again Pet food company, Michael, is very friendly and chatty and loves to talk.
But you can avoid that by reading the process that they use to make the food on the website. And as expected, he has his own vet who has nothing but praise.

One vet opinion vs another vs another etc...

I think you will learn to trust your own instincts more if you hang out for a while....
read other condos....
learn all you can ....

We aren't getting paid to help. This is all volunteer by people with diabetic cats dealing with it on a day to day basis.
 
Got it. Lucy loves wet food so that's what we'll do. Since she is unregulated, I'm aiming for 2 - 5.5 oz cans of Friskies Classic Pate (7am, 12pm, 7pm, 11pm/before bed-half of a can at each feeding).

I'll keep the Iams dry food around in case of a hypo situation, as recommended.

I guess I truly am lucky to have found this message board because it is SO different than what my vet...and it sounds like TONS of other people's vets...have to say! I guess that's life though...I just had a baby, my first, and in working with many different nurses, doctors and lactation consultants, you hear a lot of differing views. You guys are right...I need to read around and use my instincts to find out what's up with my cat...ECID!! haha

I am super happy though with Lucy's current results...her BG is going down...and she just seems happier. She is around more to receive love, she is more curious about the baby and she doesn't seem to be urinating as much. (She had 2 UTIs before I switched her to this new vet). She hasn't peed on my bed since being on Lantus too!...knock on wood! :lol: She does still hide/sleep behind the couch a lot...I wish she didn't do that because it makes getting her for tests and shots super difficult. She currently hates both...hoping she gets used to it sooner rather than later. She's a high anxiety cat in the first place...

Becky
 
My vet also told me dry and canned were equal... but then he told me home testing was impossible, that the only way to get blood is to puncture my cat's neck, that my cat could only lose weight on his very expensive weight loss food (never on friskies!), and that my cat needed to be hospitalized for 3-4 days to do a blood glucose curve.

IMO, vets don't know that much about cat diabetes or nutrition, and they have financial incentives not to. IMO, vets run a business and if they can sell you a service or a product they will.

The folks on this board are fantastic and only care about keeping our fuzzies alive and as healthy as possible.
 
May I suggest you print this.
You never know when there might be a power failure or the website is down. It's good to print stuff you need to know just in case.

how to treat hypos

and here is the list of things to collect so you are prepared for an emergency.
hypo tool box



Congratulations on the new baby. party_cat

I remember many nurses giving different instructions on breastfeeding and new baby care. ( most of which wasn't so helpful)
That is such a perfect example.

We will help you find the right treats for Lucy. At first they hide from testing but when you find the right treat they associate it with rewards.
Mine purrs now when she hears my meter beep. She is a high stress girl too.
The only way I was able to give shots was either someone held her down ( which we avoided as much as we could) or she got her favorite thing in the whole world....
raw shrimp in her food .... 2 -3 of them chopped up small ( she has no teeth) and I would have to make sure everything was ready to go.
Test her bg. Put the food in front of her and shoot while she ate it.
 
I'll keep the Iams dry food around in case of a hypo situation, as recommended.
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The dry food will take a long time to raise the BG (blood glucose) numbers in a hypo situation. Dry takes longer to break down in the stomach and digest.

We recommend the gravy in a HC( high carb) wet food such as Fancy Feast gravy lovers. Squeeze it out of the can.
An alternative is a simply sugar such as karo syrup, honey, maple syrup, etc.
One or 2 drops of a simply sugar in a teaspoon or two of your regular LC (low carb) wet food will work much faster than the dry food to raise the numbers up.
 
In a pinch, you also can make a simple flour and water gravy, add a small amount of the low carb for flavor, and use that.
 
It's important to remember that vets are general practitioners, and the veterinary and human medical professions are quite different in that many vets simply don't have time to stay on top of current research, especially when it comes to a specialized disease for a specific animal, like Feline Diabetes. Many vets do not get separate education in Feline nutrition, or how diabetes affects cats differently than dogs. Since most vet schools are heavily funded by pet food manufacturers that want so sell as much dry food as possible (because it's cheaper to make), they run the pet nutrition seminars for vet students, and therefore there is a lot of incomplete or straight up misinformation. I have several friends who recently graduated vet school at Cornell, and they did not have a single nutrition seminar that was not run by Purina reps. And Hills is by far even worse about it. It would be like if McDonalds and Burger King ran all the human nutrition programs at medical schools, doctors started telling everyone that there is nothing unhealthy about fast food, and then prescribed special McDonalds and Burger King "diets" once people got sick (which of course, would continue to make people sicker). That's what happens with cats.

