EPI, PLE & diabetes help with food

Epi4Dogs Foundation Inc.’s mission is the advancement of science and education relating to EPI (Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency), yielding useful insights and positive outcomes in better managing EPI in dogs and cats. Our goals are to support and/or collaborate with veterinary EPI research and researchers, and to promote EPI awareness by educating the general public, pet owners, pet organizations, rescue and shelter organizations, veterinary schools and veterinarians.
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sirius07
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Posts: 1
Country: United Kingdom - England
Pet name: Sirius
My name: Victoria

EPI, PLE & diabetes help with food

Post by sirius07 » 01 Nov 2021, 12:31

Hi everyone,

This website and forum has been such a wealth of information, I can’t thank you all enough.

We have a 5 month old flat-coated retriever that has EPI, PLE and diabetes. The diagnosis started with EPI, but after a week and still a very poorly puppy, we had a referral the the veterinary hospital where further tests concluded his current diagnosis.

He’s come leaps and bounds, the vets have been great and he’s finally acting like a puppy. Something we’d not really experienced as he had been so poorly.

He’s currently fed on a mixture of Purina Pro Vetinary diet HA (dry and wet), plus fat free cottage cheese.

He’s supplemented with enzymes from Chemeyes, b12 and he now has 5units of ProZinc insulin.

He’s doing great in terms of energy, stools and gaining weight. However his blood glucose levels are still high. And I can’t help but wonder if this is to do with his food. The kibble has a very simple ingredient list (nutrition info below) , and within that ingredient list is sugar. The vets assure me it’s ok, but I can’t help but wonder if that sugar is stopping his BG to come down. I also read on the site about coconut oil possibly causing spikes.

I wonder if anyone could help with this? Could my thoughts be right, or is it that we’re just at the beginning and it’s trial and error getting the right amount of insulin?
Alternatively, is there any food that would be recommended (we’re in the UK).
I’ve been looking for low fat and fibre, and have found one by Concept for Life (Check it out: #zooplus https://zooplus.page.link/U7bC), which to me seems to be of higher quality. But because this is all so new to me I’m not sure if it’d be suitable.

Any help would be much appreciated!

_______

Purina Pro HA
Ingredients


Maize starch*
Hydrolysed soya protein**
Minerals
Coconut oil
Sugar*
Rapeseed oil
Cellulose
Glycerine (from vegetable origin)
Soya oil
Fish oil

* Purified carbohydrate sources
** Protein sources

Nutrition & Analytical Constituents

Moisture: 7.5%
Protein: 21%
Fat: 10%
- Omega-6 fatty acids: 1.8%
- Omega-3 fatty acids: 0.6%
- Medium chain fatty acids: 1.3%
Carbohydrate: 54%
Crude fibre: 2%
Metabolisable energy (ME): 3.7 kcal/g

Nutritional additives

IU/kg:
Vitamin A: 19687;

mg/kg:
Zinc: 168;
Vitamin E: 299.

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Montgomery
Member
Posts: 418
Country: Canada
Pet name: Montgomery (I'm a CAT!)
My name: V

Re: EPI, PLE & diabetes help with food

Post by Montgomery » 03 Nov 2021, 00:25

I know Purina makes a Diabetic diet for cats, but I'm not sure about dogs, or what's in it, but you can check it out on Purina's website. I just went through a wet food change and found their site really easy to navigate. Other companies do make a hypoallergenic diet, but right now a lot of things are unavailable or unreliable. I decided to go with Purina OM with Montgomery only after his veterinarian assured me that she had a reliable supply. Royal Canin and Hill's are both hit and miss. You might try Rayne...They do some different things, but I'm not sure if they're available in the UK?
I'm certainly no expert on Diabetes, but Tika, a friend's cat, who is diabetic, will have high sugar when something else is going on (usually a urinary tract infection with her), so there is that to bear in mind, too.
I hope this helped a little bit.
Montgomery was born 20 March 2012. He eats extra lean ground chicken, lean ground pork and lean ground beef completed with Alnutrin and freeze-dried chicken liver, with hard-cooked egg. He gets two size zero capsules of Enzyme Diane's enzymes at each of his six meals, and a size four capsule of Tylan three times a day. He's a fierce little Spitfire with a roaring Merlin engine.

