New member with a dietary quandary

[chowaniec]

Hi all, I just joined. Our girl Lil' B is 9 years old and was diagnosed with diabetes last June when she had a bout of pancreatitis. She just had another flare-up last month, and I'm afraid she's getting worse, not better. That brings me to everybody's favorite subject: food.

After this most recent pancreatitis attack, our vet recommended that we get Lil' B on a low-fat diet, but most low-fat foods seem to be higher in carbs, which contradicts a lot of the conventional wisdom around the diet for diabetes (high protein, low carb wet food). To make matters more complicated, when we tried* a wet diet after her diagnosis, she had horrendously loose stools, which is a nasty problem because she refuses to poop in her litter box**. She seems to do better on a high-fiber diet, which again tends to have more carbs.

We've got her on Hill's W/D kibble right now, but I'm bracing myself to switch back to canned, which begs the question: what the heck do I feed this cat? Is kibble - even the prescription stuff - really that detrimental?

*We tried this for 6-8 weeks. Between her harassing us for food at 4 AM, cleaning up loose stools every morning and her not finishing her expensive food, we eventually switched back to kibble for our sanity.

**This has been an issue for the past 3-4 years. We've tried lots of things to no success. She urinates in it fine, but she seems to prefer to poop in random places around our apartment. (Thank god we don't have carpet.)

 

[Larry and Kitties]

From what I have read, the fat content of food does not related to pancreatitis in cats. For dogs on the other had the fat content is very related.

 

[Wendy&Neko]

There is some info about food in this post: A Primer On Pancreatitis As Larry said, fat content is a dog pancreatitis thing.

W/D kibble is already a high carb food. That should give you quite a bit of lee way to try a food similar in carbs but lower fat if you wanted to try it. Have you read the ingredients in W/D?

Brewers Rice, Corn Gluten Meal, Chicken Meal, Wheat Gluten, Powdered Cellulose, Chicken, Whole Grain Corn, Whole Grain Wheat, Pork Flavor, Pork Fat, Lactic Acid, Chicken Liver Flavor, Potassium Chloride, Choline Chloride, Soybean Oil, L-Lysine, Iodized Salt, Calcium Sulfate, DL-Methionine, L-Threonine, vitamins (Vitamin E Supplement, L-Ascorbyl-2-Polyphosphate (source of Vitamin C), Niacin Supplement, Thiamine Mononitrate, Vitamin A Supplement, Calcium Pantothenate, Riboflavin Supplement, Biotin, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Folic Acid, Vitamin D3 Supplement), Taurine, minerals (Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Oxide, Copper Sulfate, Manganous Oxide, Calcium Iodate, Sodium Selenite), L-Carnitine, Mixed Tocopherols for freshness, Natural Flavors, Beta-Carotene

The muscle meat, chicken, is 6th in the list, after cellulose which is otherwise known as sawdust.

If you need to give dry food, there are lower carb options.

 

[FrostD]

My cat had/has chylothorax, we did a low fat diet for that. My vet just said aim for lower fat than he was eating at the time, ideally by at least 10%. I tried to keep it under 20% fat, I used the Tiki Cat Luau series. There are a few others like Soulistic and I think some Nulo ones. Otherwise, you'd be looking at a raw/homemade diet.

This is a pretty good list: https://felinecrf.org/canned_food_usa.htm