vet tells me to feed dry food?

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Misty&Bast

Misty&Bast

Member Since 2012
Both my cats have been fed dry food for years. They really don't like wet- only the gravy. My vet says to just switch to the science diet wd formula (my diabetic cat is not fat he is skin & bones) and don;t worry the regular cat can eat it too....

everything i read here says that is wrong. I am really broke and the 500+ vet bill already is killing me- but I love my kitty. The science diet is 16.00 for 4 pounds! That is 4-5xs what i was paying for the indoor dry cat food.

Is all the food that expensive? Should I be switching to wet? are there coupons?

I just sent for the kit and the kitty will be home in 3 days. I am overwelmed and stressed out.
Misty and the sugarkitty Bast
 
Find a new vet that knows about feline diabetes and hopefully nutrition. W/D is so old school and high in carbs and is used for weight reduction in obese cats. Fancy Feast Classics, Friskies.......any canned food is much better than the most expensive dry out there. Dry food is bad for even a non-diabetic cat.

What insulin is your kitty on? What is the dose? Why is your cat still at the vet? As for being skin and bones, that can happen with an untreated diabetic cat till insulin is started and the food and insulin start to work together and help the kitty feel better and gain weight back. Hometesting is the main thing you need to learn to do along with going to canned food. If your vet has already started insulin, please do not change food from dry to wet till you can home test. At the top of the page to the right is the button for FAQ's.
 
Hello there Misty and Bast! Don't forget to breathe. It is overwhelming at first but you learn about it and get used to it.

You don't need to feed your cats prescription food- it is way too expensive and the ingredients are not any better than you can find at the store. Just take it back toe the vet and say your cats refused to eat it. Dry cat food is basically a dry cake that they have to eat day in and day out- full of air and not the best in ingredients.

The best food for diabetics (and all cats, really) is wet food that is low in carbs. Fancy Feast, Whiskas, 9-lives, Walmarts special kitty- all of these are cheaper and better for the cats. We say feed them the best food you can afford to (Sneakers has gotten all of these and loves them). Sometimes you can get coupons and others just look for sales and stock up on them when they can.

If your cats need help transitioning there is great information at catinfo.org but the main jist is to start feeding a little canned with the dry and decrease the dry while you increase the canned. It could take 1 week or it could take over a month, depending on how stubborn they are (and they can be stubborn :lol: )
 
Dry W/D is about the worst food you can feed a diabetic cat. It's nearly 40% carbs, and cats need less than 10% carbs in their food. It would be like feeding a diabetic human ice cream and potato chips every meal. Here is a fantastic chart that lists the carb content of many commercial foods--just pick one under 10% (but preferably under 8%) carbs that is affordable and your cat will eat. Canned foods with gravy are high in carbs and not good for diabetics. Here's a great link to help you get him on a low carb, canned diet: http://catinfo.org/#Transitioning_Dry_Food_Addicts_to_Canned_Food_

However, DO NOT change the food until you are home testing and lowering his dose of insulin. Dry food inflates blood sugar levels by nearly 100-300 points, so insulin needs are much smaller on a low carb diet. About 25% of cats even go into spontaneous remission and no longer need insulin, so blindly shooting too much insulin into your cat when changing the diet can cause a deadly hypoglycemic incident.

Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like your vet is current in his knowledge of how to treat feline diabetes, so you have the choice of either educating your vet or finding a new vet. If he has you feeding the wrong diet, is charging you to test your cat at his office, and most likely on the wrong insulin (Lantus, Levemir, and Prozinc are the insulins suitable for cats, NOT Humulin N (NPH), then I would not take any more treatment advice from that vet until he reads current materials. Check out the articles posted for another newbie in this thread: http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=81272, and I would print them out and give them to your vet.

Vet testing is completely unreliable and a waste of money, because stress inflates blood sugar values in cats. The only way to safely give insulin to a cat (just like a person) is to test daily at home. AND it's far cheaper than vet testing.

There is a wealth of knowledge on these boards, so don't be discouraged. We can help guide you to get him on the right treatment plan, and the large majority of cats on the right treatment plan go into remission and no longer need insulin.
 
Hello and welcome to you (from someone in a very, very, VERY rainy England!)

We all understand that it's stressful when you start out on this feline diabetes journey, because every one of us here has been where you are right now. Really. We have worried, we have stessed, we have cried. But we've all found - and so will you - that once you get the hang of things, this whole diabetes malarky does get a whole lot easier. And 'getting the hang of things' doesn't actually take very long.

You've had some really good advice here. Think it through, mull it over. Ask any questions you want to. We'll be here for you. :smile:
 
Lee and I are still early on the road to recovery and I know the beginning of the journey is not easy. Your kitty needs you to be the best advocate you can and to be educated. I got a lot of help from everyone here and read the entire site and all of the links to the other info sites, especially Dr. Lisa's www.catinfo.com.
My vet told me to feed the super expensive dry food as well and like an idiot I paid for it in more ways than one.
Now understand, I used to work for a vet and I know why they recommend the foods so conveniently located in the lobby....because they make a profit from it! Not because it is any better for your pet than Special Kitty at the Walmart. They make pure profit on it so of course they are going to push it. My kitty did not get miraculously better eating the expensive vet recommended brand, his numbers went up and up and the vet started talking about hospitalization, glucose curves and IV meds and being out of work I was pictuing having the friend I had raised from a bottle baby put to sleep because I could no longer care for him in his increasing illness.
What saved my poor old man was plain old cheap cans of wet food. He is happy, frisky, off the juice for 2 months now and for all intents and purposes a normal cat. I still test him every few days but his numbers have remained in the normal range and I will ccontinue to monitor him now that I know what to look for. Educate yourself and save your kitty, you have the power and a great support group here to rely on!
 
Tinabetta- that is a truly excellent and very inspiring post that you've written. Lovely stuff.... :thumbup

PS. If you want to edit your post to alter the catinfo address you can do it by clicking on the 'edit' bubble at the top right hand side of your post. :smile:
 
Bast is at the vet because he had an invefection. They were suppossed to bring him down to normal counts so I could take him home but now say he would not eat lat nite and he has ketosisi and an urinary infection. Now they want another 265.00 for more tests and days. (toatal colase to 900.00 now) I can;t do this. I am on food stamps and this is all my emergency credit card money.

He also said they will want him back in 2 weeks to do a curve- I thought they were doing that now.
I don't know what to do.
 
Try contacting Diabetic Cats In Need: http://felinediabetes.com/FDMB/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=29083 They may be able to help you with the vet bills. You can also apply for financial help from one of these places: http://www.felinediabetes.com/vetbills.htm

If your cat has ketones, then the best place for him to be is at the vet's office getting treatment. Diabetic ketoacidosis is not something you can or should treat at home, though there have been a few cases here on FDMB where a person treated it at home with lots of subq fluids and constant monitoring.

When your cat has recovered and is at home, you can save money on his diabetic costs. Here is the Frugal Feline Diabetes page: http://binkyspage.tripod.com/frugal.html There are many ways to save money and members here can offer you tips on what supplies you can save money on, the best places to buy supplies from, etc.
 
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