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jilbert57
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Posts: 2092
Country: United States
State: Washington

Re: EPI, PLE & diabetes help with food

Post by jilbert57 » 03 Nov 2021, 09:27

Hi Victoria and welcome. The founder of this site Olesia has experience with all 3 of these conditions and I just messaged her.

V has given you a great starting point in her post.

Jill
My name is Jill and we live on the Hood Canal in Washington State. We currently have 2 Jack russells, TJ is 8 and Sadie is 2.

Mickey and his pancreatitis brought me to Epi4dogs.com site in 2012 to help manage it.
He lived from 6/99 - 8/2014

Mickey, Jack Russell. Chronic Pancreatitis. Dianes enzymes, 1/8t 3x/day with meals.

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Olesia711
Founder & Research Director
Posts: 3858
Location: North Carolina
Country: United States
State: North Carolina
Pet name: Izzy
My name: olesia

Re: EPI, PLE & diabetes help with food

Post by Olesia711 » 03 Nov 2021, 11:52

I jsut wrote you a LONG post and then accidently deleted it.... GRRRRRRRRrrrrrr...

So... i will try this again.
Yes, i do think you can control the Diabetic high blood glucose (BGs) with a food change (that is how i handled my Izzy's EPI + out of control Diabetes). BUT because you are also dealing with PLE.... i would proceed with caution and ask your vet first if you can try some of the following suggestions.

I checked on the ZooPlus product "Concept for Life X-Large Puppy" and it looks good and it DOES have hydrolyzed food in it, but i wasn't sure if all the protein was hydrolyzed or just some of it... might want to call the mfg to clarify.

What my suggestions are for you to ask your vet is if you can try either or the below 2 ideas and would it be okay to try considering the PLE condition.

1. if you can feed 1/3 less of the Purina and make up the difference with the Concept for LIfe food.... see how it goes with the BGs.... if good... but not yet optimal, maybe you can then try 1/2 & 1/2..... if good all the way around, maybe you can either continue as a combo or switch completely to Concept food...

or

2. Ask your vet if you can feed 1/3 less of the Purina and make up the difference in calories with home baked white (lean) chicken breasts, deskinned and defatted.... or you can also try baked lean pork loin ... also deskinned and defatted. This should bring down the BGs and agree with EPI... BUT... not sure how this suggestion will fare with the PLE condition.

WHen my gal Izzy had this issue, they wanted me to buy a bottle of intermediate AND a bottle of fast acting insulin. Well, i only needed to use less than 1/2 the bottle of the fast acting insulin that was over $100 a month and then at the end of each month i had to throw the remainder out.... SOOOOOO that is when i decided to get the Diabetes under control via food and i was able to do that by feeding 80% home prepared food (lean deskinned/defatted and baked) lean chicken breasts or lean pork loin, venison is also good as is fish on occasion. I also gave no fat cottage cheese, a little kale or squash/zucchini and baked & mashed sweet. potato... a couple of times a week i would give a hard boiled egg. This dramatically reduced my gal's high BGs.... but then she started losing too much weight, so in the end i fed 80% home-made food to keep the BGs under good control, and agreed with the EPI but i also gave 20% low fiber low fat kibble as concentrated nutrition to keep the weight up on my Izzy.

3. IF your vet does not agree with you "trying" combo foods to get the Diabetes under control... then the next step would be to change the insulin to a pre-mixed combo insulin; here are is a good link.
http://www.petdiabetes.com/cdinsulin.html
but i will also attach a picture to give you an idea.
Types of Insulin.docx
(15.02 KiB) Downloaded 61 times
Image
Regarding the Coconut oil... supposedly it should not increase the Diabetic BGs.... but OMG... it really raised the BGs whenever i tried giving it to my Izzy... so i stopped- -you might want to do a trial run and see if stopping the coconut oil helps lower the BGs. However.... DO give fish oil . This lipid fat is needed by an EPI dog and does not appear to raise the BGs.
insulinprofile3.gif
insulinprofile3.gif (62.29 KiB) Viewed 1299 times
Olesia, was owned by Izzy, a 35lb Spanish Water Dog (SWD), Diagnosed at 1.5 years old - TLI results 1.. Izzy passed away on February 13, 2020 at 15 years old. She lived with EPI for 13+1/2 years. It was because of Izzy that Epi4Dogs was started... she was the inspiration. May her legacy of helping others with EPI continue for as long as needed.........

