I'm a Believer

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KittyMom777

KittyMom777

Member Since 2014
No, I'm not going to break into song for you oldies out there that remember the Monkees (or is that The Beach Boys lol). I cut out Silver's dry food last night and check out his pre shot number. Vast difference to yesterday.

Mel, I have taken up your suggestion and dropped back to 1u am and pm. If you see from nov 1st when he was in the pink at pre shot he dropped very rapidly and I don't want that happening while I'm at work.

Why does my vet say that Purina DM dry food is good for him if in fact it's not? Surely it's not all about the $$ for them???
 
Well it's kinda a two fold answer. First when they're still in school nutrition for all the various species might be covered in a few days and then normally diet is covered by pet food company reps. So vets get the same party line that we all had about dry food being a complete and balanced diet.

Then when they graduate and start their careers those same pet food reps hype their foods as a way to put extra change in the vet's pocket with kick backs for selling their product.

Mel and The Fur Gang
 
My vet has been pushing canned food on me since I adopted Cedric in 2006. since I work so much, I didn't feel comfortable giving him only canned, so he got both. He got up to 18 lbs, used Blue Buffalo's weight mgmt. (which made him gain not lose, same thing happened to a friend's cat). he became diabetic and I switched all of his food and slowly the gang here beat it in to me that dry was bad. I forgot to give Cedric his 1/4 cup of dry (grain free, low carb, etc) one day and his numbers dropped. that was a Thursday and he got his last insulin shot Saturday nite (this was back in May 2011). I guess it was the straw that broke the camel's back.

While Cedric is gone, Dallas has continued on the FD canned food diet. In comes the new kitten who needs kitten food and has a BM issue. Ace eats about 1/8 cup of dry kitten food at night, but Dallas has started to crave the dry. Sigh...

Just wanted you to hear my story, since my vet seems to be the opposite when it comes to pushing dry food.
 
Now for the rest of the story as Paul Harvey use to say...

Maxwell before I adopted him was basically a shelter cat after hurricane Katrina (round age 5) so I suppose being fed cheap dry food, then he finally gets adopted by an elderly lady after another 3 years as a shelter cat, and I'm sure she was also feeding him cheap dry food, although since the reason besides the diabetes he was surrendered was because she had dementia and was going into a nursing home. Well I agreed to take him, but he was in Boston at the time and he needed to be transported out to Nebraska but it was also October and winter was just around the corner. So he was pulled and placed in a foster home for not quite two weeks, while there he was started on Lantus and his diet was changed over to canned. Then he was put on a plane and flown out to me. The first night home I skipped shooting so I could start him back on my schedule in the morning, which I did, that night he was too low to shoot, the next morning he was up again but not really where I wanted him to be to shoot a full dose, so I halved it and shot a .5 (he was started on 1u bid). That was the last shot he ever got and just last week he celebrated 4 years insulin free.

Diet plays a HUGE role in managing this disease. Not only what they eat, when and how much at any given time. It really is a balancing act and every cat makes you balance it all differently. It would be lovely if it was a simple formula of if your cat weighs this, eats this and at these times then you give this much insulin, but it just isn't. Now after having 5 of my own and multiple fosters and shelter cats that I have treated for diabetes, I can tell you I have seen several that were all about the same size and eating the exact same thing and everyone of them danced the sugar dance differently. It is what makes this dance so freaking frustrating at times. No wonder vet's often just get it plain wrong. They are so use to mathematical formulas for other drugs that they forget that not everything works off mathematics. Plus they just have a thanklessly hard job to do and are still very human. If they don't happen to see a lot of feline diabetics but say do see a lot of pediatric spays and neuters they are more likely to spend what scant amount of time they have to keep themselves up to date on things relating to those pediatric spays and neuters. What many don't think about or don't realize is that vet's unlike human doctors have no support staff at night. If you have a human loved one that is hospitalized your human doctor can just make his hospital rounds each day to check in on his patient at the hospital. If its a vet that needs to hospitalize an animal then either he or one of his techs is going back to the office several times after office hours to monitor that patient. They are in the office, all hours of the night and on weekends caring for those under hospital care. They don't have the luxury of taking the evenings and weekends to brush up on new tricks of the trade.

This was just recently really driven home to me when we moved houses as I am now literally a block and a half from my vet's clinic, and the path I take 3 times a day to walk my dog takes me past their clinic. While I knew that they do have to come back after office hours to feed and water and just do routine check ins on the animals I didn't realize how much time someone was still there late into the night until seeing it for myself while taking the dog for his walks. It is actually kind of amazing that they do what they do, and still have a life of their own outside of the clinic.

Mel and The Fur Gang
 
Way to go, Silver! Big improvement. :thumbup

KittyMom777 said:
No, I'm not going to break into song for you oldies out there ...
Click to expand...

That brought back fond memories of being a nipper singing and dancing around our dark brown Bakelite tranny - happy days... :smile: The Monkees did the original (written by Neil Diamond IIRC :? ). I like this version, too (apologies to purists).

I've posted some stuff about feeding wet vs dry diets on your Treats and Feeding thread in Health. Hope it's helpful to you. :smile:
 
Critter Mom said:
Way to go, Silver! Big improvement. :thumbup

KittyMom777 said:
No, I'm not going to break into song for you oldies out there ...
Click to expand...

That brought back fond memories of being a nipper singing and dancing around our dark brown Bakelite tranny - happy days... :smile: The Monkees did the original (written by Neil Diamond IIRC :? ). I like [urlhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJs9M9eaqIk]this version[/url], too (apologies to purists):

I've posted some stuff about feeding wet vs dry diets on your Treats and Feeding thread in Health. Hope it's helpful to you. :smile:
Click to expand...

Lol - I will check out those song links later.

Thx for the posting wet re dry - popping over to take a look. His numbers were down considerably this morning.
Juliet
 
That's great Juliet! I pray remission is right around the corner for Silver.

I just saw your post that Silver wasn't himself and had diarrhea on Sunday. What was wrong? Sounds like he's feeling better. So glad.

I'm going to check out his SS now.

Wow! Big difference! I wish I could get Hank on wet food. :YMSIGH: I've tried but still no luck.

Take care,
Kimmie
 
Kimmied said:
That's great Juliet! I pray remission is right around the corner for Silver.

I just saw your post that Silver wasn't himself and had diarrhea on Sunday. What was wrong? Sounds like he's feeling better. So glad.

I'm going to check out his SS now.

Wow! Big difference! I wish I could get Hank on wet food. :YMSIGH: I've tried but still no luck.

Take care,
Kimmie
Click to expand...

I dunno what was wrong with him. The diarrhea stopped as soon as I stopped the antibiotics which I'm not convinced he needed. He perked up and has been find since.

I think we're a long ways off from remission though. Only been on insulin 4 weeks and I think the vet had dosing all wrong. Following Mel's advice and so far so good. I swear this group is saving my kitty - and my sanity. I was so stressed at at my wits end before I found the forum.
 
I don't know, I've heard some amazing OTJ stories since I came to the forum. Some off after 2 weeks, 2 months, 1 year, 6 years, you just never know.

I still think, right around the corner for Silver. :smile:

Kimmie
 
Kimmied said:
I don't know, I've heard some amazing OTJ stories since I came to the forum. Some off after 2 weeks, 2 months, 1 year, 6 years, you just never know.

I still think, right around the corner for Silver.

Kimmie
Click to expand...

That would be nice
 
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