My 6-1/2 years old healthy female calico cat, on raw diet for about 3 years, now diagnose with possi

[blakat]

My 6.5 years old female cat has been in a raw meat diet for at least 3 years now, always being healthy, exited to eat...sometimes she'll get finicky about food so I would add either some high quality canned food, one crushed piece of Royal Canin dental kibble or sprinkle some Pure Bites Chicken flavor powder on top of food and that has being the trick for the last couple of years.
About 3 weeks ago she started to act hungry but not wanted to eat her food much, and the she started vomiting almost every day. Took he to the vet, they run Pancreatitis snap test ( negative) blood work ( we skipped the T4 at this time 'cause it was tested 5 months ago and it was at 2.0) and x-rays with no significant findings. Her teeth looks fine (she also had her first cleaning 3months ago with one little tooth extraction :-( wich had a little cavity), unless there is an underlying issues with her roots or a fracture..?).

Vet prescribed her a pain med for a couple of days to see if it was pain in her mouth ( but why would she vomit though?) and Amoxicillin for possible GI tract or gallbladder infection...?!
And told me to try feeding Royal Canin HE canned food....of course, I was pretty reluctant about feeding her that stuff but my cat won't eat anything else anymore!
She acts very hungry but for some reason cannot eat.

Two days ago I went to an Internal Medicine Specialist and Dr. believes her problem is possible IBD; she raccomends further testing (Ultrasound, total T4 and Urinalisys). She prescribed Metronidazone and Cerenia (for nausea) for a couple of days and suggest to put her on a HYDROLYZED PROTEIN DIET for a couple of weeks.

If, after this, we cannot find a reason for the vomiting, soft stools and weight loss, a scope or and exploratory surgery is reccomended ( very scary, I refuse to even think about that...)

So, all of a sudden, we switched her on this Royal Canin HP special diet: she doesn't ind dry food but definately misses her vet food (the healthy one!). She' s not eating much at all though and as I am closely watching her I see that she's very hungry, start chewing on kibbles and drops lots of tiny pieces, even when I was giving her canned food. But if I give a hard salmon, or chicken or fish flavored treat she'll crunch it up in a second just fine!
I don't understand what her problem is and this is driving me insane. And now, of course, she started having diharrea because of the sudden change in food.

Again, I dought that , if my cat developed IBD, is because of the raw diet she's in. What could I possibly have dove wrong? Maybe the teaspoon of canned food added to her raw meat? Or 1-2 pieces of crushed kibble sprinkled on the food to entice her appetite?!
Or could it be STRESS related? I recently worked for little bit over two months with crazy schedules, but I've quit that job about two weeks ago (right after my cat start having issues) and now I'm home again. She's always been a scary cat but now she's way more emotional about anything.

Anybody ever experienced this or have a cat with this kind of issues? Any help and/suggestion would be very appreciate it! Thank you

 

[stephenq]

Anybody ever experienced this or have a cat with this kind of issues? Any help and/suggestion would be very appreciate it! Thank you

Unfortunately i have too much experience with IBD.  But first, it isn't your fault.  Any cat can develop IBD regardless of what you feed them. Hopefully it can be controlled via a new diet, either a prescription novel protein diet or a hydrolyzed protein diet, although the hydrolyzed ones can sometimes causes serious diarrhea, so if that happens be prepared to immediately stop that food.

If your cat has weight loss, that is a sign of advancing and serious disease. IMO every owner of a cat with IBD that seems to be progressing should invest in a baby scale and start regular weekly or bi-weekly (once every 2 week) weighing.  Successful treatment always means the weight stabilizes or gains, weight loss means advancing disease.

If the cat is loosing weight the usual treatment at this point is to go on Prednisilone.

Cerenia is an amazing drug and while technically it should only be used 5 days on 1 day off, many cats tolerate it every day, my cat being an example.  And my cat's IBD got so bad that he would always start vomiting on the day off, so with my vets advice and monitoring we had him on it daily.

Biopsy, either endoscopic if the ultrasound suggests upper GI (and less invasive) or full thickness surgical biopsy if lower in the GI tract can assist with a positive diagnosis, but it isn't required for initial treatments and is really only done if there is a suspicion of small cell lymphoma which is related to IBD.  Even the initial treatments of SCL (pred, then Leukeran) are the same as for IBD so in some respects the biopsy is more for you, peace of mind of knowing.

Note if you biopsy by any method it needs to be done before you started a steroid.

Bottom line, if your cat's weight is stable then you are in an earlier stage of the disease and oyu may be able to control it with diet or milder drugs like Tylosin.

 

[blakat]

Thanks Stephen, I appreciate your detailed response on this matter...although, I'm still hoping my cat will be ok soon and IBD or any other possible desease will be rule out!
I didn't mention before, she's always being around 11-11.50 lb.: at the vet on April 7th she was 11.4 lb. and at the specialty vet on April 15 she was 11 lb.
Yesterday she only eat between 15-25 gr. of dry food, drunk a lot (because of the dry food she's not used to) and had one ephysode of soft stools (pretty much diharrea); today she's being eating a bit more and so far she already eaten 14 gr (based on the Royal Canin HP feeding guide chart, she's suppose to eat about 60 gr. of that dry food per day).
She's being more active today and truly enjoying this beautiful, sunny and warm day on her window's perch...she's much more relaxed today ...'till I'll have to give her the medicines...oh boy 8-(
I'll try to weight her later on but I agree with you, a baby scale will be the most accurate way to go.
Btw, I'll be taking her to a different vet next Tue and most likely we'll be running urynalysysT4 and Ultrasounds.

I'll keep have faith.

 

[stephenq]

Thanks Stephen, I appreciate your detailed response on this matter...although, I'm still hoping my cat will be ok soon and IBD or any other possible desease will be rule out!
I didn't mention before, she's always being around 11-11.50 lb.: at the vet on April 7th she was 11.4 lb. and at the specialty vet on April 15 she was 11 lb.
Yesterday she only eat between 15-25 gr. of dry food, drunk a lot (because of the dry food she's not used to) and had one ephysode of soft stools (pretty much diharrea); today she's being eating a bit more and so far she already eaten 14 gr (based on the Royal Canin HP feeding guide chart, she's suppose to eat about 60 gr. of that dry food per day).
She's being more active today and truly enjoying this beautiful, sunny and warm day on her window's perch...she's much more relaxed today ...'till I'll have to give her the medicines...oh boy 8-(
I'll try to weight her later on but I agree with you, a baby scale will be the most accurate way to go.
Btw, I'll be taking her to a different vet next Tue and most likely we'll be running urynalysysT4 and Ultrasounds.

I'll keep have faith.

OK all that sounds like a plan.  I should correct something I said earlier.  Biopsy isn't just for SCL, but for IBD as well, but in the early stages of IBD with stable weight vets rarely suggest a biopsy as being premature given how invasive it is, and usually suggest treatments instead, starting with the mildest (diet etc) and slowly working up to more heavy duty treatments, and if these treatments work, it can give you a presumptive diagnosis of IBD.  If and when you readh the step of giving your cat Prednisilone, this is when vets start talking about biopsy if for no other reasons than a) the disiease is more serious now and b) you lose the option of bioppsy when the cat goes on steroids.