Most irresistible paté-style wet food?

[bananamillie]

Our cat is dealing with a lot of health issues including CKD, pancreatitis and intestinal small cell lymphoma. She is currently recovering from a bout of diarrhea and the medication prescribed for that has caused inappetence. Mirataz and cyproheptadine have not worked in getting her to eat.

The only thing she will eat is a/d food. She used to eat Blue Buffalo senior wilderness or Fancy Feast gourmet naturals trout and tuna, but now rejects them. I do not know if they are triggering some food aversion for her since she had the diarrhea.

Is there anything similar to a/d food in terms of texture and smell that would be hard for cats to resist? With new foods, she will generally sample them and eventually reject. So far she's rejected Weruva pates, tiki cat mousse and Kasiks.

 

[daftcat75]

When I saw the subject line, I was going to suggest A/D. I'm not sure if there's anything quite as popular with sick and senior cats. Can you mix the A/D with something she formerly liked? My Betty loves Hills I/D in the stew cans, but does not like the pate. Before she started steroids for her IBD, I used to mix the A/D with the I/D stew cans at a 1:2 ratio (1 part A/D to two parts I/D) and that brought the I/D to a more pate like consistency and calories (raised it from 0.97 per gram to 1.04.) Since starting the steroids, I've been able to get her off the A/D mix. Now she only eats I/D and she gets a tiny amount of A/D twice a day to coat her medication capsules.

 

[Furballsmom]

Hi
Hmmm, I don't know about smell, but have you looked at Royal Canin Mother and Babycat (doesn't require a prescription)? There's also Forza10, and also possibly Solid Gold, Wellness Core and Merrick Limited Ingredient, and Koha are a few others. Adding a little water could help get the food more mushy.

This chart isn't maintained, but it might still be somewhat helpful;
Canned Cat food Spreadsheets

 

[lisahe]

When one of our cats had surgery this summer, the "real" food she ate first was Sheba, chicken and turkey pates. If your cat needs food that's easy to lap up, Sheba's perfect.

What daftcat75 says about a/d is true: we used that to feed our cats dewormer powder after the surgery and it felt like a minor miracle that both cats lapped up all the food and all the dewormer all three times.

I hope your cat feels better soon, B bananamillie .

 

[bananamillie]

Thank you for the recommendations! Will go pick up these options and present them to her highness

 

[verna davies]

Have you tried sprinkling a little Fortiflora on the food, my picky eater goes nuts wanting to get to the food.

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

I don't get it. Neither of my cats like A/D . Seems like they are the only ones out there that don't like it. 'Course, one of them hates FortiFlora too. Cats! Gotta love 'em.

 

[bananamillie]

Have you tried sprinkling a little Fortiflora on the food, my picky eater goes nuts wanting to get to the food.

I have! She doesn't like it at all But she's liked nutritional yeast in the past as a topper, maybe I can try that.

 

[daftcat75]

I have! She doesn't like it at all But she's liked nutritional yeast in the past as a topper, maybe I can try that.

Nothing wrong with offering nutritional yeast. You could also see if she might like saccharomyces boulardii. This would help with the diarrhea and it would also reduce some potentially harmful bacteria populations she may have in her gut. If she's had a course of antibiotics in the past year, it's almost a certainty that her gut biome is out of whack and could use s. boulardii to rebalance it.

This is my new favorite s. boulardii product. I used to recommend the Jarrow brand. But this one is formulated specifically for cats by folks who know cats' guts. You may also want to look into their Gut Health testing and Gut Restore Supplement.

KittyBiome™ GMP – AnimalBiome

 

[bananamillie]

Nothing wrong with offering nutritional yeast. You could also see if she might like saccharomyces boulardii. This would help with the diarrhea and it would also reduce some potentially harmful bacteria populations she may have in her gut. If she's had a course of antibiotics in the past year, it's almost a certainty that her gut biome is out of whack and could use s. boulardii to rebalance it.

This is my new favorite s. boulardii product. I used to recommend the Jarrow brand. But this one is formulated specifically for cats by folks who know cats' guts. You may also want to look into their Gut Health testing and Gut Restore Supplement.

