Newly diagonised with questions

[eileen]

Re: Newly diagonised with questions

Ok here's
My opinion and its not alwayspolular with vet s in town. Never feed hills or sciencediet product prescription or otherwise. Even my non diabetic dogs that come in same advice. Toomany bad ingrediants. So that said the basics for food selection are .....no wheat no.corn no byproducts no preservatives. For dogwith diabetes the list is smaller. Grain free is. A must. Orijen is by far the best grain food available. Theirraw material sourcing is very stringent. So for the lab maybe. Butwould Need moreinfo onthe allergies. Iwould probably say orijen 6 fish. For the dog with pancretitis the fat and protein swill be too high.orijen sister arcana will bebetter. Ifyou have morequestions email me and if I can help I will! Browndogbakery@Aol.com. fyi my favcanned food is weruva.awesome food. Diabetic safe andi swear u. Would microwave and eat lol. Sorry for long post can talk dogfood all day.

There will always be differences of opinions on the Hills foods as well as the grainfree for our diabetic dogs.
Many diabetics do wonderfully with the prescription Hills as do other special needs critters.
It is not as bad in many cases as is made out to be.

Grainfree does not always work well with the needs of a diabetic with many that chose to feed this needing to add additional food sources.

Every dog has their individual needs with what works well for one may not for the next.

Adding a Warm Welcome!

[Shellie]

Re: Newly diagonised with questions

Will someone please tell my Hank that by-products are BAD? LOL I cannot get him off the dang Cesar crap! He's eating regularly...that's all I can say about that! *sigh*

[browndogbakery]

Re: Newly diagonised with questions

Sorry I disagree. Grainfree is always appropriate for a diabetic. Been selling organci and hollistic pet food for 8 years. My vet even Refers to me. U should never have to add to food. Look up hills ingrediants. Byproducts corn wheat. All bad. Side note gets vet almost no nutrition.al training in school and hills here in Iowa. Buys there books. For the cuties that likes ceasers. Lol. Tell him he wants steak. Ceasers. Equals mcdonalds


So any advice. On what meter is best?

[CarolW]

Re: Newly diagonised with questions

Pardon me while I tease a little! Anybody - try dogfoodadvisor.com. I think that's how it's spelled.

I changed Camellia's food six times after she became my dog, starting with grain-free foods, including orijen and acana. Finally, my vet threw up her hands, and said, it's too high in protein for safety in old age. She MIGHT be right.

I've been a dog food label reader for at least 30 years, and tried my dogs on various foods. In the earlier years, I allowed the dogs to select their foods, as I experimented, offering first one for quite some time, then when the dogs lost interest, another. (HI HANK!)

I'm more than a little familiar with the arguments against corn, wheat, and the like. However, when my vet diagnosed my beloved Kumbi with diabetes, SHE put him on Medi-Cal Fibre Formula, and I simply kept him on that. She started him on the canned, and I changed to dry, with my vet's approval, but used the canned as a topper and Pilling Glob Maker.

I put my other dog on the same food; she was about a year and a half older than Kumbi.

One thing I was careful about was, preservatives, such as ethoxyquin, BHA, and BHT. I was surprised and disappointed that Camellia (not diabetic) when she came to me, was being fed on Eukanuba Adult Small Bites, which has those preservatives. I changed her to a grain-free food a couple of weeks later.

The Medi-Cal web site may have changed, since Medi-Cal merged with Royal Canin. But both my dogs did so well on the prescription diet that I simply kept them on it. I went something like six months feeding the stuff before I finally read the label! I didn't want to know; haha!

With Camellia, I finally changed to Natural Balance Original Ultra for adults and puppies. Camellia is doing very well on it.

Home-cooking is another possibility, but I don't have good sources locally, and am very limited in my ability to travel and go out looking for good ingredients. Around where I am, herbicides have been sprayed from the air periodically (it's a forestry area). Gee, thanks! And people who grow organic foods get run-off from neighboring properties where Round-Up is commonly used.

