Choosing a food for cat recovering from DKA

[Websterthecat]

Hi everyone.

As many of you know, my cat was recently diagnosed with diabetes.

The vet offered me a couple cans of Purina prescription food to try which are about to run out. He seems to like the Purina A/D (which I don't believe is low carb?)

I'm interested in getting him started on a low carb wet food that can be purchased at say Walmart for a reasonable price. I looked ove Dr. Pierson's list viewtopic.php?f=28&t=87391 and there are so many to choose from.

Given the fact that hes recovering from DKA, what foods on the list have you guys tried that is affordable and the cat actually enjoys eating? I know it's a personal preference but my mind is overloaded at this point and a few recommendations might point me in the right direction. I plan to pick up a can of a few different brands for him to try.

 

[BJM]

Re: Choosing a food for cat with FKD

The A/D is moderately high carb, but when you need the cat to eat something, it will keep the cat goin even with small amounts eaten.

Check out the food list at Feline CRF, a terrific resource for CRF cats.

 

[grapey]

Re: Choosing a food for cat with FKD

I'm totally new to kidney issues, but my two cents: I've had Lily on a concoction of half fancy feast pates, half Royal Canin renal canned food (can't remember the letters). It seems to be working OK for now.

My saga is that Lily was a well controlled diabetic for two and a half years before a nightmare of a time the past few weeks involving pancreatitis, kidney issues, and DKA. Her BGs have been all over the place, but things seem to be possibly settling down, even with the low protein/high carb kidney food.

 

[dirtybirdsoaps]

Re: Choosing a food for cat with FKD

Keep in mind when looking at the CRF food list it starts by lowest phosphorus not carbs.

Cats in the kitchen chicken frick a zee & fowl ball are good ones, as is Tiki cat Koolina Luau & Puka Puka Luau. I used to use those in the past for Hidey and he LOVED them.

Im currently feeding my cats Holistic Select the Chicken pate, the turkey pate, and the chicken and lamb pate.

I would read through some of the info on Tanyas site it can be very helpful. Do you know what stage your cat is at? I know Hidey is just showing signs of kidney disease. The rule of thumb with feeding a cat with kidney disease from what I've read is feed the lowest phos food your cat will EAT. It does no good to have a LOW phos food if your cat wont eat it lol.

Also if you havent already I would make sure to have a print out of all blood work done and keep track of it with future blood work to see if anything is rising.

 

[Anitafrnhamer]

Re: Choosing a food for cat with FKD

Have you joined the feline kidney boards yet? We also are dealing with chronic renal failure. I'm not sure what you mean by "recovering from FKD"; kidney disease is not something from which recovery can occur.

The reason you need to feed a food that is low in phosphorus is that with damaged kidneys they are not able to filter out the phosphorus. As phosphorus levels rise kidney damage is accelerated. This link will take you to a website that will explain CKD and everything you never wanted to know. There is also a food list giving the phosphorus levels.

http://www.felinecrf.org/phosphorus.htm

Anita and Squeaker

 

[Websterthecat]

Re: Choosing a food for cat with DKA

Have you joined the feline kidney boards yet? We also are dealing with chronic renal failure. I'm not sure what you mean by "recovering from FKD"; kidney disease is not something from which recovery can occur.

The reason you need to feed a food that is low in phosphorus is that with damaged kidneys they are not able to filter out the phosphorus. As phosphorus levels rise kidney damage is accelerated. This link will take you to a website that will explain CKD and everything you never wanted to know. There is also a food list giving the phosphorus levels.

http://www.felinecrf.org/phosphorus.htm

Anita and Squeaker

Thank you so much for posting this. I JUST realized that I was using the wrong abbreviation! I intended to say Diabetic Ketoacidosis (DKA). Sorry, I've very new at this and now feel like a complete idiot now! I'm glad that you posted this! Now... I have a lot of other foods to choose from!

Note: I changed the title of my post. Sorry for any confusion that this may have caused.

 

[BJM]

Well, if you pick both low carb and low phosphorus, you'll have the best of both worlds.

 

[Websterthecat]

Well, if you pick both low carb and low phosphorus, you'll have the best of both worlds.

This is actually exactly what I did (of course because I was mistaking FKD for DKA ). I went shopping today and picked the low carb, low phosphorus from Dr. Pierson's list because it mentions "FKD" cats should choose one "under 250 phosphorus". So far he seems to be eating the Friskies Special diet Turkey and Giblets dinner. I might end up sticking with it if he keeps on eating it.

Like you said, I can get the best of both worlds!

 

[Deb & Wink]

Yes, the Friskies Special Diet canned foods like the Beef and Chicken or the Turkey and Giblet flavors are good low carb choices for our diabetic kitties. My Wink loves these two flavors. Hope that Webster likes them too!

It's a bonus that they are also lower in phosphorus. Even though our diabetic kitties may not have kidney issues, we know that the kidneys must be under a bit of stress with all that excessive peeing. I figured it wouldn't hurt to get Wink to eat the Friskies Special Diet canned foods and give his kidneys a break.

 

[Websterthecat]

Yes, the Friskies Special Diet canned foods like the Beef and Chicken or the Turkey and Giblet flavors are good low carb choices for our diabetic kitties. My Wink loves these two flavors. Hope that Webster likes them too!

It's a bonus that they are also lower in phosphorus. Even though our diabetic kitties may not have kidney issues, we know that the kidneys must be under a bit of stress with all that excessive peeing. I figured it wouldn't hurt to get Wink to eat the Friskies Special Diet canned foods and give his kidneys a break.

So far, Friskies Special Diet turkey and giblets has been the winner. I'm putting out 2-3 different LC foods each day for him to try in addition to his old dry food. Hes nibbling on a little of each it seems like.

 

[Deb & Wink]

Oh Mike! Your comments take me back to memories of how difficult it was to get my Wink to eat wet food instead of dry. It took me weeks of experimenting to find out that his absolutely, hands down, favorite flavor was the Turkey and Giblets Fancy Feast. It took a lot of experimenting to reach that point. Along the way, I discovered that Wink HATED fishy flavors.

For a while after I weaned Wink off the dry food, so he was only eating canned food, there were probably 2-3 different flavor choices down for him at any time. I used a lot of Halo Liv-a-little freeze dried chicken treats crumbled over his food to get him to eat more than a bite or two. I called it my "Wink Smorgasboard"!

Once my stubborn, strong willed kitty was eating mostly canned food, we went "cold turkey" one day and totally stopped giving him any dry food. By that point, he was only getting about 1 tablespoon of dry food, but he did still want some dry. So, I was constantly crumbling more freeze dried chicken treats over his food, 3-4 times each meal, to get him to eat more. The Halo Liv-a-little treats were a godsend for us.

I was so afraid that one day Wink would simply refuse to eat the Turkey and Giblets flavor canned food, that I continued to tempt him with other flavors first and got him to eat a bit more variety. But, that took a month for his range of food flavors to expand beyond the Turkey and Giblets flavor. During that month, I was on pins and needles, since he was getting such good BG level readings with my kitty being off the dry food completely. It was a bit of a tense time for me but we made it through.

Hope sharing our story helps you and Webster.

With his history of DKA, it's so important to get him to eat enough. Keep up that "buffet style" of choices and Webster will likely get enough to eat.