First food allergy suspect - Fish or Chicken?

[mysterylover]

Hi! I have an issue with a cat who has itched and pulled his fur/overgroomed on both sides as well as his legs. He did this once before years ago, and we thought it was just stress, until I realized it started when I started feedking Lotus pate (various flavors, some with fish and all with shellfish and fish oil). I stopped that food, and it stopped, and the hair grew back.

So, quick background-- in December of 2022, his sister started being picky about food, and it turned out she has resorptive tooth disease. She had surgery and had extractions. She is still particuluar about texture, but now from the lack of many back teeth. However, she is doing really well. Unfortunately, about a month ago, her brother, Little One, fractured a tooth while aggressively eating (at that time, eating mostly The Honest Kitchen Minced, which he loved). A trip to the vet revealed that he also had resorption and needed surgery not only for the fracture but other teeth. Sadly, so soon after his sister's surgery, we did not have the funds, but we expected a tax refund, so the plan was to get surgery when that money arrived. In the meantime, the vet gave him gabapentin for the pain (was mouth quivering and drooling from the fracture). After we brought him home from the vet, I immediately decided he might need food without the ground bits of meat that The Honest Kitchen minced foods have. However, many of the foods I had that his sister was eating (also lower phosphorus because she was found to have Stage 2 kidney disease at her surgery preop), severely constipated him, so I experimented with other foods to try to add to the Weruva (Jeopurrdy Licous, Press Your Lunch) and ended up with mostly The Honest Kitchen Minced again to keep him from straining in the box to go.

HOWEVER, during that time, we noticed him having less and less hair on the sides of his body, and I realized he was chewing and licking aggressively and scratching, especially as I prepped meals at times when his gabapentin was wearing off. Of course, there are multiple changes involved that could be causing allergy, and definitely, the fractured canine tooth is likely stressful. His dose of gabapentin is very low (like 1/10 of a 100 mg capsule twice a day. We just got the tax refund, so we are going to call to get preop bloodwork for the surgery, but I expect he will be on gabapentin a couple of more weeks. OF NOTE: Little One's brother had a digestive intolerance to The Honest Kitchen Minced foods (turkey constipated - chicken gave diarrhea - chicken, turkey, and duck caused urgent, frequent soft stool), so I stopped feeding it to him. Salmon oil is like the last ingredient in all flavors of that The Honest Kitchen minced, but I suspected they were still being heavy handed with it to get cats to like the food.

I aplogize for the long post, but I wanted advice and hoped the back story about the Lotus pate and then The Honest Kitchen (and mostly Weruva pate mixed with The Honest Kitchen) would be helpful. I always assumed the issue with the Lotus pate was either fish or shellfish, but he was able to eat the Lotus Just Juicy foods (including the Just Juicy Chicken) with no overgrooming or chewing after stoppign the pate with no issue, which have salmon oil. I have read on here that some cats react to salmon oil as well.

If you were to do a food trial of sorts before the surgery, would you assume the issue was more likely salmon oil, even though the oil is less likely to cause issues, or would you assume in the stress of the tooth fracture that he developed a new food allergy, perhaps chicken? Or could he be allergic to the gabapentin, which I cannot stop until he has finished with surgery (hopefully he is a surgical candidate after blood tests and heart test)? Maybe this is all just stress from the tooth fracture/pain, as I know he could still be hiding pain on the gabapentin.

I could feed him all Weruva shreds with chicken, as I have discovered that only the pates and the BFF Play and OMG cause constipation, and shreds have no fish - Paw Lickin Chicken, Nine Liver, Pumpkin Lickin Chicken - but if he is allergic to chicken...Ugh. I have a bit of Rawz coming, but it is shreds (all with chicken) and some beef pate (lowest phosphorus in light of sister with kidney disease), but I tried Rawz pate once before, and I think they ultimately did not like it or got constipated.

Thank you for taking your precious time in life to read this post which is WAY TOO LONG!

 

[cejhome]

Our cat is allergic to chicken. Fortunately he is okay with fish.

I don't like giving him much fish.