We live in a hazardous age, and we can only do our best.

What I found about the prescription diet was that the balance of protein, carbs and fiber REALLY matched the insulin well. I should not have been surprised, because my vet is a board-certified specialist in Internal Medicine, and is very conscientious about working with her patients (and Human DogParents, too).

METERS!

I suggest the OneTouch Ultra2 meter. Not others of the OneTouch meters; I had a Mini, and didn't like it. The Ultra2 has what is probably a very well-deserved reputation for reliability and consistency.

Please keep us posted on how things are going for you! Cheering you on! (and agreeing to disagree about food; haha!)

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 21:22:50 (PDT)

[eileen]

Re: Newly diagonised with questions

As Carol, agreeing to disagree with your views on food.

If you search our group's past discussions on various diets that have proven to work well with our diabetic critters you will see that it can take all combinations...some commercial alone while others do require tweaking with added fiber, protein or carbs so to better match the insulin.
There is not one single food that is guaranteed to work perfectly for all diabetic dogs, grainfree included.

I also have several other pets with special needs whose conditions are being maintained with prescription Hill's diet choices.

Over the years I have fed many combinations to Mil as well as strictly home cooking.

My meter recommendation would be the One Touch Ultra 2 altho I did use the Alpha Trak with Mildred.

Wishing you luck as you begin your journey...

[Abby's Mom]

Re: Newly diagonised with questions

Sorry I disagree. Grainfree is always appropriate for a diabetic. Been selling organci and hollistic pet food for 8 years. My vet even Refers to me. U should never have to add to food. Look up hills ingrediants. Byproducts corn wheat. All bad. Side note gets vet almost no nutrition.al training in school and hills here in Iowa. Buys there books. For the cuties that likes ceasers. Lol. Tell him he wants steak. Ceasers. Equals mcdonalds


So any advice. On what meter is best?

I am little behind on posts, but wanted to add my welcome.

In my opnion, I totally agree with your statement... EXCEPT when they are diabetic and taking a longer acting insulin. There needs to be carbs, however, those carbs can be in the way of Sweet Potatoes. I found Brown Rice and Sweet potatoes needed to be added to flatten out Abby's curve.

So perhaps we are not talking grains, but rather some carb so the insulin has something to work with throughout the day. Some foods use oats, brans, wheat, corn... but I think the key word is complex carbs, or faster acting carbs depending upon the curve.

Unless of course, a different type of insulin is used... but good luck with that. My goal to make sure that Abby becomed a stable diabetic, (healthy one too). Food is part of the mix, but whatever makes a good combination with insulin and food and they eat, becomes very important.

I was given purina DCO to give Abby, and refused to give it to her... started feeding a raw diet, and ended up with honest kitchen, but it took us a long time to get where we are because of trying to make things match, food and insulin.

One Touch, is my favorite meter, and I think the most popular one that people use.

Again, a warm welcome to you.

[jgr789]

Re: Newly diagonised with questions

Hi and welcome to the group!

I am a fairly new member as well but have received a ton of great information from both reading all the posts and asking alot of questions. Hopefully you will find that everyone is very generous with their time and sharing their expertise.

Having said that, I continue to struggle with matching food to insulin issues and have for awhile tried to make a combination of kibble work using the prescription w/d and Wellness Core Grain free reduced fat. I picked those foods because one is high in Fiber, while the other is high in Protein.

I sure wish there was a perfect diabetic dog food out there. I'd be the first in line to buy a lifetime supply! Or maybe someone could at least design a calculator to determine how much insulin would be required to handle a certain number of calories. I know it's just not that simple and every dog is different...

Keep us posted on you progress.

Judy (and Sadie)

[Judi]

Re: Newly diagonised with questions

Welcome and thanks for your info. I think what to feed a diabetic dog is one of the many overwhelming things a new person runs into. While we may not always agree, we definitely appreciate the info!

