Comparing food ingredients for IBD kitty

gabicards · Jan 27, 2023

Hello,

I have a cat (1.2 years old) with a presumptive IBD diagnosis, and he doesn't have any symptoms when he eats his kitten food, which is Royal Canin Kitten sachet. I tried transitioning him to RC Neutered sachet, since he's over 1 year old, and insisted on it for a month. The soft stool took a couple of weeks to start, but I guess it's the likely culprit of his intestinal inflammation - I transitioned him very slowly, the soft stool issue started once the kitten sachet was completely removed. The vet put him on prednisolone and insisted on RC hydrolyzed kibble, which I tried for 10 days and made his diarrhea worse, so I eventually gave him his kitten sachet again and we're back to healthy looking stool.

I decided to compare the list of ingredients of both to list which ones the neutered sachet has that the kitten one doesn't, and these are the ones I found:
potassium bisphosphate
calcium sulfate
chicken liver hydrolyzate*
locust bean gum
caramel coloring
zeolite
L-carnitine

The potassium, calcium, zeoline and L-carnitine are just supplements, and are mostly at the very bottom of the list, so I wouldn't assume they're the issue. The chicken liver hydrolyzate made me think, though, because I've read that hydrolyzed protein can cause diarrhea in some cats (it certainly happened with the kibble over here), and that's in the middle of the ingredients list of the RC neutered sachet. I've also seen here on the forum that the "gum" additives aren't great, and the caramel food coloring is just annoying tbh.

Do any of these stand out to you as possible irritants?

mrsgreenjeens · Jan 27, 2023

My first thought was the Locust Bean Gum, next would be the caramel coloring. I would not have thought the chicken liver hydrolyzate would do it, but anything is possible. Do you have to stick with Royal Canin? For IBD cats, less ingredients are better. Do you have anything similar to Rawz brand where you are located?

Also, have you seen this website? It's all about IBD. Feline Nutrition – IBDKitties

gabicards · Jan 27, 2023

mrsgreenjeens said:
My first thought was the Locust Bean Gum, next would be the caramel coloring. I would not have thought the chicken liver hydrolyzate would do it, but anything is possible. Do you have to stick with Royal Canin? For IBD cats, less ingredients are better. Do you have anything similar to Rawz brand where you are located?

Also, have you seen this website? It's all about IBD. Feline Nutrition – IBDKitties

I don't need to stick to Royal Canin, but since they have one type of food that agrees with my cat, I started my search through them.

There's several brands making limited ingredient diets in France, and I'll definitely try those once my cat recovers well from his recent surgery (I won't mess with what's working for him while he's dealing with that...). But I thought comparing ingredients was interesting, since the composition is similar enough, and the items are probably all from the same source. I'll definitely keep an eye on those from the list to see if they show up in any other food he'll try in the future and how he reacts to it.