I feed these wet foods that he really likes - no chicken or fish:

Lotus venison stew
Lotus pork stew
Tiki after dark venison with beef liver

He will eat Rawz rabbit pate for breakfast, but doesn't love it and won't eat it afterwards.

He likes the Feline Natural Lamb but I have noticed if he eats too much, he gets a bit more constipated (he has constipation issues we have been working on since we adopted him).

For a treat, I give him a small can of Soulistic lamb & tuna dinner every few weeks.

Instinct Limited Ingredient Diet Grain Free Real Rabbit Recipe Natural Wet Canned Cat Food has no chicken or fish in it. Buddy didn't like it. It can be mail ordered from Amazon and I think Chewy. Petco use to ship it but it was not available in our local store. I don't know if they still carry it.

Unfortunately, I have to mail order all of the above. Lotus - chewy or amazon. Tiki venison & beef liver - Amazon (Chewy has it on and off). If you search for it on Amazon, do not type in "Tiki Cats" They have it listed under "Tiki Pets". Rawz from Hearty Pets or Incredible pets (Hearty Pets gets it to us faster). Feline Natural, directly from them from their store website for the US.

We noticed shortly after we adopted him that he was starting to really scratch his ears (outside). I immediately took him off of both chicken and fish. I added fish back in to test him and he is fine with it.

I recently re-checked dry foods out there to see if I could find any that didn't have chicken. The only thing I could find (that isn't prescription, a zillion dollars a bag or really weird or bad ingredients) were Salmon ones. I give him a little bit per day for the fiber.

Be very very careful. If you truly want to eliminate chicken, read the entire ingredients - they can seem to be chicken free but have chicken broth or flavoring in it. Look for "natural flavors". Sometimes those natural flavors consist of things that are the allergen you are trying to avoid.

 

[FeebysOwner]

I would tend to think his teeth are the primary issue - cats can overgroom due to dental issues. If there is any chance the Gabapentin could be an issue, ask the vet for another pain med, especially considering he will also need to be on some pain meds for a period of time after the dental work is done. The other thing to consider is the Gabapentin dose is not enough to really relieve his pain to the point to stop the over grooming. Adjusting or changing the pain meds - if that is the issue - will likely bring about quicker results than a food change, which can take several weeks to determine if the 'old' food is the culprit.

Meantime, if there are foods that he was eating before the over grooming started, you could always give him occasional doses of Miralax to help ward off constipation. At least until you can get his dental problems resolved and see if that changes his grooming behaviors - at which point in time you could re-start food changes if it doesn't.

 

[mysterylover]

I would tend to think his teeth are the primary issue - cats can overgroom due to dental issues. If there is any chance the Gabapentin could be an issue, ask the vet for another pain med, especially considering he will also need to be on some pain meds for a period of time after the dental work is done. The other thing to consider is the Gabapentin dose is not enough to really relieve his pain to the point to stop the over grooming. Adjusting or changing the pain meds - if that is the issue - will likely bring about quicker results than a food change, which can take several weeks to determine if the 'old' food is the culprit.

Meantime, if there are foods that he was eating before the over grooming started, you could always give him occasional doses of Miralax to help ward off constipation. At least until you can get his dental problems resolved and see if that changes his grooming behaviors - at which point in time you could re-start food changes if it doesn't.

So, let me see if I understand what you are saying, because my daughter mentioned this is a possibility. Are you saying that the actual pain and trauma of the fractured tooth (his right upper canine down to the gum, which apparently broke easily from him aggressively eating The Honest Kitchen Minced, which is a lot of gravy, and hitting the tooth on the bottom of his bowl, which is glass - where likely the tooth was compromised by the resorptive disease) could cause anxiety to the point of him overgrooming this severely???? My daughter alluded to that, especially because he starts chewing on himself at times when it is time for the next dose of gabapentin (and it subsides when the gabapentin "kicks in"). I just figured it was subsiding because the gabapentin does make him sleepy about 30-40 minutes after he takes it (in his first and last meal of the day about 12 hours apart). So, do you think increasing the dose might help the chewing, licking, scratching??

