IBD treatment/diet

[Maddie36]

Hello! My cat who is almost a year old has IBD and was taking metronidazole for her diarrhea. She was on it for 2 weeks and starting getting the tremors so I stopped it. She’s currently eating proplan veterinary diet EN wet and dry food. I was wondering if a diet change without medication is possible? Has anyone heard of KOHA cat food? Wondering if it’s any good?

 

[kittyprincesss]

For my really sensitive girl we had her on food that was Hydrolyzed Protein. Royal Canin has one that is Hydrolyzed Protein and Renal health, maybe look into HP. I am not too sure what other brands there might be, but the HP makes it very easy for their tummys to digest and is very sensitive friendly. I hope you get some more replies here to help you! Please keep us updated. I know how frustrating IBD can be and finding the right diet.

She was also on Prednisolone (but you stated you don't want to do medication, so just wanted to let you know the medicine that worked for her, if you change your mind)

 

[Maddie36]

For my really sensitive girl we had her on food that was Hydrolyzed Protein. Royal Canin has one that is Hydrolyzed Protein and Renal health, maybe look into HP. I am not too sure what other brands there might be, but the HP makes it very easy for their tummys to digest and is very sensitive friendly. I hope you get some more replies here to help you! Please keep us updated. I know how frustrating IBD can be and finding the right diet.

She was also on Prednisolone (but you stated you don't want to do medication, so just wanted to let you know the medicine that worked for her, if you change your mind)

Thank you for your help! Yea I’d rather not do medicine if possible.

 

[LTS3]

Koha is a good brand of food to feed to an IBD cat. Rawz is another one.

Diet alone doesn't help some IBD cats. Medicine is needed as well. At first diagnosis, the vet may try several different medicines to try to relieve symptoms. Long term, a steroid may be needed to calm flare ups. A short course of steroids occasionally based on symptoms may be needed.

Two good web sites with more info:

IBDKitties – Helping Save Lives…One Paw at a Time

www.ibdkitties.net

Feline IBD - Healing can happen!

Address the root cause of IBD in your cat. Treat inflammation and gut dysbiosis with proper tools to restore health, not just manage symptoms.

www.rawfeedingforibdcats.org

 

[kazanlak]

I tried a probiotic called Visbiome with my cats and once they had been on it for a couple weeks or so it seemed like there was a sudden and noticeable sharp drop off in diarrhea and vomiting. At times I did think the Visbiome might have taken things too far in the other direction and led to periodic constipation, but that could just be about finding the right dosage and frequency, and also might not have even been the Visbiome at all.
I’m not using it much now currently due to the other factors going on but I got the impression it did help a lot with the IBD. I wish I had known about it sooner.

 

[daftcat75]

IBD in a one year old is very unusual. How was it diagnosed?

Diet is the absolute best medicine for IBD or any kind of gut or butt issues. Rawz single protein pates are the gold standard for IBD cats.

I just looked at KOHA and I don't like it. It has these three ingredients which I believe don't belong in cat food:

Ground Flaxseed - often rancid and the omega's are in the wrong form for cats, it's a useless addition
New Zealand Green Mussel - this can cause stomach discomfort or diarrhea in some cats. Terrible box blowouts with my IBD kitty.
Agar Agar - this can cause gut irritation and diarrhea in many cats. Any foods with agar agar doubled over my IBD kitty--the loaf of pain.

I would look for a no-nonsense wet food like Rawz. Skip the dry food altogether. Dry food isn't necessary and it's more likely to aggravate IBD than to be helpful in managing it. Too many starchy/carby ingredients! If you're looking for another food besides Rawz, avoid foods with carrageenan and agar agar and any other plant-based additions besides pumpkin. An ideal cat food will be meat, moisture, organs, and supplements, preferably in that order, with no grains or starches and few to none fruits and vegetables--except pumpkin. Pumpkin can be helpful. Cranberries and kale? Not so much. If you don't suspect any protein sensitivities yet, Fancy Feast Classic Pates are simple recipes that come pretty close to that meat, moisture, organs (also called meat by-products on the label), and supplements formula. Sheba Perfect Portions isn't so bad either. It does have tapioca starch. But that's still better than the rancid flaxseed plus two known potential irritants in KOHA. Often times, protein sensitivities are not necessarily the protein but the other ingredients in the food. This why Rawz is such a valuable food for trials. All the nonsense has been eliminated and what you're left with is comparing one protein to another between their formulas rather than wondering if it was the protein or the gum(s) or the starches or the fruits or vegetables or mussels, or ...

