Going to begin transition to canned food. Need help, Any tips?

Hello everyone,

Jax has been doing amazing lately with his BG numbers. He has been eating Dr. Elsey’s clean protein rabbit and chicken dry kibble for two weeks. The last 7 days he has been eating 100% Dr. Elsey’s. The week before that was transitioning from Purina DM dry food.
He has had bad diarrhea ever since switching to a low carb diet. Weeks now. And he can’t seem to help stepping in his stool and tracking it all over the house. It has been very stressful for us both. I was told that low carb high protein (dry) diet can cause this. So I knew that. I was just trying to get his numbers somewhat under control. But now I am out of options and going to try and transition him to Fancy Feast classic Pate. I just have no clean how to begin that process. He is a dry kibble free fed addict. So I know I need to get him into some kind of a schedule. I just need a gentle push in the correct direction on how to get this transition started, as well as what flavors are best for diabetics. I HAVE to get his diarrhea under control. It his slowly deteriorating my mental health as well as my actual house is taking a beating from all the mess.
Any kind of help with guidelines on how to begin this process would be very appreciated. Google and YouTube just have too many different things that everyone does and it is stressful trying to figure out what to do.
Thank you!!

 

First, the diarrhea. There is a specific probiotic that is nothing less than wonderful with controlling diarrhea. It's called S. boulardii. Jarrow's has a brand as does ReNew but there are likely other manufacturers. This is a link to information on controlling diarrhea from an IBD website. (Personally, I think this stuff is magic!)

With any diet transition, what is important is to make it a slow process. If it were me, I'd keep Jax on the Dr. Elseys and see if the S. boulardii gets the diarrhea under control. Once the diarrhea is better, start a slow transition. This may mean a teaspoon or two of canned food at a time.

Is the flavor of the Dr. Elsey's different than what you had been feeding Jax? I'm wondering if he has food sensitivities and if a novel protein may also help. I do think that it would be best to make changes one step at a time so you know what is having an effect. There are a couple of things to be attentive to. Gabby would have the runs if she ate anything with gluten. High carb food that you may use to steer Jax's numbers generally has gluten in it. I would use either corn syrup or honey to manage Gabby's blood glucose level if she dropped low. She had the same reaction to anything with beef. Some cats are sensitive to gums (e.g., guar gum) or carrageenan. These are fillers that are in some foods and can cause GI upset.

There's no preferred flavor of food for a diabetic cat. The only time the variety of food is important is if your cat has a food sensitivity. Beef and poultry are common food sensitivities/allergies for cats.

 

Thank you for such a fast response. I forgot to mention I’ve been sprinkling Purina FortiFlora on his food for the past couple of weeks with not much luck.
But knowing now there is another option that you have mention I can going to look into that and purchase some and give that a try in hopes it helps. I feel so bad for him and I know he’s been so gassy along with the diarrhea. Thank you for that recommendation and for that link. I will hop on that asap.


The only part that is different with the flavor is the rabbit. He’s always eaten chicken flavor regardless of the brand. I chose the rabbit and chicken based off of reviews. And to the best of my knowledge Jax does not have any food allergies or sensitivities. He’s also never been tested for those either.


And that is good to know about the Beef and Poultry.
I know it probably seems like I am rushing this. I was just desperate to get the diarrhea under control. I’m sure it hasn’t been fun for him as it hasn’t been fun for me.
Thank you again for getting back to me so quickly. I’m going to shop for that probiotic you have mentioned right away.

 

FWIW, FortiFlora is not a great probiotic. It's not bad as a means of enticing your cat to eat but as a probiotic, it's sorely lacking. With a general probiotic, you look to see the different types and number of strains in the product. There are other probiotics that are far better for gut health. I swear by S. boulardii and I have a cat with IBD. There are times when a quick fix was hugely important. (It also works for humans.)

 

I believe that 100% since it hadn’t changed anything with this issue. I’m glad I posted and thank you again.
I believe I found what you mentioned on Amazon. It says Jarrow Formulas, Saccharomyces Boulardii probiotics + MOS 5 billion CFU. And they are capsules. Is that what you recommended? If so I’m definitely having that delivered over night so I can get him started on it.

 

Yup. That's the one! Read over the instructions on the IBD page. I didn't have that resource when I started out. I added about 1/4 - 1/3 of a capsule to my cat's food. If, after a day or two, the diarrhea wasn't controlled, I added more.

 

Perfect! Just ordered it. I saw those instructions on there. I definitely already saved/bookmarked that page.
Thank you so so much again. Paws crossed that this works!

 

For when you get started again on the transition, see this post:

• Transitioning your cat from dry to wet food

It's found in the Health Links Forum, INDEX: Health Links/FAQs page. A good Sticky Note to browse to learn all sorts of things.

I too have an IBD kitty (not diabetic), though she tends to vomits. There are no tests for allergies. Fish/seafood is also a common allergen. If you stick to one protein for a while and it works, then add a second protein and see if it works. Take a look at the protein(s) that were in the original food he ate and his tummy was fine with.

 

Thank you for that link! That is extremely helpful. I tried looking for threads on that using the search feature on here but I was unsuccessful on finding anything good. Still learning to navigate this forum.
Thank you again!