Dry food questions (UK)

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Tom & Monty

Tom & Monty

Member Since 2020
Hey all.

Yesterday my cat almost had a hypo but we prevented it with monitoring and high carb snacks.

My cat is in the middle of a pancreatitis episode and I'm struggling to get him to eat. He will eat the high carb dry food I have however and I'd rather he eats that than nothing at all until he's over this episode. He's currently taking cerenia and pain meds. I'm searching for dry food online now that he can have in the short term that has lower carbs.

I have a question and quite possibly a concern with a particular brand of dry food that's marketing itself as diabetic appropriate.

https://www.scrumbles.co.uk/diabetic-cat-food/

Looking at the nutritional info on their dry food it looks like ~30% carbs and the ingredients contain 20% rice! This sounds entirely inappropriate, I'm not missing something right?
 
It's this claim specifically in concerned about:

"Scrumbles Dry Cat Food is great for diabetic prevention and treatment for cats due to its high meat content 75% and low level of carbohydrates, crucial for your cat to stay happy and healthy"
 
Well all I can say is Scrumbles talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk. 30% carbs is not low carb by any stretch of the imagination. They are twisting the truth.
That being said, if all your cat will eat while he has the pancreatic flare is dry food, then let him eat it. It is really important he eats food otherwise he will end up with other problems.
Offer the low carb wet but if he refuses, let him eat the dry.
 
I'm not sure where they're getting the 75% meat information. If you go to the nutritional analysis of the food, it's 34% protein. (It's likely that 75% of the protein content is chicken but it's misleading.) You might want to put something in your subject line about foods in the UK. I could recommend one or two dry foods in the US but I don't know what's available in the UK.

This is information on pancreatitis that you may find helpful. A couple of thoughts... If Monty appears to still be nauseous even with the Cerenia, you may want to talk to your vet about adding ondansetron to his meds. They are both anti-nausea medications but work differently. They can be safely taken together. If Monty still isn't eating, you could ask your vet about a prescription for an appetite stimulant (typically either mirtazepine or cyproheptadine).

With the drop in numbers yesterday, you were correct to reduce Monty's dose. I'm not sure I would have reduced it quite as much. Generally, you want to reduce by 0.25u. If you're worried because Monty isn't eating well, maybe reducing by 0.5u would be indicated. I'd also suggest that you test for ketones. You can get urine test strips (Ketostix) at any pharmacy. This is purely preventative. If there's an infection or inflammation, such as pancreatitis, your cat isn't eating well, and you're adjusting insulin, it could be a set up for ketones developing. Ketones can be life threatening. They occur is there's an infection/inflammation, your kitty isn't getting enough calories, and there's not enough insulin on board. Testing will let you know if they are developing.
 
Thanks for the advise, I'll get some ketone strips.

The dose reduction is on the advice of my vet. Her opinion is to drop to a half dose and test to work up to an appropriate dose rather than step down. She's worried about riding the hypo line and would prefer not to.

Monty only recently switched from caninsulin to Lantus (6 days ago).
 
EDIT - wrong thread!

PMPS 9.2, as per vet's advice skipping shot.

This is a surprising number given I only injected 1.25 this morning and he's been on high carb food today. I'll monitor closely tomorrow.
 
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In general, I would agree with your vet. It's easier on the nerves to start at a lower dose and increase than start high and be terrified that your cat will become hypoglycemic.

Just an FYI, for new members, we suggest posting an asking for help if you get a lower than expected pre0shot number. There are alternatives to skipping the shot.
  • don't feed your cat and stall. Wait about 20 min and re-test. If the numbers are appreciably higher, it's fine to shoot. If they haven't really changed, repeat the process. If your schedule permits, you can stall for up to 2 hrs but keep in mind that the next shot will be due in 12 hrs. Stalling can mess with your schedule.
  • Shoot a one time reduced dose.
  • or skip
A member can walk you through the process. Ultimately, you will want to start to shoot progressively lower numbers. I'd encourage you to post on the Lantus board. The members there are intimately familiar with how Lantus works and can offer great advice.

Also, most of us are in the US. We struggle with metric. I had to multiply out your numbers -- it's easer if you post the numbers in US format!!
 
Thanks :)

I accidentally posted this on the wrong thread. I'm not going to stall since he's struggling to eat at the moment due to pancreatitis and I can't guarantee he'll get a full meal.
 
Scrumbles never did reply to my e-mail challenging their claims in their advertising copy. Today I was going to look into reporting them to the UK advertising regulators and I visited the page to get a screenshot of the probematic copy, but they've changed it! The copy no longer directly claims that it is "great for diabetic prevention and treatment" but now claims "
Scrumbles Dry Cat Food has a high meat content 75% and low level of carbohydrates, crucial for your cat to stay happy and healthy!".

OK, less problematic. However it's moved from giving bad advise to misleading consumers. ~30% carbs is not that I'd call "low". I don't want less informed diabetic cat owners to unwittingly make bad decisions about what to feed their cats and I've emailed them again explaining this. They didn't reply to my first email even though they ended up changing the copy so I'm doubtful they will reply. At this rate I may just have to report them to the regulators.
 
bcat said:
Scrumbles never did reply to my e-mail challenging their claims in their advertising copy. Today I was going to look into reporting them to the UK advertising regulators and I visited the page to get a screenshot of the probematic copy, but they've changed it! The copy no longer directly claims that it is "great for diabetic prevention and treatment" but now claims "
Scrumbles Dry Cat Food has a high meat content 75% and low level of carbohydrates, crucial for your cat to stay happy and healthy!".

OK, less problematic. However it's moved from giving bad advise to misleading consumers. ~30% carbs is not that I'd call "low". I don't want less informed diabetic cat owners to unwittingly make bad decisions about what to feed their cats and I've emailed them again explaining this. They didn't reply to my first email even though they ended up changing the copy so I'm doubtful they will reply. At this rate I may just have to report them to the regulators.
Click to expand...
You can be sure there were others that wrote them to "challenge" their advertising. GOOD ON YOU for doing that!
j
 
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