Newbie. Cat doesn't tolerate canned food

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First of all I'd like to thank all of you for the wealth of information provded on this site. My cat, Bee Bop, was diagnosed with diabetes mellitus yesterday and I was on this website until 2:30 this morning. I was able to get a glucose monitor today and finally got a sample after 6 tries (he did great but I felt terrible). His BG was down to 369 today after being a stress induced 545 at the vet yestday. He is not on insulin yet because the vet has to order it. I tried a tablespoon of one of the store brand foods today, but he vomited all of it. He did not gorge himself while eating it. He has been on kibble all his life (9 years) and would vomit maybe once every 2-3 weeks. We thought was an upset stomach or hairball issues. Occasionaly he would get a piece of lunchmeat that had fallen and he would vomit that in less than 15 minutes (I thought due to the nitrates or something). I briefly read something bout Dr Lisa's raw chicken diet, but are there other alternatives? Again, Thanks so much for your help.

Lance
The Insiders- Bee Bop,Scarlett & Smudge
The Outsiders- Charlie, Calvin & Hobbes
 
There are many kinds, flavors of acceptable canned food .... with one cat I put dollops of wet food in his dry and I eventually had more wet than dry and you slowly take the dry out. It can take some time but it is worth it. You can also boil chicken, cut it up and sprinkle over some wet food. There are many links on how to do it.
It is only limited by your imagination.

Welcome and congratulations on testing at home, that is one of the hardest steps. Keep reading and asking questions, and you'll do fine.
Nancy and Payne
 
Just wanted to say hello and welcome. I'm sure you're already figuring out that you've come to the best place for help with your diabetic cat. I knew next to nothing at first and was overwhelmed and stressed. This forum and following the great advice/protocol really helped me turn Max's health around. It's great that you're already home testing. Knowing your cat's glucose numbers will help you treat him. Changing the diet to low carb wet food can really make a difference, especially if your cat has been eating a higher carb dry food (like my cat). Max wasn't making much progress at first, but then I found this forum, changed his diet, and started home testing. His health really turned around after that, especially with the diet change. Before the diabetes, Max only ate his dry pellets and loved them. He would even turn his nose up at treats and go only for the pellets. I wasn't sure if I could even get him to eat wet food at all, but, with a few tricks (tuna juice on top), I was able to switch him over to the wet and he eats it happily now (Fancy Feast Classic but there are a lot of low carb flavors). If at all possible, I would give the diet change a try. It really made a huge difference for Max. Like Nancy suggested, you could mix the dry and wet together and try a gentle transition if Bee Bop has a sensitive stomach. Oh and with practice the testing gets easier for you both. My hands would shake in the beginning, but it's much easier now.
 
Another thing that can help is a probiotic called FortiFlora.

Fortiflora per Dr Lisa
"Try a product called FortiFlora. Most cats LOVE FortiFlora and this has recently become my favorite trick. This is a probiotic made by Purina but you are not going to use it for its probiotic properties. You are just going to use it as a flavor enhancer. The base ingredient in FortiFlora is animal digest - the very substance that makes dry food so very enticing to cats. The directions say to use 1 package/day - and you can use this much if you want to - but this amount is not usually necessary. You may only need ~1/4 of a package - or less - with part mixed into the food and part sprinkled on top of the food just as you would use salt and pepper on your own food."

You can get it on line or through your vet. Some people have gotten it through the PetSmart vets.

Dr. Lisa (a FD vet) has an excellent website that gives great transitioning tips: www.catinfo.org
 
what flavor/ variety did you feed? I know that many cats lack the ability to properly digest beef. Willie pukes like crazy anytime I feed him an all beef food.
 
I had to teach Maui how to eat canned food. She was a dry food kitty and never had any interest in canned food. After the diagnosis and learning about food, I was determined that she and the others would all eat canned food whether they liked it or not.

I used my finger and a small baby size spoon to spoon feed her for weeks. It was a messy process, but one day she licked the spoon on her own and I knew I (well she won).

It could be the flavor/brand you used didn't make his tummy happy. Maui has IB issues so I kept to one brand and flavor for her.

I now also make homemade raw food, which she eats in addition to the canned food. You could purchase raw food to try, you may find it's easier on his system than canned and then if that is successful make your own.
 
Thank you for all of your great advice. Its 45 miles to the nearest PetsMart, so I had given him Special Kitty chicken and gravy (the selection at our Wally World was minimal) figuring it was the least invasive. He liked it but it didn't like him. I boiled some chicken today and he seems to be doing ok with it. I'm going to try and combine chicken and minimal amounts of dry food (for the nutrients) for a while to see how it goes. I figure I'll eventually make the raw chicken diet if it goes well. Thanks again for your time and concern.
 
It's possible that the gravy had something in it that wasn't agreeable. I haven't looked at the chart for carb count, but the gravy ones are typically higher in carbs.

My Max has issues with variable carb counts in his food, and it became particularly so once he neared going OTJ. He was quite a puker before the FD diagnosis, and in hindsight, it was probably the dry food that was making him puke, that led us to prednisone, which caused the FD. Once I stopped feeding all sorts of flavors of canned food and narrowed it down to two that have 7% carbs (before we ranged from 5% to 10%), he stopped puking. We've also seen virtually no hairballs, which has been a little shocking. Every now and then they need a smear of hairball treatment (I do use a sugar-free one), but for the most part, they just don't have them anymore. And I just feed Friskies (Liver & chicken dinner or Turkey & Giblets), so nothing too fancy or expensive. I've been able to find those two flavors at most grocery stores and Target, which is why I ended up settling with those--if I can find it more places, then I don't have to worry so much about finding it when I don't have time to go to Petsmart to stock up.

Keep trying different foods/flavors in small amounts. Try to stick to non-gravy (pate style usually is lower in carbs), and poultry flavors (chicken, turkey). If those are tolerated alright, then you could try some fish or beef flavors if you like. Once you have a food he tolerates, then you'll know right away when he doesn't tolerate something that it was because of a different flavor/mixture.

Good luck!
 
Start slowly when switching food - cats tend to vomit when you do it all at once. Aim for 20% change per day and by the end of the week, he'll be switched.

Check Binkys Page for some food listings and aim for no more than 10% of calories from carbohydrates.

3 in said:
...the selection at our Wally World was minimal...
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WalMart will order other varieties of Special Kitty for you if you ask the manager of that section. Mine eat Special Kitty Meaty Turkey and Giblets Dinner which is put down twice a day when the diabetic is getting his shot. I chose that one because it had a more even balance between the protein and fat, plus about 5% calories from carbohydrates. Two older overweight cats have lost 2-3 lbs after the switch to all canned food for the household.
 
3 in said:
Thank you for all of your great advice. Its 45 miles to the nearest PetsMart, so I had given him Special Kitty chicken and gravy (the selection at our Wally World was minimal) figuring it was the least invasive. He liked it but it didn't like him. I boiled some chicken today and he seems to be doing ok with it. I'm going to try and combine chicken and minimal amounts of dry food (for the nutrients) for a while to see how it goes. I figure I'll eventually make the raw chicken diet if it goes well. Thanks again for your time and concern.
Click to expand...

It could have been the kind of food...foods with gravy have gluten and Bandit cannot tolerate the gluten or the carbs (he vomits gravy foods). Try Special Kitty Turkey & Giblets, or Walmart also sells many of the Fancy Feast Classic flavors which are all low in carbs: http://www.felinediabetes.com/glutenfree.htm

If your cat will eat people food like chicken, you shouldn't have too hard a time transitioning him. Just go slow, and switch the diet over gradually.
 
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