I do not like to recommend even the lower carb dry food for diabetics, because while it may be under 10% it carbs, it will have a higher glycemic index because of the way the food is manufactured (using starches as binding agents and being cooked at extremely high temperatures). We talk about carb counts here a lot with diabetics because usually low carb=low glycemic (this is the case with canned food), but that's not true with the dry. My Bandit can eat a low glycemic canned food at 8% carbs with no effect on his blood sugar, but if I give him a few pieces of EVO dry at 8% carbs his blood sugar will shoot up 100-200 points. ECID, and there are a few cats that will be able to handle the higher glycemic dry food, but if your cat will readily eat canned (which is better for her because of the moisture anyway), why risk it and create a bigger headache?

If convenience is the issue, there are lots of way to make canned food just as convenient as dry. I am incredibly busy, so I freeze portions and set my Auto feeder to feed Bandit when I'm not going to be home. I also feed him 4 times a day or more, because any less than that and he decides to get into trouble!

I would print out the following articles and share them with your vet! The correct nutrition is very important for cats (and most especially diabetics), and its important that this knowledge is shared so that your vet makes the right recommendations for future diabetics that might come into his practice. Him not knowing how bad dry food is for diabetics (and cats in general) is potentially harmful in the treatment of all cats at his practice. Not that I'm dissing your vet--like I said, vets must know a lot about a lot of diseases for many different animals. I've had to educate my vet more than once, and she has always been extremely grateful to have been brought current information that she was simply not aware of!

http://www.catinfo.org/docs/DrZoran.pdf

http://www.aahanet.org/PublicDocuments/AAHADiabetesGuidelines.pdf (see p. 218)
 

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In addition to the reasons above dry food and diabetes. I read Dr. Lisa's site (several times over the years) and the other problems about dry food and what it can do to cats is enough to make me not give it to mine. Forget the diabetes and carb issues, how about the urinary tract issues, the blockages and other painful (if you look at the pictures) and costly medical issues that can happen to cats when on a dry food diet.

For years, I used dry food and thought I was doing such a great job with my cats. Buying expensive, "high quality" food and refilling the bowl daily. My Jake died at a very young age and while I don't know for sure what caused the tumor, it is very possible that dry food had something to do with it.


If I could go back in time, instead of buying all that "high quality" dry food, I would have bought lots of canned and even raw food instead. But I thought canned food was a treat and given on occasion and I never heard of raw food before finding this group.

I know now and I can do better and ensure that my cats are getting the correct diet and what they need. Oh and if given the choice, my cats would choose dry paws down over wet!

Good thing I control the credit card!
 
Hillary & Maui said:
For years, I used dry food and thought I was doing such a great job with my cats. Buying expensive, "high quality" food and refilling the bowl daily. My Jake died at a very young age and while I don't know for sure what caused the tumor, it is very possible that dry food had something to do with it.

If I could go back in time, instead of buying all that "high quality" dry food, I would have bought lots of canned and even raw food instead. But I thought canned food was a treat and given on occasion and I never heard of raw food before finding this group.
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I did the exact same thing, Hillary. I often wonder if Gabby would have lived longer had she not ate dry food the first 13 years of her life (the dry diet caused her Kidney Disease), and I know certainly that Bandit would not have had the problems with obesity and diabetes that he had from eating "high quality" dry the first 6 years of his life. But I thought it was the right thing because Gabby's old Vet had told me dry food was healthier, and I trusted him. I didn't know that he had no scientific basis for his opinion, and was basing his recommendation off of the popular myth that dry food is better for cats' teeth. Bandit's old vet was one of the creators of Hills Science Diet, so I thought he was an expert in feline nutrition. The food he recommended (Science diet, of course) made Bandit obese, then switching to the weight loss formula caused horrible gastrointestinal problems, then triaditis, and finally diabetes. Had I not finally done research on my own, I am convinced Science Diet would have eventually killed Bandit.

The fact that Bandit is FAR healthier today at 12 years old (despite being a diabetic!) than he was eating Science Diet at 6 years old is a testament to the incredibly unhealthy nature of the food. When he was younger, he was constantly sick and at the vet with (nutrition related) problems for many years. I just thought he'd lost the genetic lottery, or something, and was just not a healthy cat. The diabetes was probably the best thing that could have happened to him because it finally forced me to do my own reading on the subject, instead of continuing to blindly follow my vets' recommendations. Since Bandit went into remission a few years ago, we have not had a SINGLE health issue. Not one! My current vet says he's healthier than a lot of younger cats at their practice, and she likes to use him as an example for other cat owners on why it is a good idea to give up dry food, and why it's imprortant pay attention to the nutritional content of cat food.

Ok. End of dry food rant. I swear. :-D
 
Adding my voice to this discussion too. My rescue cat Simon came to us 3 years ago from the shelter with a prescription diet Hills DD for skin irritation/issues. He had lesions all over his body from eating low quality dry food that they fed the other cats at the shelter (things like Meow mix etc) and so the vet "prescribed" the DD as a "single protein" dry food to help with the skin issues as they thought it was an allergy to one of the many proteins in the store bought dry food.