My thinking on meds with cats is that they cannot tell me the side effects. I started very low, and when the mouth quivering and drooling stopped, I felt that was enough. That is how I ended up at about 1/10 to maybe 1/8 capsule twice a day. Is that considered low for a cat who weighs 10 pounds? However, technically, the vet did not specify a dose. I got the 100 mg capsules when his sister had the surgery back in December. They told me to "play with the dose" by pouring some out of the capsule. She was not on it but about 2 weeks after surgery at about this dose. They weigh about the same, but these are cats, and they hide pain. If I increase the dose, will it maybe last longer? I worry about him being too sedated, but the sedation does seem to wear off in an hour or so right now, so I just keep an eye on him until he settles for a nap.

Thank you for taking time to reply.

 

[FeebysOwner]

I am just saying that dental pain can cause over grooming - it is sort of a form of self-soothing, pain distraction, or perhaps a bit of both. If you are worried about over sedation, perhaps try the dose you are giving him but do it 3 times rather only twice as opposed to increasing a twice daily dose. It is a bit of an experiment with cats, as you already kind of know.

 

[mysterylover]

Our cat is allergic to chicken. Fortunately he is okay with fish.

I don't like giving him much fish.

I feed these wet foods that he really likes - no chicken or fish:

Lotus venison stew
Lotus pork stew
Tiki after dark venison with beef liver

He will eat Rawz rabbit pate for breakfast, but doesn't love it and won't eat it afterwards.

He likes the Feline Natural Lamb but I have noticed if he eats too much, he gets a bit more constipated (he has constipation issues we have been working on since we adopted him).

For a treat, I give him a small can of Soulistic lamb & tuna dinner every few weeks.

Instinct Limited Ingredient Diet Grain Free Real Rabbit Recipe Natural Wet Canned Cat Food has no chicken or fish in it. Buddy didn't like it. It can be mail ordered from Amazon and I think Chewy. Petco use to ship it but it was not available in our local store. I don't know if they still carry it.

Unfortunately, I have to mail order all of the above. Lotus - chewy or amazon. Tiki venison & beef liver - Amazon (Chewy has it on and off). If you search for it on Amazon, do not type in "Tiki Cats" They have it listed under "Tiki Pets". Rawz from Hearty Pets or Incredible pets (Hearty Pets gets it to us faster). Feline Natural, directly from them from their store website for the US.

We noticed shortly after we adopted him that he was starting to really scratch his ears (outside). I immediately took him off of both chicken and fish. I added fish back in to test him and he is fine with it.

I recently re-checked dry foods out there to see if I could find any that didn't have chicken. The only thing I could find (that isn't prescription, a zillion dollars a bag or really weird or bad ingredients) were Salmon ones. I give him a little bit per day for the fiber.

Be very very careful. If you truly want to eliminate chicken, read the entire ingredients - they can seem to be chicken free but have chicken broth or flavoring in it. Look for "natural flavors". Sometimes those natural flavors consist of things that are the allergen you are trying to avoid.

Thank you for your time and for this list! If this turns out to be a chicken allergy or fish allergy, it will be very helpful! Their sister has also become more picky since her tooth surgery, so one of these might work there as well. I don't like feeding fish, in general, because they all go nuts when I open anything with fish in it, especially tuna, and I worry about the picky girl holding out for that. I fed some fish when she was walking away from various foods right after the surgery. She was hyped on the pain medication (transdermal that lasted 4 days), and I was happy when she would eat something. I do know there were a lot of changes all at once for Little One - fractured tooth, first time at the vet in a very long time, adding gabapentin, changing to softer foods, etc. However, it stresses me to see him (I can hear him) chewing on himself. Being the pet parent is not easy. LOL! If it all resolves after surgery, when I have driven myself nuts over foods, I will let you know! Everyone here is so nice to take time to reply!

 

[mysterylover]

I am just saying that dental pain can cause over grooming - it is sort of a form of self-soothing, pain distraction, or perhaps a bit of both. If you are worried about over sedation, perhaps try the dose you are giving him but do it 3 times rather only twice as opposed to increasing a twice daily dose. It is a bit of an experiment with cats, as you already kind of know.

