Last question...I promise!! Regarding vet suspected IBD and protein intolerance.

[tracy1213]

Hi everyone...me again....the girl whose asked a million questions in the past week. I've got one final one that's baffling me!

If anyone has read all my previous threads I'm dealing with an almost 8 year old cat whose eaten chicken, turkey, and duck wet food his entire life. He's never been a good eater and his appetite was always sporadic.

In the past 3 weeks he started having loose stool/diarrhea and became extremely hungry. I would feed him multiple small meals a day and he would poop large smelly amounts of mush multiple times a day.

My vet is running 1300.00 worth of tests on him Monday and in the meantime told me to give him a bland diet. I read about trying baby food as being the easiest to digest and bought him 2 flavors chicken and turkey. He also has one of those high calorie vitamin gels. My plan was to try this diet for a day or 2 and see how it went.

Well everything has stopped. He hasn't vomited and he has infrequent perfectly small firm unsmelly poop for the almost 2 full days of this "diet" I've tried both chicken and turkey and stools are perfect for the first time in at least 3 weeks. He's still acting completely starving as let's face it...it's baby food so here is my FINAL question!!

Does this reaction to the baby food mean he doesn't infact have an intolerance to chicken or turkey? I've been told that you have to remove their main protein source to see if the symptoms resolve but this is all he's eating and he has the most perfect stool. So I'm trying to figure out if this absolutely would rule out chicken or turkey being the culprit and start moving on to grains/gums/fillers as the possible issue?

Thank you so so much to everyone for their patience and advice and help over the past week or so!! I can't tell you how much you've all helped me!!

 

[Furballsmom]

Hi
In my estimation, you're correct. The issue would seem to be in a grain/gum or other filler.

 

[tracy1213]

Hi
In my estimation, you're correct. The issue would seem to be in a grain/gum or other filler.

Thank you!!

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

I would agree. It seems as if it's one of the other ingredients in the cat food.

Good luck trying to widdle it down. At least you shouldn't need to resort to a hydrolyzed protein diet. Those things are expensive!

 

[tracy1213]

I would agree. It seems as if it's one of the other ingredients in the cat food.

Good luck trying to widdle it down. At least you shouldn't need to resort to a hydrolyzed protein diet. Those things are expensive!

Thank you!!! I'll start a cat food journal immediately so I can figure it out eventually!!

 

[tyleete]

I have 3 kitties allergic to any type of poultry. And found out 2 of them are also allergic to the gums put in all wet food. I even tried Evanger's raw rabbit. That stuff has all of 3 ingredients! Rabbit, water, and one of the gums-think guar. They had instant puddle poop on all the wet food. 1 is on Essence Meadow & Ranch dry and doing 100% better. The other 2 like their Instinct Limited Ingredient Rabbit dry and doing well.
My question to you, is didn't you say you have both chicken and turkey baby food? Because if he's doing fine on that, I'd think chicken and turkey aren't the problem. Maybe I was mistaken. All my cats eat grain-free food which can also make a difference. I like the Instinct LI food because it only has 1 meat protein-rabbit, and 1 plant protein-pea. Good allergies are so much fun!

 

[tracy1213]

I have 3 kitties allergic to any type of poultry. And found out 2 of them are also allergic to the gums put in all wet food. I even tried Evanger's raw rabbit. That stuff has all of 3 ingredients! Rabbit, water, and one of the gums-think guar. They had instant puddle poop on all the wet food. 1 is on Essence Meadow & Ranch dry and doing 100% better. The other 2 like their Instinct Limited Ingredient Rabbit dry and doing well.
My question to you, is didn't you say you have both chicken and turkey baby food? Because if he's doing fine on that, I'd think chicken and turkey aren't the problem. Maybe I was mistaken. All my cats eat grain-free food which can also make a difference. I like the Instinct LI food because it only has 1 meat protein-rabbit, and 1 plant protein-pea. Good allergies are so much fun!

Yes my cat has been eating strictly boiled chicken and turkey, chicken and turkey baby food and some supplements and the diarrhea he's had for 3 weeks straight completely cleared up!! Now I'm scared to start adding the regular canned food back in. All of it has at least guar guam....a few varieties have like 3 gums so now I have to figure out if it's any gum or just a certain one!! I feel like I've been going crazy thinking for months I had to completely remove the poultry because he doesn't like any of the novel proteins I tried. Now it seems as though my detective work has to begin on gums!!

Thank you for your response and your suggestions!! I really appreciate it!!

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

Maybe something in this thread will help:

Cat Foods Without Gums, Bha, Carrageenan, Etc

 

[tracy1213]

Maybe something in this thread will help:

Cat Foods Without Gums, Bha, Carrageenan, Etc

Will check it out!! Thank you so much!

 

[zackslater]

Hi Tracy, I'm also dealing with an almost 8-year-old cat who seems to be in the same situation as you. I was also struggling with removing different proteings, but now I'm suspecting it's the gums as well... I was wondering how long you kept your cat on a bland diet for?

 

[tracy1213]

Hi Tracy, I'm also dealing with an almost 8-year-old cat who seems to be in the same situation as you. I was also struggling with removing different proteings, but now I'm suspecting it's the gums as well... I was wondering how long you kept your cat on a bland diet for?

