Best food brands for IBD Inflammatory Bowel Disease

kittykisser

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My Raya was just diagnosed with IBD and they prescribed Royal Canin Gastrointestinal food. I really dislike the ingredients in RC. Is there a healthier brand that will work?
 

LTS3

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I personally feed my IBD cat a raw diet.

Any sort of novel protein limited ingredient diet works well for many IBD cats. Canned is preferred over dry. Here are some brands:

BLUE Basics® Limited Ingredient Cat Food | Blue Buffalo
Limited Ingredient Diet - Grain Free Cat | Merrick Pet Care
Cat Food - Limited Ingredient Diet - Kohapet
Instinct Limited Ingredient Diet | Instinct Pet Food
RAWZ | 100% Rendered Free Cat Food
NutriSource Pet Foods

Many IBD cats are sensitive to chicken and fillers in food so the "blander" the food, the better.

It's perfectly ok to not feed the prescription food the vet sold you:agree:

Two web site with good info:


 

lisahe

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It would depend on what triggers your cat's symptoms. Do you already have any sense of that? It can take time to figure out! Sometimes keeping a diary of foods and symptoms can help identify patterns and lead to dietary changes.

I was going to post the IBD Kitties link but LTS3's post just popped up. You can read there about things like elimination diets. This page is a good introduction.
 

daftcat75

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Krista was her best on Rad Cat, commercial boneless raw. But they are no longer and there has not been a boneless commercial product since that has compared as favorably. Anything with bone eventually causes my IBD kitty to have a blowout on one or both ends.

Tiki Cat wet food (mostly the tuna because she can’t have chicken) treats her alright but it’s low in calories. And it’s also fish. I don’t feed it on the regular. I save it for emergencies when she won’t eat anything else or I need to add medicine to her food. The appeal of tuna, especially because she rarely gets it, is stronger than her dislike for medicine in her food.

I also make homemade raw with fryer rabbits I butcher myself. She likes the leg meat. The loin meat is too rich for her. I have a manual meat grinder. I cut up the leg meat, freeze it, grind it with rabbit liver, and add Alnutrin. This gets portioned out an ounce at a time to plastic baggies. She gets between a quarter and a half ounce after she swallows her prednisilone pill each night. It makes a great reward portion. But it’s far too expensive to make it full portions.

Her everyday food has been Rawz pates for about a year and a half now. It’s not cheap and it’s not always easy to find. But then vet visits are not cheap and foods that don’t trigger her are even harder to find. She used to eat turkey because it was different enough from chicken. But now she’s having trouble with turkey and so she eats the rabbit pate mixed with the rabbit and pumpkin pate.

My recommendation is to keep a food journal of what you feed, when you feed, how much you feed, and whether your cat has a reaction to it. This will help you find patterns while also sticking to a specific protocol or protocols. It keeps you honest.

But more than any food brand or homemade, the best thing you can do for an IBD kitty is reduce portion sizes and add extra meals. Krista currently eats 37 gram meals, about eight of them a day. I plate six of them and she eats two more from timed feeders. I will collapse her back to four scheduled meals and two extras from feeders when we taper the pred. For now, she’s too hungry all the time to give her fewer meals.
 

cataholic07

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Wet food or raw is best, I love raw for my cats. Dry food can be too harsh on the stomach for some cats, just too much carbs. If you feed wet to ensure it is carrageenan free as that can cause tummy problems.
 

WMM201

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My vet internist suspects my cat has mild IBD and recommended a turkey based diet. Apparently she has had a lot of success with turkey for cats and dogs with GI inflammation. I am trying to switch my cat to a limited ingredient turkey food. She live the kibble but is not as happy with the wet food. Good luck finding the best food for your kitty 🤞🏻
 

Lranders29

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I am currently dealing with this. He hasn't been diagnosed with IBD as my (new) vet wants to evaluate again after the 1 year mark. At first, RC GI High Energy helped - instead of running to the box within 5 minutes of eating and having accidents, he makes it to the box and stools have firmed up some. Right now, I'm keeping him on the RC knowing that he sometimes will steal some of sister's Merrick Backcountry. He also gets Nulo Duck and Tuna wet. I had tried limited ingredient turkey months ago and want to try again, but he only started the RC about 2 months ago and don't want to change it up so soon.
 