I would consult with an internal medicine specialist. You want to make sure the diagnosis is correct. Because there's no cure--only management. And you certainly don't want to start a cat that young on steroids if you don't have to. It will be better for her long-term health if she can stay off steroids (prednisilone) as long as possible. If she already started them, work with the specialist to taper them to the minimum effective dose as quickly as you can. Preferably that will be an every other day dose as steroids take longer than a day to metabolize. This is just one reason why daily steroids is so hard on the cat. They get a new dose before they are done with the previous day's dose.

Finally, saccharomyces boulardii can be very helpful with diarrhea. Metronidazole isn't always the best because it kills good gut bacteria with the bad. S. boulardii is yeast-based so it survives antibiotics. It can help stabilize a dodgy gut.

My Cat Has Diarrhea - What Do I Do?

 

[Catmom1234567890]

How was it diagnosed? Biopsy or ultrasound?. A biopsy is more accurate. Our biopsy diagnosed IBD kitty doesn't have diarrhea but has constipation. Slow motility is the cause of constipation. IBD is not necessarily due to food allergy but rather due to dysbiosis of the gut. Dysbiosis is imbalance of good and bad bacteria in the gut that triggers food allergy and results in IBD. So, a good diet is vital. We've tried so many prescription diets but our kitty was having diarrhea, constipation, regurgitation, and vomiting. Prior to Rx food, she only suffered from constipation. We also added probiotic called visbiome. This is a good supplement but our kitty did not tolerate. We make homemade food with completer and this is the best medicine.

I highly recommend getting full GI panel to rule out other GI disease like pancreatitis or Epi. This test is not done at our vets. The blood sample is sent to a lab in Texas or IDEXX.

 

[Molly and Abby]

For my really sensitive girl we had her on food that was Hydrolyzed Protein. Royal Canin has one that is Hydrolyzed Protein and Renal health, maybe look into HP. I am not too sure what other brands there might be, but the HP makes it very easy for their tummys to digest and is very sensitive friendly. I hope you get some more replies here to help you! Please keep us updated. I know how frustrating IBD can be and finding the right diet.

She was also on Prednisolone (but you stated you don't want to do medication, so just wanted to let you know the medicine that worked for her, if you change your mind)

Molly is on Royal Canin HP for IBD too. It really helped her - no diarrhea.

I highly recommend it.

 

[Kgraham1511]

My 3 year old Maine Coon mix is on HP. If he gets anything different his stomach will get upset and not eat much for a day. He has went to a internal medicine specialist and multiple different vets. We have him lined out on a regime of 1/4 teaspoon miralax, 1/4 teaspoon Metamucil and 2.5 prednislone.

Unfortunately he stops eating and becomes constipated unlike most IBD cats that have diarrhea.

 

[Catmom1234567890]

My 3 year old Maine Coon mix is on HP. If he gets anything different his stomach will get upset and not eat much for a day. He has went to a internal medicine specialist and multiple different vets. We have him lined out on a regime of 1/4 teaspoon miralax, 1/4 teaspoon Metamucil and 2.5 prednislone.

Unfortunately he stops eating and becomes constipated unlike most IBD cats that have diarrhea.

miralax flushes out good bacteria in the gut so we stopped plus it didn’t alleviate rabbity poo. Pumpkin is not a very good fiber imo. It’s effectiveness is very mild.
We give cisapride once a day plus egg yolk powder to increase motility. To bulk up the stool, we give psyllium in the am and kibow fortis pm.

 

[R@ch]

I have a tiny runt, 10 months old, who the vet settled on IBD. He’s had all the tests, no biopsy tho, the tritric DNA test, several fecal smears/flotation, tons of bloodwork, X-ray….but he continued to basically leak diarrhea out of his butt. Almost like he couldn’t control the muscle but he can…so after trying hydro protein (gave him worse diarrhea), hills biome, hills I/d, Royal Canin gastro (kitten and regular), a ton of fancy organic dry foods and wet foods, the ONLY thing that he can eat is Stella and Chewy raw freeze dried rabbit WITH purée pumpkin added. BUT, it works 95% of the time. Costs a small fortune but I was at my wits end.
Personally, I think it’s all the fruits and veggies they put in cat food, specifically pea protein.
Best of luck, it’s tough. If you can afford it, I’d try the rabbit for sure

 

[Maddie36]

I recently took my cat off of the proplan prescription food and started her on Rawz wet food and small amount of Nulo limited ingredient diet dry food and she’s doing great!!

 

[Maddie36]

Proplan prescription food had chicken and by products and corn etc not good at all.

 

[Maddie36]

Also I don’t give her anything with chicken in it.