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Patsy
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Posts: 265
Country: United Kingdom - England

Re: EPI, PLE & diabetes help with food

Post by Patsy » 05 Nov 2021, 10:52

Hello from Yorkshire, and welcome. I have owned dogs all my life, and tried most foods too. Before designer dog foods were invented, my dogs lived long happy lives on well known foods.
Could I ask if the vets have recommended a meat-free diet for any particular reason? If so, I’ll hold back on meat protein foods till you can confirm it.
Marti, in my photo, had severe epi and ple conditions. The ple corrected it self with prednisone. No diabetes. If you don’t have food allergies confirmed, there are normal foods with low sugar, fat and grain free.
Have you browsed through
allaboutdogfood.co.uk . They analyse everything’s ingredients in an understandable way.
So pleased with Maya’s progress.
Springer spaniel Marti had Epi, PLE , MMM just to confuse me. She lived till 12yrs, chubby and happy despite eight years of epi.
Capsule enzymes suited her best. B12 supplements made her into a new dog!
After a cocker with PLN kidney disease, I now have two healthy rescues, a lively, suicidal , small ginger terrier, adopted with pneumonia, and gum disease needing nearly all his teeth out, and a fluffy grey toy poodle/terrier from Greece.

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Patsy
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Posts: 265
Country: United Kingdom - England

Re: EPI, PLE & diabetes help with food

Post by Patsy » 08 Nov 2021, 14:14

54% carbs is very high. My current food has 3% . No sweet fruit or veg, just meats. Butchers complete tripe loaf! Do you actually need a hypoallergenic food? Some vets who aren’t familiar with epi (which is most of them. In the UK it is rare) feel that HA food is a safe bet for all digestive conditions. As epi is a pancreatic problem, usually HA is not necessary, and dogs are fine on normal food low fibre, grain free.
I’m not aware that PLE requires a special diet. I just fed Marti anything she’d accept .
Olesia has provided masses of advice. It must be nerve racking dealing with insulin dosing as well as epi. Things will get better, medication routines became run of the mill. Your special needs dog will have the closest ever bond with you.
Springer spaniel Marti had Epi, PLE , MMM just to confuse me. She lived till 12yrs, chubby and happy despite eight years of epi.
Capsule enzymes suited her best. B12 supplements made her into a new dog!
After a cocker with PLN kidney disease, I now have two healthy rescues, a lively, suicidal , small ginger terrier, adopted with pneumonia, and gum disease needing nearly all his teeth out, and a fluffy grey toy poodle/terrier from Greece.

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Olesia711
Founder & Research Director
Posts: 3858
Location: North Carolina
Country: United States
State: North Carolina
Pet name: Izzy
My name: olesia

Re: EPI, PLE & diabetes help with food

Post by Olesia711 » 08 Nov 2021, 19:21

With EPI + Diabetes..... in short........................an overall observation with my dog and with others that i have helped with home-made diets to try to balance these two conditions (never had to also deal with PLE too) but with both EPI + Diabetes.... it repeatedly appeared that these dogs did best with high protein but low fat and low carb food.... and with EPI... just watch the fiber content,- -best to go with a no grain food and then just add your own fiber (canned pumpkin or slippery elm, and with some, sweet potato , etc..... so that the fiber type and amount will be controlled.
Olesia, was owned by Izzy, a 35lb Spanish Water Dog (SWD), Diagnosed at 1.5 years old - TLI results 1.. Izzy passed away on February 13, 2020 at 15 years old. She lived with EPI for 13+1/2 years. It was because of Izzy that Epi4Dogs was started... she was the inspiration. May her legacy of helping others with EPI continue for as long as needed.........

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