It's interesting that you would say that about self-soothing. The first time he did this and I blamed the Lotus pate, we suspected stress as a cause. I work from home and can literally go months without leaving the house and let other family members run errands. When that situation happened, we had a bit of extra money and actually went Christmas shopping several weekends in a row and were gone for hours each trip. Then, he suddenly started the overgrooming and pulling chunks of fur off his legs (he has scarring there where no fur will grow back). I blamed the fish in some of the Lotus pate flavors because they were eating more of it, but then, again, I went back to my old routine of rarely leaving right around then as well and bought Feliway plugins.

Yes, I did consider adding a dose with his second feeding, so maybe I will try that today. I suspect it will be at least two weeks, maybe three, depending on how booked the vet is, before surgery, and it would be good to know if increasing the frequency helps him, as he will need something for pain after the narcotic wears off for a bit.

Thank you for your fast reply! I guess I thought blaming stress/pain was a sort of cop out. I am sure the vet will notice he is balder than when she saw him a month ago and might agree with you. The gabapentin might even make it less likely to happen more after the surgery (he still has fur on his tail to overgroom and make bald - ugh - so maybe a higher dose will save it.

 

[daftcat75]

Betty is an 11 lbs cat who gets 35 mg of gabapentin twice a day. She is fed four meals a day. I work from home so I can pull this off. But even if I had to return to the office, she could take her lunch from a timed feeder. She gets meds with a meal at 5am and 5pm. Lunch is between 11:30 and noon. She gets what used to be her "overnight" and has now simply become a second dinner at 9 pm. Betty doesn't eat as much on first pass of med meals, probably because she is on the edge of her gabapentin dose. But usually after the meds kick in, she'll go back and finish her plate. I know this is harder to pull off in a multi-cat household. (Micro-chip feeders?) Lunch and second dinner however are now being consumed approximately when she discovers them. Sometimes she's still sleeping when lunch goes down, or she's still enjoying my butt-warmed and freshly vacated chair while I brush my teeth before she tackles second dinner. Those meals used to take her all meal window to finish. I think having her tooth resorption finally addressed and finding a good gabapentin dose for her has really made the difference.

He needs the surgery to address his tooth and any other problem spots he may have in his mouth. I would make that appointment yesterday and get on a cancellation waiting list to get in earlier than whatever they can give you now. That should be job one. But vets are busy and this may take some time. So my other recommendation would be to a be a little less stingy with the gabapentin. Try him on half a capsule. He'll probably be overly sedated. But you need to know what that looks like to know when to back off. But you should also see if he eats better at 50 than at whatever he is getting now. 50 mg is considered a lower dose as many cats get 100 mg or more depending on what they are taking it for. Betty is 11 lbs and she's been turning in clean plates with 35 mg. I got these compounded first as 25 mg and then I would split them and make 37.5 mg dose. And finally, when my compounded 25's ran out, I got them compounded at 35. That's what she takes now. I did not notice any stress grooming with her. But now I wonder if her hairball issue last year wasn't overgrooming that I wasn't noticing. If 50 mg makes him too sleepy, try him on 1/4 or 1/3 of a capsule. With Betty, I'd rather have her a little sleepy and happily eating her food than a more alert Betty with unfinished portions. Somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 of a 100 mg capsule is where I would start with him if he were mine. I encourage you to run that past your vet before being both doctor and pharmacist for him.

 

[mysterylover]

Betty is an 11 lbs cat who gets 35 mg of gabapentin twice a day. She is fed four meals a day. I work from home so I can pull this off. But even if I had to return to the office, she could take her lunch from a timed feeder. She gets meds with a meal at 5am and 5pm. Lunch is between 11:30 and noon. She gets what used to be her "overnight" and has now simply become a second dinner at 9 pm. Betty doesn't eat as much on first pass of med meals, probably because she is on the edge of her gabapentin dose. But usually after the meds kick in, she'll go back and finish her plate. I know this is harder to pull off in a multi-cat household. (Micro-chip feeders?) Lunch and second dinner however are now being consumed approximately when she discovers them. Sometimes she's still sleeping when lunch goes down, or she's still enjoying my butt-warmed and freshly vacated chair while I brush my teeth before she tackles second dinner. Those meals used to take her all meal window to finish. I think having her tooth resorption finally addressed and finding a good gabapentin dose for her has really made the difference.

