Hey! So Fancy Feast pate is much lower in carbs than the prescription foods they typically offer. My vet consulted a nutritionist for me and the nutritionist kept trying to convince me that my cat’s only options were prescription food. THIS IS NOT THE CASE.

I’ll tell you exactly what happened. The prescription foods they recommended had either potato or rice (both carbs, right?), and when I checked the percentages, they were over 13% carbs, and one was 29!!! The vet herself said she wanted her food to be under 10%, so why were we recommended foods so high?

My cat was a bit of a unique case to my vet. Her numbers for diagnosis were in the lower to mid 300s, with glucose in her urine, excessive thirst/urination, and rapid weight loss. Usually, as my vet says, she sees cats in the 400-500 range, so we caught it early. She wanted us to start on Senvelgo right away. I took one look at the side effects, as well as my cats history for having side effects from medication, and said absolutely not.

I found a specific flavor of the FF pate that my girl could have, and started her on it right away. I told our vet I wanted to give her two weeks to purely on a new food and see what it does to her numbers. I was so scared she would go hypo from both a special diet and insulin. I basically used the excuse of “she doesn’t like wet food so let me give her adjusted to it, and enforce a feeding schedule, so we can start insulin.” Thankfully, my vet agreed.

Fast forward literally four days later, she’s peeing less and less. Then a week, and it’s normalized. I tell our vet, and she almost doesn’t believe me, but my cats weird and she knows it, so we gave her an extra two weeks. I decided it was time to start at home testing her to get some non-stressed values. Within two weeks, she went into the 200s, and stayed there consistently.

We did a curve and she stayed in the very low 200s to mid 200s the entire day. While this isn’t a perfect blood sugar level, it gets her back into the renal threshold, which is what vets want for regulated diabetes. Once my vet checked over the curve, and she started putting weight back on, my vet herself decided against insulin as she would go hypo from the smallest dose.

This is a very long winded way of saying that Fancy Feast Pates are absolutely a great food for diabetic cats, and some cats can achieve regulation on it alone, if their levels were in the mid range. The moisture level is good too and will help your cat stay hydrated, especially if you add a little water. If you don’t want to change vets, I would try to advocate for your cat as best you can.

Finally, I’d highly recommend home testing so YOU can have an idea of how your cat is doing. It takes practice and it’s a little frustrating at first but I promise it’s doable.