What to feed your cats who are the World's pickiest

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I am about to just throw in the towel because I am not getting any results with anything. My problem is that I concentrate too much of positive reviews in cat foods and so I go for it. I have no idea if these are even real people or people who make the foods making the claims. I am trying a food that is convenient but very healthy to my cats especially Poopers. So I have been trying Young Again both Mature Zero Carb and Original Zero Carb and unfortunately he won't eat it. I have put the bowl in front of his face a few times and he eats a few pieces due to me forcing the bowl in front of him to eat. The FF that I have been feeding him for a good while I just don't care for because the food pieces get stuck in his mouth and he gets bad breath and not to mention I don't see how it really drops his glucose either. I wanted to go for a diabetic cat food such as YA but he doesn't seem content with it just like some of my other kitties.

I'm at a lost cause right now because YA seems to be the only dry food out there for diabetic cats and cat food that is the lowest in carbs and high in protein. The only other one that comes to mind is Epigen 90 but they reformulated their cat foods so I have been seeing bad things from others who have purchased it and it has made their pets sick. Evo I can't feed my cats because its not low in carbs and plus it has a few ingredients in it like cottage cheese that cats shouldn't have. Dry food is just more convenient to feed because I don't have to open cans of cat food all the time trying to figure out who is getting enough to eat and if I am feeding enough for all of them. This dry food I can fill the bowls and they eat when they are hungry. So what have you guys done if YA hasn't worked for you or should I just give it more time? I got the food on Wednesday but few of my cats still are begging for treats. Life sucks and just wish God would help me with this so I can find something that is very low in carbs and won't affect my diabetic cat or any of my other cats from getting diabetes or weight gain.
 
We can only feed the best food that our cats will eat. I have a civi who only likes dry Fancy Feast and will only eat a little of better dry and canned.
From your SS it appears that with YA a higher dose is required since you got better drops before restarting YA.
 
Larry, I just don't know what to do. I felt like he isn't eating so I had to put out FF Turkey and Giblets and he was gobbling it up. I woke up to an almost 600 BG number which he hasn't been that high in a long time so I know he wasn't eating at all through the night. Just lays around and sleeps. Half of my cats eat the YA and the others don't care for it. With wet food, I worry that they don't get enough to eat and just money spent since I go through the wet food so much each week that I don't have. What I wanted to appreciate with the YA dry food is that its so much higher in protein that they won't eat as much and its 3% and less for carbs which no other dry food matches that except Epigen 90 but they changed their formula and not for the better from what I read. I just figured the YA would last me a good while and save on money too. The wet food didn't do much to drop his numbers either and the fish ones from FF are probably lower in carbs but I don't want to feed my male cats that and worry about problems.
 
Maybe 5-5.5 units of insulin is too high even if he is 21 pounds. I'm just stupid because after a few days when I keep seeing his numbers in the 300s I just frantic and up his dosage to hope that the more insulin would drop his numbers down to the 100s but it doesn't. I wasn't expecting to see almost 600 this morning either. So should I just drop his insulin down to like 2-3 units 2 times a day and see if the lower insulin will help his body work better then the 5 units?
 
Well to be honest, 5 units just may be too high. I see that you have changed dosed frequently (different dose at night vs. morning) and don't know if you are on the lantus forum, but the people there can help you tweak the dose.

Regarding the dry food, and the brands you mention, I can't give you input on that as I follow Dr. Lisa's advice about NOT feeding dry food, even if you think it's low carb. I just won't give my cats kibble dry food. www.catinfo.org.

If you are looking for food that you can leave out indefinitely, considering go with a freeze dried raw food option. I supplement the cat's Fancy Feast with Stella & Chewy's freeze dried raw food. While water is supposed to be added, I serve it dry and the cats like it.

You also could be having BG problems because of the dry food. Even though it says low carb, personally I just don't believe it. I don't buy into the hype of food reviews and instead I stick with food that I know my cats will eat and are low carb, etc.... such as Fancy Feast Classics and STella & CHewy's. As for treats, they get the halo liv a littles.
 
I think it's entirely possible he's on too much insulin but want to ask some other opinions too.

