Food transition and dosing

Erin & Beauty

Erin & Beauty

Member
My vet sold me wet and dry Purina DM food, which Beauty has been eating for a few days and I want to transition her off of. She mostly licks up the gravy from the "savory selects" DM food, which I am sure is where all the carbs are. She is on day 4 of insulin, 1 unit, and I am going to use the SLGS protocol for dose increases.

I started feeding Fancy Feast pate for her evening meal today and I'm hoping she (and her little brother) will cooperate with getting off the kibbles quickly. Should I hold off on any dose increases or even doing a full glucose curve until then (assuming it happens in the next week or so)? How much of a transition period is there going from a relatively high carb diet to close to zero?
 
You're definitely on the right track! On the bright side, while DM is higher carb, it's not terribly so, like the majority of dry food. I would not do any increases and monitor closely while transitioning over.

Since I don't have experience with safely switching over (my vet told me switching food wouldn't affect BG - not true) I looked up to see if there was a solid game plan for transitioning and found this thread that may be useful to you:

https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB...wet-food-while-on-insulin-stop-insulin.94548/
 
When you are doing a food switch to a lower carb food, it's important to get some mid-cycle tests. You want to see how low your cat is dropping with the current dose of insulin.

A food change to a low carb food can drop the BG levels as much as 100 basis points overall.
So be careful, and please monitor your cat Beauty a bit more.

Even if you were not doing a food change, some mid-cycle tests are important. That is because our Prozinc dosing methods (protocols, guidelines) are based on those mid-cycle nadirs.

Here is the link for you, in case you haven't found it already. It's one of the "Sticky" or pinned posts at the top of this forum.
Sticky PROZINC DOSING METHODS
 
Thanks for the info. I will start doing some more mid-cycle tests - I’ve been doing the bare minimum thus far because of my own anxiety about getting the blood sample. I’m starting to feel like I’m doing OK at it but still dread it every time. Hopefully testing more frequently will help me get over it faster (not to mention it’ll be better for Beauty!)
 
It's very nerve-wracking at first but it'll become second nature very quickly! I dreaded testing at first - moreso because I was nervous, not because kitty made it stressful - but after a while it just became our "thing" we did together. :D
 
Sing a silly song to calm yourself while you are getting set up for testing, and during the test too. "Row row row your boat" is a good one. Talk to your cat and tell Beauty what a wonderful girl she is.

Deep breath, hold, release, deep breath, hold, release..............................................
You got this.
 
Deb & Wink said:
Sing a silly song to calm yourself while you are getting set up for testing, and during the test too. "Row row row your boat" is a good one. Talk to your cat and tell Beauty what a wonderful girl she is.

Deep breath, hold, release, deep breath, hold, release..............................................
You got this.
Click to expand...

I'm seeing green numbers for the first time and panicking a little. 84 at +4 and 81 at +4.5. I guess she has earned a dose reduction? Will be keeping an eye on her for the next few hours at least... She is eating on her own, so hoping that will be enough to keep her out of hypo land.
 
Those tree green BG numbers are nice to see. A little nerve wracking perhaps, since you are not used to numbers that low.
Erin & Beauty said:
I guess she has earned a dose reduction?
Click to expand...
Yes, any BG number <90 mg/dL earns a 0.25U dose reduction. per the SLGS Prozinc dosing protocol.
So definitely reduce the dose to 0.75U for the next 12 hour cycle.

Do you have your "hypo toolkit" on hand, just in case? Do you have plenty of test strips? and HC and MC foods and some simple sugar like honey or corn syrup?

I'm about ready to log off for the night. So please post in the Feline Health forum if you need help with low numbers.
 
Deb & Wink said:
Those tree green BG numbers are nice to see. A little nerve wracking perhaps, since you are not used to numbers that low.

Yes, any BG number <90 mg/dL earns a 0.25U dose reduction. per the SLGS Prozinc dosing protocol.
So definitely reduce the dose to 0.75U for the next 12 hour cycle.

Do you have your "hypo toolkit" on hand, just in case? Do you have plenty of test strips? and HC and MC foods and some simple sugar like honey or corn syrup?

I'm about ready to log off for the night. So please post in the Feline Health forum if you need help with low numbers.
Click to expand...

I do have my hypo toolkit. Thank you so much for your help!
 
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