low sodium foods *and treats* for CHF?

[kmoulus]

Hi. I'm new here, I discovered you guys when my little Speedy started having health problems in the last few weeks.  Wish I was here for a happier reason.

Speedy has been diagnosed with pretty serious congestive heart failure, the cardiologist thinks she has 9 months, maybe 12 if she does well on her new meds. I will save the story and tears for some of the CHF threads. What I really need is advice on her diet, to help her stay as healthy as possible for as long as possible.

Speedy needs to go low sodium but it is not yet decided that she will switch to a prescription cardiac diet. The cardiologist wants me to go back to the primary vet to talk nutrition. Speedy's kidney numbers are a bit high and we just put her on a prescription renal diet, but really she's about normal for a 14-year-old cat. And frankly her heart is way worse than her kidneys. So I am starting to cut sodium ASAP and we go back to the GP at the end of the month.

Her favorite food is Sheba but I am not sure where they are sodium-wise. I have written to them and am waiting for info, but what do you guys think of it? Has anyone tried any of the food on the Tufts list, and do your cats like it?  Recently I have tried Weruva and Wilderness Instinct and she loves them, but I don't think I can afford to feed her these expensive boutique foods.

Speedy also is taking five medications. She has been on atenolol for years and she is very used to pills. She's wonderful, she will eat just about anything inside a treat and comes running when she hears me shake the pill bottle. However, seven doses per day means she is eating a LOT of treats, and I understand that most are very high in sodium.

So does anyone know of a low sodium treat that will conceal a pill? Even without the pill, I want to keep her on treats. She loves treats and has eaten them daily for her whole life, and I don't want to take that pleasure away from her in these last months of her life.

Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge and experience.

 

[molly92]

I'm not sure about low sodium cat food, but for concealing medicine I've had good results with human baby food-specifically Gerber stage 2 chicken or turkey baby food. It's just pure chicken or turkey and some cornstarch, so I'm sure its low in sodium (it looks like there are 16 mg/oz), and all the cats I've known love it. If I ever need to make sure every last bit of something is eaten, baby food is what I use. I don't know how big that pill is, but you might be able to just stick it in a spoonful of baby food and she'd lap it up, or you maybe you can cut it into smaller pieces? 

My favorite cat treats are probably not soft enough to conceal a pill, but they'd be great for other occasions. I had trouble finding healthy cat treats that were as appealing as the more junk food-like ones. I think my cat was just not used to the texture and smell of less processed ingredients, but I finally tried Orijen cat treats and she LOVED them. They're 100% meat with nothing else added, and they have several different varieties. Her favorite is the Alberta Wild Boar one. It must smell and taste very exciting based on her reaction! A bag is around $6-8 on Chewy.com, so they're more expensive than average treats, but there are about 100 treats in a bag, and you can break a lot of them into smaller pieces, so they last a while.

I'm so sorry you and your cat are going through this. She's lucky to have someone who loves her so much and is doing so much to make her happy.

 

[kmoulus]

Thanks! For most of Speedy's life she has taken her very small pills inside Temptations. Just last week I bought a bag of Orijens lamb, she likes them but I agree they are not soft enough for pills. But they will be great for just regular treating.

There is one large pill but it supposedly tastes like beef and she will eat that one right out of my hand. Such a good girl. The rest are small pills and she only takes 1/4 of each, so after I cut them they are tiny. Actually, sometimes they are crumbs. So baby food might work, thanks for the suggestion. 

 

[kmoulus]

So I have emailed a few companies and I thought I would share everything I learn, in case others are also looking for low-sodium treats for pilling

Temptations was the first to answer, but I don;t understand their answer. I wrote back for clarification:

The Temptations Original flavors will contain approximately 0.78g/100g of Sodium on a 'as is' basis.

The All Natural Temptations will contain approximately 0.85g/100g of Sodium on a 'as is' basis.

So I think they mean that for every 100g of treats there are .78g of sodium?  The whole bag is only 85 grams, so there is less than a gram of sodium in the entire bag? That is hard to believe but if it is correct that would be great.  I wrote back because I'm wondering if they actually meant .78g/100kcal.

Greenies also wrote back:

The Feline Greenies[emoji]174[/emoji] Pill Pockets[emoji]174[/emoji] Salmon Flavor will contain approximately 4.16 mg of sodium per pocket.

The Feline Greenies[emoji]174[/emoji] Pill Pockets[emoji]174[/emoji] Chicken Flavor will contain approximately 5.32 mg per pocket.

I will update this post when more people respond to my inquiries.

 

[lisamarie12]

I'm sorry to hear about Speedy. 

If Speedy is already on the Rx renal diet, that formula is low sodium.  As far as non-Rx alternative, low sodium foods, the following list may be helpful in providing additional foods not listed on the Tufts site:

http://www.felinecrf.org/canned_food_usa.htm

You can compare the sodium content of the commercial foods to the Rx foods. 

As far as treats to conceal pills, you indicated that you contacted Greenies re: the pill pockets. Let me offer a suggestion:  I use the Greenies Pill Pockets (for dogs, the duck / hypoallergenic pill pocket). It used to be available for cats but Greenies discontinued it (due to low sales, I was told when I contacted them).

I'm not sure what the sodium amount is (maybe ask them), however, there was very little difference b/t the dog / duck pill pocket and the cat / duck pill pocket. I actually buy the GPP for capsule size b/c they are bigger. Since you are giving multiple pills a day and some are cut into small pieces, one dog (larger) PP may be more useful than a smaller cat PP.  You get more PP for your money.

As far as treats with sodium, you may want to look into freeze dried meat treats where only one ingredient is used, e.g., Pure Bites FD chicken or turkey which may have less salt than the Temptations although you could check with PB.

 

[molly92]

 
So I have emailed a few companies and I thought I would share everything I learn, in case others are also looking for low-sodium treats for pilling

Temptations was the first to answer, but I don;t understand their answer. I wrote back for clarification:

The Temptations Original flavors will contain approximately 0.78g/100g of Sodium on a 'as is' basis.

The All Natural Temptations will contain approximately 0.85g/100g of Sodium on a 'as is' basis.

So I think they mean that for every 100g of treats there are .78g of sodium?  The whole bag is only 85 grams, so there is less than a gram of sodium in the entire bag? That is hard to believe but if it is correct that would be great.  I wrote back because I'm wondering if they actually meant .78g/100kcal.

Don't forget they said grams, not milligrams. So that would be about 663 mg of sodium per bag, or 221 mg per oz (for a 3 oz bag). I'm not sure how many treats are in a bag.

 

[kmoulus]

I'm still not getting too far with the low sodium treats. Thanks Molly92 for recommending Orijens, they were one of the few companies to respond with helpful info. I hope others will find it helpful too:

 The calories per each treat will range between 3 and 4 calories each. I am sorry I do not know how I would calculate how much sodium per 100 kcals for the treats as I do not know what the calories are per kg. 
Below is the sodium content in percentages for each of the cat treats.

ORIGINAL 0.34%

Regional  Red 0.25%

Tundra 0.37%

Alberta Lamb 0.25%

Wild Boar 0.19%

Now, assuming they meant this on a dry matter basis, 0.2-0.3% would be considered moderate sodium restriction and would be fine. And Speedy likes the wild boar best so we are all set. If this is as fed, I don't have enough info to do the math but I still feel comfortable with these.

As for low sodium foods, I'm still searching as Speedy is not a big fan of most of the foods on the Tufts list (mostly Hill's and Science). I've become a big fan of Weruva because their website includes a lot of very detailed info and they are just about the only brand that is helping me to make an informed decision.