It looks like he was doing pretty well until early February (what insulin was he started on?) and then you switched to PZI for awhile...then onto Lantus on 3/12

With the changes in insulin and food, it may just be that you're not giving his body enough time to get used to one thing before changing things hoping for better results. As much as we ALL understand how desperately we want our kitties to be cured "yesterday", unfortunately it just doesn't work that way. It was months of careful increases and only feeding the low carb wet food before China started to show any progress. While the YA is supposed to be low carb, if he doesn't like it, you'll need to find something low carb that he will eat and try sticking with it. The Fancy Feast turkey and giblets you mentioned that he liked is low carb...maybe go back to that for awhile?

Let's see if I can get some other opinions from @Sienne and Gabby @Wendy&Neko @julie & punkin (ga) @Marje and Gracie @Hillary & Maui (GA)

Edited to add...I see Hillary beat me to the "tag".....LOL
 
Hillary & Maui (GA) said:
Well to be honest, 5 units just may be too high. I see that you have changed dosed frequently (different dose at night vs. morning) and don't know if you are on the lantus forum, but the people there can help you tweak the dose.

Regarding the dry food, and the brands you mention, I can't give you input on that as I follow Dr. Lisa's advice about NOT feeding dry food, even if you think it's low carb. I just won't give my cats kibble dry food. www.catinfo.org.

If you are looking for food that you can leave out indefinitely, considering go with a freeze dried raw food option. I supplement the cat's Fancy Feast with Stella & Chewy's freeze dried raw food. While water is supposed to be added, I serve it dry and the cats like it.

You also could be having BG problems because of the dry food. Even though it says low carb, personally I just don't believe it. I don't buy into the hype of food reviews and instead I stick with food that I know my cats will eat and are low carb, etc.... such as Fancy Feast Classics and STella & CHewy's. As for treats, they get the halo liv a littles.
Click to expand...
Well you can use a carb calculator to detect the carbs. While the bag says zero carbs, that refers to digestible carbs. The product itself has 3% carbs which is great for a dry food.
 
I'm just wondering if 5 units is too much. I know that it drops it down but after 12 hours it goes right back up. The 596 this morning just shocked me to death because I didn't see that coming nor thought I'd ever see that number again.
 
I feel like if food companies such as YA make products that are claiming to do this and that and no one had any success or had complete opposite results then you'd think they would be sued. Instead, you see so many success stories.
 
While there are many methods of using lantus and other longer duration insulins like it, the two we primarily use here are the Start Low Go Slow Method and the Tight Regulation Protocol.

If you read the information I've posted, you'll see that a requisite to follow the TR Protocol is the cat is eating a canned or raw, low carb food so feeding YA dry would preclude you from safely being able to use the TR Protocol. But, in both instances, you will not see dose increases by 1u. That's too much at one time and a cat that is overdosed can look like it's not getting enough insulin.

Many of the members in the Lantus/Levemir Insulin Support Group (ISG) feed the lower carb varieties of FF. Have you seen Dr. Lisa's Food Charts? One thing I do want to remark upon is that YA is not a diabetic cat food. Yes, it might be low in carbs but so are the canned foods I give my Gracie....but it doesn't mean they are a diabetic food. Keep in mind that there is really no governing body that is enforcing pet food companies; yes...they are "supposed" to meet certain standards but the standards have loopholes and the FDA does very little enforcement.

I"m not a big fan of rebound checks (e.g. starting over at a lower dose to see if the cat is overdosed) because most of our members are increasing by only 0.25u or 0.5u per either SLGS or the TR protocol so there is little chance they can get overdosed. But it's possible that you have overdosed Poopers. It would be interesting to know what caused him to fall out of regulation to begin with although you were significantly bumping his dose around which you shouldn't typically do with lantus. Was it possibly a dental infection since he was on an a/b and had a dental? You don't say on the SS. Interesting to note is that when you were using PZI, which I believe you possibly can vary by as much as you were doing because it it not truly a depot insulin like lantus and levemir, is he wasn't responding to even 3us of insulin. I have never used PZI and so I don't know if you can change the dose by that much but I believe you can since you are shooting preshots....not what the BG will be at its nadir.