So I started him on the bland diet this past Tuesday! My cat would normally hate this type of diet but after having diarrhea for 3 weeks and losing weight he was extra willing to eat anything!

The very first day I just boiled chicken breast and a little rice and chopped it really tiny but for whatever reason he puked it all up. I then bought him some baby food in chicken and turkey flavors and just gave him like 2 tablespoons spread out in a plate every 2 hours.

In the meantime I bought more chicken along with chicken thighs and boiled them up for a long time. Removed all the bones and blended that up with a tiny bit of rice and some of the bone broth to make a very thick mush. I add a little baby food to it too. He's eaten that ever since Tuesday afternoon and hasn't thrown up or had diarrhea one time since!

I also added a powdered digestive enzyme on Wed (Dr. Goodpet) and also bought him the missing link cat supplement powder and had started adding a tiny pinch of one or the other to each tiny meal so he'll have a few vitamins in him!

I'm horrified to try and wean him off this diet because I've been cleaning up diarrhea everywhere for 3 weeks straight and this has been an amazing turnaround. The vet was telling me he probably has an intolerance to poultry....well as it turns out that's not the issue.

I plan on keeping this diet going through the weekend. He has a vet appt and tests Monday so I figure after that I'm going to start adding a tiny bit of canned food into the bland diet little by little and see which ones bother him. I figure I have to just try one at a time and do it for at least a couple of days to really make sure of it either bothering him or agreeing with him. I have a headache just thinking about it!!

I found a brand of wet cat food called Rawz which is not raw but minimally processed and has no gums at all. I have no idea if he'll like it but that will be my first food that I try to add back in. I currently give him a variety of wet food and they all contain at least one gum if not multiple so the idea of trying to figure this out is definitely overwhelming.

So I can't say for sure (to answer your question) as to how long it's safe to give them the bland diet but if it helps I think it's a good place to start. Maybe just get a little multivitamin or something like that to add in after the first couple of days so at least you know your cat is getting some vitamins.

Sorry that was so long!!

 

[silent meowlook]

I would recommend that you add a ration balancer to his food. Mazuri makes a good one for cats.

 

[zackslater]

Thanks for the detailed response on the bland diet! I just got my Alnutrin sample so I'm starting mine on that + cooked chicken breasts + freeze dried liver tonight to start. I'm lucky that mine LOVES all kinds of real meat, esp cooked chicken. Fingers crossed that it helps. Keep us posted on what happens when you start adding things back to your cat's diet!

 

[tracy1213]

Thanks for the detailed response on the bland diet! I just got my Alnutrin sample so I'm starting mine on that + cooked chicken breasts + freeze dried liver tonight to start. I'm lucky that mine LOVES all kinds of real meat, esp cooked chicken. Fingers crossed that it helps. Keep us posted on what happens when you start adding things back to your cat's diet!

No problem!!! Hope your kitty feels better soon!

 

[tracy1213]

No problem!!! Hope your kitty feels better soon!

I'd be curious to know how the alnutrin supplement works out as I'm looking into that myself!! Please let me know if it's easy to use and your cat likes it/helps!! I'm super curious! Thanks!!

 

[meowmixing]

Hi everyone...me again....the girl whose asked a million questions in the past week. I've got one final one that's baffling me!

If anyone has read all my previous threads I'm dealing with an almost 8 year old cat whose eaten chicken, turkey, and duck wet food his entire life. He's never been a good eater and his appetite was always sporadic.

In the past 3 weeks he started having loose stool/diarrhea and became extremely hungry. I would feed him multiple small meals a day and he would poop large smelly amounts of mush multiple times a day.

My vet is running 1300.00 worth of tests on him Monday and in the meantime told me to give him a bland diet. I read about trying baby food as being the easiest to digest and bought him 2 flavors chicken and turkey. He also has one of those high calorie vitamin gels. My plan was to try this diet for a day or 2 and see how it went.

Well everything has stopped. He hasn't vomited and he has infrequent perfectly small firm unsmelly poop for the almost 2 full days of this "diet" I've tried both chicken and turkey and stools are perfect for the first time in at least 3 weeks. He's still acting completely starving as let's face it...it's baby food so here is my FINAL question!!

Does this reaction to the baby food mean he doesn't infact have an intolerance to chicken or turkey? I've been told that you have to remove their main protein source to see if the symptoms resolve but this is all he's eating and he has the most perfect stool. So I'm trying to figure out if this absolutely would rule out chicken or turkey being the culprit and start moving on to grains/gums/fillers as the possible issue?

Thank you so so much to everyone for their patience and advice and help over the past week or so!! I can't tell you how much you've all helped me!!

My cat has suspected IBD too. His symptoms went away on a limited protein vet diet (duck). I often wonder if he had an allergy to fish - a lot of the grain free foods he ate had some fish products in them. I hope to investigate this angle at some point. Just something to think about if his foods contained fish.

 

[tracy1213]

My cat has suspected IBD too. His symptoms went away on a limited protein vet diet (duck). I often wonder if he had an allergy to fish - a lot of the grain free foods he ate had some fish products in them. I hope to investigate this angle at some point. Just something to think about if his foods contained fish.

Thank you!!! I will be checking out all ingredients. I do think a lot of his food did contain salmon oil so who knows if that could be a trigger. Potato starch is another thing in a few of them so definitely have to start some detailed notes!! Im glad your kitty is feeling better!!