? Wet-Low Carb food BELIEVER--how many vets support this?

[Nicki & Marcus]

So far, I'm 2 for 2 with vets telling me that my diabetic cat should be on DRY PRESCRIPTION FOOD because it's better for his teeth, or because wet or dry would not make much difference with his diabetes.
Everything about feeding a wet food, low carb diet that I have read in the research makes sense to me. I quietly choose to disagree with both vets, and my Marcus is on his wet diet.

Is this common? I thought that vets would have had access to the research and would be pushing for people to put their cats on a low-carb, wet food diet. How widespread is it that they continue to push the dry? What do your vets say in regards to food choice for diabetic cats?

 

[Bron and Sheba (GA)]

Vets receive very little education on cat nutrition and the education they get is provided by the big cat food manufacturers who manufacture the prescription diet foods.
It is very common for vets to recommend dry high carb prescription diets to cats. Also they recommend the wet prescription diets, most of which are high carb too.

Some vets do recommend low carb food but most don’t seem to.

 

[Patty & Teal'c]

Mine wanted me to keep him on the 36g nutro indoor dry I was feeding him

 

[jt and trouble (GA)]

Not my Vet. I sent her to this site to do some reading. At our next appointment she told me thank you and that she has NO problem with me following the protocol at FDMB! I KNOW! I got VERY LUCKY. LOL she use to take my log booklet (this was in the days before spread sheets) and go through the vet office showing it to the other Vets! FDMB saved my little Trouble.
Good luck with your Vet. I hope they are as open for you, as mine was for me.

 

[Juls and Billy]

My vet recommended the low card wet diet, but then the vet techs tried to make us feed high carb dry prescription, and scolded us for not doing it. Many vets, like many human doctors, are not nutritionists. It's shocking how many human docs don't seem to understand the connection between nutrition and health.

 

[Deb & Wink]

Your thread title says it all. "Wet-Low Carb food BELIEVER--how many vets support this."

Is this common? I thought that vets would have had access to the research and would be pushing for people to put their cats on a low-carb, wet food diet. How widespread is it that they continue to push the dry? What do your vets say in regards to food choice for diabetic cats?

Sadly, not enough. Not many vets even follow the (2018) AAHA Diabetes Management Guidelines for Dogs and Cats which recommends a wet food diet and home testing and the better insulins for cats, still prescribing Vetsulin/Caninsulin (or NPH insulins) for cats when it's NOT recommended. Or they prescribe drugs, that makes the cats pancreas beta cells work harder and destroys those cells and thusly destroys any chance of a cat achieving diet controlled remission.

My vet and shelter vets (Wink was a foster cat first) insisted on my feeding the high carb Hill's W/d dry food and maybe 1 tablespoon a day of the W/d wet food.

I ended up ignoring their advice, ignored them about the home testing and got Wink into remission in less than 2 months, thus saving the shelter many hundreds of dollars in insulin costs, testing supplies, food supplies, vet care, etc. Nope, they still didn't care. Neither the shelter staff, volunteers, the shelter vet that did the spay/neuter clinic, the vet clinics where cats went when they needed more health care than the shelter could provide cared. None of that mattered.

I do think I convinced them after countless emails, to try their other diabetic cat with horrible food allergies on a raw food diet. Instead of steroid shot, after steroid shot and another Hill's "vet only product."

Send that link to the AAHA document to your vet. Print off a copy and take it to your next appointment. Show your vet this one too. (2015) ISFM Consensus Guidelines on the Practical Management of Diabetes Mellitus in Cats

Many times, we do end up as diabetic cat caregivers, being more current than our vets. We end up educating them in the latest and best practices for diabetic cats. Send your vet to this website. Have them look things over. We have a lot of experience with feline diabetes.

p.s. How many vets have ever run into EPI (exocrine pancreatic insufficiency)? We have, and we know what to do about it too.