New Member- Switching from dry food to low carb wet

[cab]

Hello,
As the parent of a newly diagnosed kitty(Maggie), I am now trying to figure out how to get my baby well.
I'm looking for suggestions on transitioning her to a low carb wet food from her dry. She's been on Purina One Dry-Tender Selects.
My vet gave me Purina DM dry and wet. I am now at a 75 old/25 new of the two dry. I think I will try the wet tonight.

But making the transition is complicated by my fear that she might get an upset stomach and stop eating; Have a relapse of what I experienced in December.

Around Dec. 12 she stopped eating; blood work fine, x-rays normal. Referred to internal med specialist- and since they couldn't find anything obvious, gave her metronidazole, assuming bacterial overgrowth. It helped, and she started eating, but not back to previous levels. So I took her back last week, they re-ran blood work, and now -Diabetes.
Though I don't know what caused(ing) the digestive problem, I gave her some new food- Purina True Nature a couple days before she loss her appetite, and I wonder if there's a connection. Though she is only on Purina One Dry now, I did, before the Dec. incident , give her a mix of wet - Purina Pro Plan Focus Adult 11+ and the Purina One dry. But I noticed with the Purina Focus, she had a smelly backside odor, which went away when I stopped giving it to her, and makes me think it didn't agree with her.

I mention this just to share why I'm hesitant about switching diet. I know it's important and I want to get there. And I know consistency is important in trying to get her regulated. But any ideas of how I might approach this is welcome.
She's on Lantus, and I am giving her 1.0u (though my vet wanted 2.0u he said we can start at 1.0) . And I just learned how to home test, and hope to get up the nerve to do my first one tomorrow morning.
Thank you so much; I'm finding such good information here, and am so glad to have found you!
Cecily

 

[Sienne and Gabby (GA)]

Welcome to FDMB, Cicily. We're glad you found us, too!

Congratulations on getting Maggie's spreadsheet linked to your signature. Please let us know if you need help getting started with home testing. I'm delighted that you realize how important being able to test at home is. This is a post that has links to information on home testing long with links to videos.

I'm also linking a post on helping us to help you. It has some of the basic information that can be helpful when getting started. In particular, it will provide information to include in your signature so we don't keep asking you the same questions repeatedly.

Before you make any changes to Maggie's food, I'd suggest you get started and become comfortable with home testing. The dry Purina food is high in carbohydrates. If you make a switch to a lower carb food, it can have a dramatic effect on Maggie's Blood glucose (BG) numbers. If you're not testing, you'd have no way to know if her numbers are dropping into a very low range.

There's really no way to know if when you changed Maggie's food if you had a bad batch of food or if what she was eating didn't agree with her. It may have simply been the type of protein -- my diabetec kitty couldn't eat beef. You're smart to want to make a slow transition since some cats are very sensitive to a change in their diet. Just an FYI. The DM is really not "prescription" food. The ingredients are, frankly, suboptimal from a quality standpoint. You want to be feeding Maggie a low carb canned food diet that is less than 10% carbohydrate. You might find this website on feline nutrition that's written by a vet, helpful. This is the link to the food chart on the site. It lists out the nutritional components, including carbs, for most of the canned cat food in the US. For what you are spending on the DM, you can buy a much higher quality food. Many of the people here feed their cats Fancy Feast pate style food.

 

[cab]

Hi, thanks for replying. I did try DM wet food tonight about 2 tsp, and she seemed to like it; is the wet version ok? But I do plan to look at others too. And I plan to start the testing. I had heard about the change in diet effecting BG...which makes me so nervous.
Thanks so much

 

[Chris & China (GA)]

I did try DM wet food tonight about 2 tsp, and she seemed to like it; is the wet version ok?

The pate style DM is low carb, but most cats get tired of it quickly and there's absolutely nothing special in it that treats diabetes. You're paying a premium price for food with inferior quality ingredients and a well known name.

The "Selects" and the kibble are too high.

The only good thing about DM is it's 100% guaranteed and can be returned for a refund. Most of us just told our vet that our cat refused to eat it anymore to avoid any conflict.

 

[cab]

Ok. thanks so much- I appreciate it!