KittyBiome™ GMP – AnimalBiome

It's funny I JUST purchased this 30 minutes ago

Not quite sure what's going on with our cat. She's being treated for small cell lymphoma, but this particular episode can be a pancreatitis flare up. Her fPLI test was 50 and the range is from 0-3.5. Yikes. I was looking up supportive meds for pancreatitis when I found the GMP by animal biome. Also purchased their test and their Gut Restore Supplement.

Cat was prescribed metronidazole for the diarrhea but it made her appetite even worse. We stopped it after 2 days because we needed her to eat and the diarrhea had stopped. She started eating a/d but then the diarrhea returned and now we're back to square one.

 

[daftcat75]

It's funny I JUST purchased this 30 minutes ago

Not quite sure what's going on with our cat. She's being treated for small cell lymphoma, but this particular episode can be a pancreatitis flare up. Her fPLI test was 50 and the range is from 0-3.5. Yikes. I was looking up supportive meds for pancreatitis when I found the GMP by animal biome. Also purchased their test and their Gut Restore Supplement.

Cat was prescribed metronidazole for the diarrhea but it made her appetite even worse. We stopped it after 2 days because we needed her to eat and the diarrhea had stopped. She started eating a/d but then the diarrhea returned and now we're back to square one.

Great minds think alike.

I hate that metro gets prescribed for diarrhea since it can cause diarrhea and it wrecks the microbiome.

A/D is very rich/fatty. If you can "cut it" (dilute it) with something else, that may help firm up her stools. The s. boulardii should certainly help too. I believe AB recommends correcting the diarrhea first before beginning the Gut Restore supplement. You might want to send them an email on that at [email protected]

50 is huge for an fPLI. I know they say the number doesn't necessarily correspond to the magnitude. But still! I had more than enough trouble with Krista when she had a 35 reading. You may need an anti-nausea drug like ondansetron or Cerenia. Betty's (and many other cats') appetite prefers ondansetron even if its twice a day vs Cerenia's once a day and it doesn't have the anti-inflammatory benefit that Cerenia has. Maybe ask for both and see if she does alright on Cerenia. Otherwise, I would swap it for ondansetron. That may be the missing piece to get the mirtz or cyproheptadine to work.

 

[bananamillie]

We held off on the metro as long as possible knowing that it would wipe out the gut bacteria. She had been on the max dose of ondansetron and Cerenia for 4 days with no improvement before we finally caved in and gave her the metro.
We've continued the supportive and nausea meds but really nothing is working right now. I've been giving her Visbiome probiotic which has worked really well for her in the past but right now is not helping much. I just checked their ingredients and s. boulardii isn't on it. I'll maybe see if I can pick something up until the Animal Biome order is delivered.

Biggest head scratcher is not knowing if this is a huge panc flare or if her lymphoma is out of remission. I don't want her to go through chemo with a more aggressive drug if she's feeling poorly right now, and especially if it's just a panc flare. But also if it's the lymphoma, that needs to be addressed for her to feel better.

She had a panc flare around the same time last year with same fPLI, similar symptoms minus the diarrhea and that resolved in 7ish days. We're at day 10 here with not much improvement.

 

[daftcat75]

We held off on the metro as long as possible knowing that it would wipe out the gut bacteria. She had been on the max dose of ondansetron and Cerenia for 4 days with no improvement before we finally caved in and gave her the metro.
We've continued the supportive and nausea meds but really nothing is working right now. I've been giving her Visbiome probiotic which has worked really well for her in the past but right now is not helping much. I just checked their ingredients and s. boulardii isn't on it. I'll maybe see if I can pick something up until the Animal Biome order is delivered.

Biggest head scratcher is not knowing if this is a huge panc flare or if her lymphoma is out of remission. I don't want her to go through chemo with a more aggressive drug if she's feeling poorly right now, and especially if it's just a panc flare. But also if it's the lymphoma, that needs to be addressed for her to feel better.

She had a panc flare around the same time last year with same fPLI, similar symptoms minus the diarrhea and that resolved in 7ish days. We're at day 10 here with not much improvement.