[k9diabetes]

Re: Newly diagonised with questions

The food issue is always a difficult one and something that I prefer to avoid much discussion of at the forum because it tends to be a very emotional one. So I debated about whether to leave the discussion here in place or close out those posts. For the moment, I'm leaving them in place but want to clarify the forum's position on diets and discussions of various foods.

I have no problems with posts along the lines of "I chose to feed my dog grain free food because I don't want to use a food with corn as the main ingredient" or "I stopped using X food because it was causing problems with Y and Z in my dog."

That is very different from "You (forum members, the world) should never ever feed X food because it's terrible."

We have a general policy against "trashing" prescription diets - against "trashing" anything for that matter.

It's a matter of respecting the choices and beliefs of others when it comes to food (and other things).

Because if there is any "truth" related to diets, I would have to say it's that we really KNOW very little about what is best. Lots of opinions, almost no facts. That goes for human nutrition too, though perhaps to a lesser extent. Every week a new study comes out that refutes the claims made last year or the year before about what is healthiest or least healthy for people to eat.

One thing we can say with some certainty is that dogs generally process these insulins faster than people do and, as a result, they often need some carbohydrates in their diets that are digested fairly quickly so the sugar gets going in the bloodstream at the same time as the insulin.

One consequence of that tendency is that many people have found that they cannot get a good food/insulin balance with a diet that is mostly meat or mostly protein and that some dogs who get a fast jolt of action from the insulin require a fast acting grain-type carbohydrate in order to balance their blood sugar.

In the eight years I've been involved with forums for diabetic dogs, I have seen them thrive and get good regulation and balanced blood sugar on everything from inexpensive, big-box-store kibble to the prescription diets to high-quality diets with grain and high-quality diets without grain.

Those years have taught me that, love it or hate it, Science Diet WD often works very well for diabetic dogs in giving them nice even blood sugar (the other prescription diets haven't been as successful overall but work for many and seem to differ in processing, not ingredients) and also has worked very well for dogs with a history of IBD or pancreatitis. The concept of the glycemic index associated with people doesn't necessarily translate well to the canine version of diabetes and insulin absorption.

Consequently, opinions about the good and bad points of various diets and ingredients should be left to forums and other venues dedicated to that subject, and general "trashing" of prescription or other diets and ingredients is not appropriate at K9D because it does not respect valid choices made by others whose beliefs are different.

I hope that makes sense. And I hope Sophie does well on a grain-free diet!

Natalie

[browndogbakery]

Re: Newly diagonised with questions

Welcome to the group to you and Sophie! So glad you found it! As you can already see...we have a wealth of information here for you...from us and the site. No question too small or large..

One thing you may find as you start this...it is overwhelming to say the least! We have all been thru what you are going thru now and understand how you feel. It's a lot to take in right off the bat and there is so much to learn and understand. Just know that most likely Sophie will be fine as you figure this out.

Jim mentioned that patience is a big factor of dealing with this...and it is. With yourself and with Sophie. Just take one thing at a time, take a lot of deep breaths, and you'll get it..really!

Welcome again! Hugs!

I understand your position. I just like to see people buy the best food for their money as prescription food is very expensive. If it works for others great. But I guess I prefer a different approach. Thanks for. Welcome. Sophie is doing well she tested 280 sat. So its going down.

Cheers

[Shellie]

Re: Newly diagonised with questions

Glad to see Sophie is going down! It's always such a relief when you start seeing better numbers!

Have you picked up a meter yet? We use the OneTouchUltra here and really like it. Also have used the Novamax with good results. It's always a good idea to take the meter to the vet and compare readings now and then just to get a comparison. For meter strips, you can go to Amazon or Ebay and get them there rather than at the store for about half the cost. It's amazing what they charge for them!

Good luck on the testing...let us know if you need any tips or tricks!

[jgr789]

Re: Newly diagonised with questions

How's Sophie doing? And have you been able to do any home testing yet?

Judy (and Sadie)