What that tells me is I'd be hesitant to take his dose below 3u if you decide to reduce it to see if he is overdose. He started to see some blue numbers at 4u and so that is probably as low as I would back off the dose to and then I'd follow the SLGS Method for holding doses, increasing doses, etc. The other option is to hold the current dose and follow the SLGS Method because if he is overdose, he will eventually break through and start down but you'll have to keep monitoring him as you are because when they do break through a high dose, they can come down quickly.
 
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I know I've probably screwed things up but that's how I get when I see things that weren't there before such as the high numbers. The funny thing is that when he was on N he was in the blue numbers on most days as seen by the chart. He did develop dental problems and recently I had dental work done to him to have some teeth removed and teeth cleaned due to tartar( which I am sure came from wet food). I don't like bouncing around and don't plan to do so. I want to find a low number and just stay with that for a while so his body can get used to it. However, when I give him like 2 units I see his numbers don't go down much so I panic and think he isn't getting enough insulin. I'm not sure why people think YA Zero Carb isn't a diabetic cat food. They created that line of food just for diabetic cats. I know everyone is entitled to their own opinions and that is what makes this country the way it is and I know people think dry food is terrible. Just like people will have their opinions to wet food causing dental problems. Of course nothing is working for Pooper's at the moment and I may have to reorder new insulin pens because the pens that someone gave me may be ineffective even though the expiration date on the box says 2017. I don't know what else I can do or what I can do to get his body to work and to get his numbers down and stay down. Like one day he may start out in the low 300s and with insulin he'll go into the mid 100s and the next day he is high again and I won't see 100s for a good while. It is things like that that make me want to pull my hair out. The only other insulin I have tried besides N and Lantus is BCP(Bovine) insulin. Right now I have him at 5 units. That is more that I ever thought I would have him go up to. The Vet knows nothing about this because as far as they know he is on 3 units. I don't like my vet anyways because they treat Pooper's like crap. I am going to switch Vets but in the mean time I just get on here and try to find a dosage that helps him along with food. I still don't believe Young Again Zero Carb in not being a diabetic food because it stands at 3% carbs with no digestible carbs and every other dry food is way higher. Their ingredients are supposedly formulated just right to prevent health problems seen in cats due to bad dry foods on the market today. I'm not here to debate or argue, just has been a very stressful period for me and me and stress don't mix well. Just want to see my cat achieve blue numbers again and not this 400-500 crap. :(
 
Tartar doesn't come from wet food. Let me use an analogy. Many people assume that dry food helps to keep a cat's teeth clean. That would be like saying if we ate crunchy cookies, no human would need to go to the dentist because our teeth would be sparkly clean. The notion that dry food helps a cat's dental status is a myth. As others are suggesting, if you read Lisa Pierson, DVM's site on feline nutrition, she does a great deal to dispel some of these myths.

Something clearly changed in January. It's possible that prior to that time, Pooper's pancreas was sputtering resulting in the better numbers. Unfortunately, there's no way to tell.

I think Marje's point is that with the exception of the foods that are marketed as diabetic (which are sometimes way high in carbs and the prescription diets have lots of by-products), no foods are "diabetic" foods. There are just foods that are higher or lower in carbs. I feed my guys Wellness canned chicken or turkey. They are 4% carbs. Young Again Zero Carb is in a similar range. It may be fine for Poopers if he would eat it! Frankly, most of us don't feed dry because it is low in moisture and cat's don't usually spontaneously drink. As a species, they get their fluids from their prey. Kidney issues are always a concern with diabetes and water helps to keep kidney problems at bay. EVO Cat & Kitten food is relatively low in carbs for a dry food. Unfortunately most dry food just doesn't cut it for a diabetic cat.

It's up to you what you feed your cat. What we have seen any number of times is that you switch to a low carb, canned food diet and the cat's numbers improve. We've seen cats go into remission on Young Again. However, if Poopers won't eat YAZC, then you really don't have many options. Sorry to state the obvious.

On the issue of dose, I agree with what Marje has posted.
 
When I put the food bowl up to his face he eats it. I had to do some switching around and hopefully he will eat it now.
 
Well I didn't think going under 3 units improved his numbers either. That is why I was at 5 units now
 
Really important: Lantus doses need 3-5 days at the same dose in order to determine if the dose needs adjusting.
 
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