Simon's skin did clear up...a little. He did not have oozing sores anymore on the Hills, but, when he was diagnosed diabetic, we switched him to plain old Fancy Feast classics and guess what happened? His fur and coat and skin have NEVER looked better. He is not screaming at me to brush him constantly and he is on the way to being regulated. The Hills is high carb and bad for his skin. So, just my 2 cents, but even cheap grocery store canned food is better than the 23 bucks a 3 lb bag dry I was feeding him (so called high quality prescription) and for what its worth, my vet wanted Simon on dry Purina DM when he was diagnosed and/or Purina DM canned (which Simon hated) so I bucked his advice and am thrilled with the results.

Vets do mean well, but they make lots of money on the Hills etc and also they have been spoon fed the "high quality" BS too. Not true. Dr. Pierson's site really convinced me for sure that I am on the right track as has this community. Go wet..you will not regret it!
Best to you and your fur baby!
 
geekgirldany said:
...I have been feeding him Young Again Zero carb. He eats around 2 ozs a day of it and he is still eating 2ozs of Cat Chow. This of course is not ideal and my hope is that he will completely switch over to Young Again. He is not on insulin and his blood sugar is within range.

If your cat will eat wet food definitely feed it...Young Again stinks so be aware of that. My cat eats in the den and it stunk up the house.
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Whatever works for you and your cat is your choice :-D I hope you can get him switched over to the YAZC completely and I'm happy that he's got good BG levels. I agree that if a cat will eat wet food only to feed it (low carb) exclusively OR if your cat will tolerate some wet, you can supplement with the YAZC OR if your cat will eat only a dry mixture OR any other combination, so be it. As for the stinking? You're gonna find this funny---->> I just told my MiMi the other day that I thought it smelled so good that if I was really hungry, I'd eat a bowl of it :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
rhiannon and shadow said:
...I must have a high tolerance of cat food odors. :lol: The canned seafoods are the only ones I think stink.

The owner of the Young Again Pet food company, Michael, is very friendly and chatty and loves to talk.
But you can avoid that by reading the process that they use to make the food on the website....I think you will learn to trust your own instincts more if you hang out for a while....read other condos.... learn all you can ...
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Well is it just me? Or does the YAZC have a nice, meaty aroma? Maybe it is because I keep it in the freezer? And I agree on the canned seafoods stinkiness--gross! Of course, I don't eat fish of any type (and for the life of me could never eat it raw--gross x 100) and don't allow it in my house for human consumption :lol: Yes, I agree that Michael is a friendly, chatty fellow. When Gobbles went to see his vet a few months ago, the vet (who does not push DM or any other the other "prescription" type FD foods) was impressed with the YAZC brochure I gave him (which was sent to me from Jennifer at Young Again). He had no problem with it and said it looks like pretty good stuff, and that he was going to share the brochure with all the other vets in the office. And, when Gobbles initially seen him back in November (the first vet was fired--who did push DM on me so I found this new vet for Gobbles), he was the first person to tell me about and hand me Dr. Lisa's list and instructed me to give Gobbles wet food-only, that was under 8% carbs.
 
He told me cats need carbs and putting them on something like that was like a person going on the Atkins Diet.
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Dani,
I think your vet might have skipped the feline nutrition seminar. Cats are obligate carnivores. They actually have zero nutritional need or use for ANY carbohydrates. Their system is designed (unlike omnivores) to convert both proteins and fats into glucose to supply them with all the "energy" they need. People aren't carnivores, so yes, we require some carbs. Cats don't.
Tell him to Google it. :lol:
 
I think the first thing I'd ask any vet now that pushes a dry food regimen in any form is....How many diabetic cat patients of yours have gone into remission based on your recommendations? or What is your success rate in regulation based on your recommended diet?

Granted, remission is never a guarantee, but a vet, I believe, should have reasoning from his own experience in their recommendations.

Ask the "who, what, where, when, and why" questions...we give them our hard earned money and we trust them with our precious furbabys, so yea, we have a right to know.

When Poe was rushed to the emergency clinic with an asthma attack, they found he had diabetes. Immediately they wanted me to change his diet to that prescription Hills and Purina stuff. They had the prescription ready when I picked him up. But once I found out he had FD, I googled it and came across the amazing catinfo.org site. The next day, the dry I had went into the trash (he had not started insulin yet, and was already a partially wet food kitty). About 4 days later when I went to my vet, his BG had dropped significantly. My vet swears by the Lantus Protocols...either the tight or the more relaxed, and uses them herself as she has a diabetic cat.

I found these sites before I went to see her, and was already armed with information to discuss. Needless to say, our discussion was on the same page.

Your best defense is knowledge...and there is soooo much to be had here. Real experiences, living breathing FD people who have been in our shoes and have worked this and have the numbers and data to prove it.

Just my thoughts :-D
 
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