Janet2000

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My cat seems to be very sensitive to all poultry and efforts over 3 years getting him to eat home made raw food have met with no success at all. He definitely gets loose stools with any ingredient other than fish and now he is boycotting fish as well. Mind you he is on Murtazipine-a powerful appetite stimulant. I am at my wit's end. I just don't want this kitty to starve to death with the $1000s of dollars of food I have already tried and he has rejected. Food changes do not seem to be the answer.

As I mentioned he is on a comprehensive coctail of drugs. Should I increase them?

Go for another endoscopy and biopsy?

Really needing some advice here...

Thank you

Janet
 

daftcat75

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You don't want to alter his medicine without a veterinarian's guidance. I would start with a senior blood screen and add the pancreatitis test (fPLI). Then talk to your veterinarian about where to go from there.

Fish can be inflammatory and you may have gotten all your going to get out of fish now without making matters worse. If you're willing to spend a little more $$$, Rawz makes cat food in rabbit or duck that don't also have chicken or fish ingredients. The rabbit is working well for my Krista. It's tough to find though. I bookmark the six or seven online retailers and just order a case or two every paycheck from whichever one of them has it. If you can get him eating the rabbit and pumpkin pate, that is easier to find than the plain rabbit pate.

Another option is a prescription food with a hydrolyzed protein. This is a protein that is processed in a way such that the body no longer recognizes it as a chicken protein or a fish protein and doesn't have a reaction to it. These aren't universally popular with cats but he is taking an appetite stimulant. You'll have to talk with your vet about where to get this food.

My guess, and this is only a guess, is that fish has slowly been brewing trouble and his cocktail of drugs have masked it as long as they could. You'll probably need to switch to a food that doesn't cause an inflammatory reaction and you may need to increase the steroids in the short-term to get that inflammation down. But again, don't mess with his medicine without consulting with a veterinarian. Steroids are not something you just increase on your own.
 

WMM201

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daftcat75 daftcat75 is making good points about fish and about a hydrolyzed protein diet. I got a sample bag from my vet of the RC hydrolyzed protein food, and unfortunately, my cat refused to touch it at all, but she has always been fussy. If your cat will eat it, try it. Fortiflora is also made with hydrolyzed protein, so if you use it as enticement on top of a new food, it shouldn't trigger her system. My cat had all of the available tests up to ultrasound for her stomach, and it turns out probably that she was having a crash from renal insufficiency/CKD, instead of IBD. Still, I have switched her to a mainly turkey diet (American Journey turkey pate from Chewy and Instinct by Nature's Variety Limited Ingredient Turkey kibble), with other non chicken and non fish foods occasionally. She seems to be doing well. Good luck with your kitty!
 

LTS3

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Did you see the responses to your thread in Health?


My cat seems to be very sensitive to all poultry and efforts over 3 years getting him to eat home made raw food have met with no success at all. He definitely gets loose stools with any ingredient other than fish and now he is boycotting fish as well. Mind you he is on Murtazipine-a powerful appetite stimulant. I am at my wit's end. I just don't want this kitty to starve to death with the $1000s of dollars of food I have already tried and he has rejected. Food changes do not seem to be the answer.

As I mentioned he is on a comprehensive coctail of drugs. Should I increase them?

Have you tried novel proteins such as rabbit and venison? Have you tried home cooked instead of raw? Cooked is usually more acceptable to cats than raw. Sometimes it's fillers in food that can cause issues with IBD cats. Things like starches and gums and other stuff, not just grain. A bland-ish LID type food can be helpful. Rawz is a good brand of canned food but tends to be pricey.

No, do not increase the dosage or frequency of the medications your cat is currently getting. Only the vet will be able to properly adjust the dosage or frequency without risking overdosing the cat.
 
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kittykisser

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Goodness, I just saw these. I guess I am easily distracted. Great info, thank you!!!
 
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