He needs the surgery to address his tooth and any other problem spots he may have in his mouth. I would make that appointment yesterday and get on a cancellation waiting list to get in earlier than whatever they can give you now. That should be job one. But vets are busy and this may take some time. So my other recommendation would be to a be a little less stingy with the gabapentin. Try him on half a capsule. He'll probably be overly sedated. But you need to know what that looks like to know when to back off. But you should also see if he eats better at 50 than at whatever he is getting now. 50 mg is considered a lower dose as many cats get 100 mg or more depending on what they are taking it for. Betty is 11 lbs and she's been turning in clean plates with 35 mg. I got these compounded first as 25 mg and then I would split them and make 37.5 mg dose. And finally, when my compounded 25's ran out, I got them compounded at 35. That's what she takes now. I did not notice any stress grooming with her. But now I wonder if her hairball issue last year wasn't overgrooming that I wasn't noticing. If 50 mg makes him too sleepy, try him on 1/4 or 1/3 of a capsule. With Betty, I'd rather have her a little sleepy and happily eating her food than a more alert Betty with unfinished portions. Somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 of a 100 mg capsule is where I would start with him if he were mine. I encourage you to run that past your vet before being both doctor and pharmacist for him.

Thank you so much for this detailed post! I have been pondering whether to ask about this situation with the overgrooming and the teeth for weeks, and I am so glad I did it! Stories like yours let me know I am not alone in this issue with the resportion and cats.

The vet actually said I could give gapapentin to his sister indefinitely post surgery, since as long as she has ANY teeth left, she may have inflammation and discomfort, depending on how the disease progresses. She also was discovered to have Stage 2 kidney disease with the preop labs, which suddenly complicated feeding her further (trying to find a food that was smooth and soft that was lower phosphorus). I finally found a few foods she liked (Weruva Jeopurrdy Licious, BFF Take a Chance and Best Buds, and the Lotus Chicken Pate). When she was younger, I tried her on Jeopurrdy Licious and the BFF Take a Chance, and they gave her soft, smelly stools. Now, all of these give her constipation (rock hard stools when I finally clear them with something containing xanthan gum and sunflower oil). If she gets stopped up, she is even pickier about eating because it kills her appetite. I was not sure about using Miralax with her new kidney issues, but I can ask the vet. That is his sister's story in terms of her eating.

With Little One, he is a good eater. The vet was shocked that he was not skin and bones with his resorptive disease seeming worse than his sister's was before treatment. He will eat anything I offer pretty much, but he has struggled with constipation a good part of his life and trying the same Jeopurrdy Licous caused him immediate constipation. Right now, he is eating mostly Paw Lickin Chicken and Nine Livers chopped up fine but I am trying to have options around in case he is picky after surgery. The overgrooming is so bad, though. He can hardly reach what little hair is left on each side to chew or lick. His legs/thighs are nearly bald.

I work from home as well, and I feed 4 times a day (breakfast, then a large snack, then dinner, then a large bedtime snack - all wet food. I put the medication in the first bit of his meal and put it in the bowl, and he slurps it down in a gulp. I do have three cats (two males and the female, all siblings). Our situation is unique in that a famly member moved in with us that has a larger dog that has no idea how to act around cats. She wants to "play" with the cats but is way too aggressive, and for now, I do not trust her in the house when they are out in the house, so we have "shifts," where the dog is out during the day, and the cats get let out at night (I work a lot at night and sleep during the day, so that works). At least two meals a day, though, are fed with all three cats in the room with me, which is getting trickier with them now no longer wanting or tolerating digestively the same food - but I am mostly managing it for now. If I had to, I could lock the dog in the bedroom and take a cat to the other bedroom to feed separately, though.

Regarding the surgery for Little One, though, I am hoping we can get him in for preop labs and heart test next week. If he is a surgical candidate, the vet does surgeries on Thursdays, so I am hoping we can do something next Thursday or the next. My adult daughter has offered to try to take a day or two off to help the day of surgery and a couple of days following.

Thank you again for this reply. It has been helpful and also comforting to hear your story about how your cat is doing on gabapentin!