I don’t know how you would tell the difference between lymphoma and pancreatitis. I mean the fPLI seems rather convincing. But that’s usually a trailing indicator. Pancreatitis doesn’t usually happen in a vacuum. So yeah. It could be the lymphoma coming back. Maybe? I’m not a vet. But certainly the s boulardii should help more than a bacterial probiotic. S boulardii will starve out some bad strains and nourish some good ones. AnimalBiome is quick with their shipping. But then they are likely a lot more local to me (about 45 minutes away) than you. Their testing has a longer turnaround.

I can't be ever be certain what's going on with Betty. But it seems like since I doubled her s. boulardii dose, her poops have improved in size and odor (she never really had a poop problem anyway) and she's eating better once again. She was taking half the recommended dose because I repacked the original larger size 3 capsules into smaller size 4 capsules. But I only gave one instead of the two needed to match a size 3. I was worried about adding too many pills to her stack. Well, after a second AnimalBiome report that showed clostridium is still high and now e. coli has gone high (common with antibiotics use), I decided to get serious with the s. boulardii. And I'm glad I did. Her eating had dropped off with this latest pred taper. But it's picking back up since I added the second s. boulardii pill. It will be bittersweet if simply increasing the s. boulardii is going to help us to our next level. Sweet to finally figure it out but sad that I could have got her here sooner if I wasn't so hesitant with the number of pills she was taking. She's a pro, though. Now that she understands scoop and swallow vs. lick and flick she will happily take as many capsules as I put down for her. Provided I've twisted them in some A/D first.

Hang in there. The s. boulardii should help.

Maybe you do go back on pred and chlorambucil? What does the vet say about that? You should know fairly quickly (not very many doses) if that's going to work.

 

[bananamillie]

She's still on the pred. We don't want to give her chlorambucil since she is very sensitive to it and has GI side effects like nausea, vomiting, inappetence even with round the clock nausea meds. Her last chlorambucil was two weeks ago and she's on the medicate-every-other-week (MEOW) dosing. The diarrhea started 3-4 days after the dose, so I'm wondering if the chlorambucil caused it too.
There's really no way to know what's going on with her, maybe all of the above.

I found some s boulardii and gave it to her. Do you know what the recommended dose is?

Where is Animal Biome located? I saw that their HQ is in Oakland, CA but not sure if that's where they ship from. If Oakland, that's not far from me at all.

 

[daftcat75]

She's still on the pred. We don't want to give her chlorambucil since she is very sensitive to it and has GI side effects like nausea, vomiting, inappetence even with round the clock nausea meds. Her last chlorambucil was two weeks ago and she's on the medicate-every-other-week (MEOW) dosing. The diarrhea started 3-4 days after the dose, so I'm wondering if the chlorambucil caused it too.
There's really no way to know what's going on with her, maybe all of the above.

I found some s boulardii and gave it to her. Do you know what the recommended dose is?

Where is Animal Biome located? I saw that their HQ is in Oakland, CA but not sure if that's where they ship from. If Oakland, that's not far from me at all.

Yes. They are in Oakland. I’m down to my last two GMP capsules. So that’s tomorrow’s dose. If the package pending acceptance right now is received by USPS tomorrow, it should arrive on time on Thursday to not miss a dose.

S boulardii for humans (same stuff but obviously different packaging) often comes in 250 mg or 5 Billion CFU capsules. Half a capsule twice a day is considered a maintenance dose. 1/4 capsule can be used every few hours as an emergency stop diarrhea protocol. She’ll likely get sick of eating the stuff before you find too high a dose. Obviously if she gets constipated, that’s a cue to reduce the dose or the frequency.

 

[bananamillie]

Thank you!
So far she's had 1/4th capsule and I'll give her another 1/4th before I head to bed. Good to know that it can cause constipation if given in excess.

 

[mysterylover]

You might try Merrick Back Country Pouches. They are bits in gravy, but if your cat likes them with smaller bits, you can mash them. I read a review on Chewy where someone said it was the only food their sickly cat would eat. It comes in a variety of flavors. According to Tanya's site, several of the flavors are a little over 1 in phosphorus on a dry matter basis. She lists them as Merrick Back Country Cuts on the site. My cats do not tolerate much guar gum, but if your cat was eating the A/D, it has guar gum - unless you think it caused the diarrhea....