Possible food allergy

dolceshmolce

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I have a 6-month-old male kitten with some tummy troubles. He battled giardia for the first few months of life. He is now stuck with loose stools (not full on diarrhea, but definitely not firm enough) and very smelly gas. The litter box is a constant stench, now matter how much I clean it.
We’ve run tests and he has tested negative for all parasites, so now the vet is thinking a possible food allergy. I also am wondering if his gut is shot from the previous infection and constant medications. Luckily, he is growing like a weed and it hasn’t seemed to stunt his weight gain.

For those of you who have dealt with food allergies in cats leading to digestive issues, where did you start? I know I am going to be told to go to the vet and seek professional guidance, but I am just curious as to how those here have dealt with it?

I’m finding the info online to be all over the place. And the amount of things a cat could have an allergy to - I am thoroughly overwhelmed.
 

Lazy Orange House Cat

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Start with a limited ingredient diet. A limited ingredient diet consists of one protein, one source of carbohydrate, vitamins and minerals to balance it, and that's it. You won't find one for kittens, but you will find plenty of all life stage formulas. Choose a protein he hasn't had. If he's always eaten chicken, try duck, for instance. GO! makes several good recipes if you're looking for dry food. If you feed both wet and dry, then they need to match. Feeding duck dry? Duck can be the only protein in the wet food, see? You may have to shop around for a wet food that is all life stages. If you're going with a fish based dry food, Weruva or Tiki Cat have good fish only options, for example, that would work. Whatever you do, do it for a good three months. Treats must be of the same protein as the food. Salmon food? Freeze-dried salmon treats. Read labels. Just because it says turkey on the front of the package doesn't mean turkey is the only protein. Read everything. If at the end of three months the kitten is better, then slowly begin adding things back to his diet. Single protein treats or canned foods are a good place to start, but only one protein at a time. Been eating turkey for three months? Try adding freeze dried duck liver, for example. This way, if he reacts, you can easily eliminate the thing that set him off. Slowly, you'll build a menu for him.
Good luck!
 

lisahe

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My approach to food issues might sound a little different: I try to avoid them from the start by feeding the simplest wet foods possible. Even doing that, there are so many additives in cat foods, even to canned foods, that I don't start with proteins when our cats have problems. In their eight years with us, it's been other ingredients that have given our cats digestive, hm, distress. Thanks to dumb luck and a food diary, we've taken potato, agar-agar, and green-lipped mussels out of our cats' diet. All three caused vomiting. Potato also gave one cat horribly stinky breath and gas. I also don't feed foods with grains, carrageenan, carby vegetables, or legumes, among other things. A gentle reminder that legumes can cause gas in humans, too! At least we're built to digest them -- but cats are made to eat meat, vegetable matter isn't their natural diet, so carbs just aren't their thing. Unfortunately, lots of foods have thickeners like potatoes and peas and, even worse, vegetable protein added to boost protein content. I avoid all of those.

What are you feeding your cat, dolceshmolce dolceshmolce ? If there's a carby ingredient like, say, potato, maybe your cat (like our Edwina!) would do better without it. Dry foods tend to have lots of starchy stuff that cats aren't really meant to eat. We use small amounts of Dr. Elsey's dry chicken food (but no other flavors from Dr. E, because of chickpeas, which I would never feed our cats!) and it has no fillers.

I'm not saying I disagree with L Lazy Orange House Cat 's approach -- it's very sound! -- but my experience with our cats is that first being mindful of non-meat additions to food and then tracking symptoms and meals has been the fastest way to resolve their digestive problems. It's also been less disruptive than a protein-focused food trial. (Our cats love chicken!)

My approach to feeding comes largely from reading Dr. Lisa Pierson's site, Feeding Your Cat: Know the Basics of Feline Nutrition – Common Sense. Healthy Cats. (catinfo.org). I first read it when our previous cat was in her last months, with severe digestive problems. When we adopted our current cats, we took them to a cats only vet, who also recommends Dr. P's site. There's a lot to take in but the gist can be summed up in the one word our vet repeated when we first talked about diet: Meat!
 

mrsgreenjeens

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In addition to what the above posters have said about food trials, you mentioned his gut may be "out of order" because of infection and medications. That may absolutely be true. You might want to start adding probiotics to his food. I don't recall ever hearing about cats having sensitivities to probiotics. You could give him Kefir, which is excellent in that department, or you could give him human probiotics, which I, personally, think work better than the ones for animals. We give our guys Natural Factors Acidophilus and Bifidus. 1/2 capsule in the morning and 1/2 at night for each cat. For a kitten you might start with 1/4 capsule twice a day and work your way up. Sometimes we give other probiotics but dose the same.
 

Juniper_Junebug

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In addition to what the above posters have said about food trials, you mentioned his gut may be "out of order" because of infection and medications. That may absolutely be true. You might want to start adding probiotics to his food. I don't recall ever hearing about cats having sensitivities to probiotics. You could give him Kefir, which is excellent in that department, or you could give him human probiotics, which I, personally, think work better than the ones for animals. We give our guys Natural Factors Acidophilus and Bifidus. 1/2 capsule in the morning and 1/2 at night for each cat. For a kitten you might start with 1/4 capsule twice a day and work your way up. Sometimes we give other probiotics but dose the same.
I was going to suggest the same possibility, based on my kitty's experience. Juno struggled with giardia as a kitten and it took two rounds of treatment to kick it. Then even once she had, she continued to experience loose stools for a few more months. I started her on s. Boulardii (Jarrow brand). I was then just about to start her on an elimination diet when her stools started to firm up. My vet said this sometimes happens with kittens on lots of drugs/antibiotics (she'd also been on two different antibiotics for other issues in her first few months). I think she just need time (and help from the s. Boulardii) to get her gut settled.
 
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dolceshmolce

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lisahe lisahe Sorry for the delayed reply! Thank you for your insightful input. That does make sense, I have often raised an eyebrow at the interesting fillers in cat foods we’ve used, but naïvely figured the manufacturer knew best. I personally stray away from legumes and gums myself, so I can understand how those can create digestive upset in a cat!
He has been on Royal Canin kitten dry food and Purina proplan kitten wet food. Both of which have a lot of fillers. He’s recently started eating some of my adult cat’s Six Fish dry food from orijen.
I will check out that website, it sounds promising. I simultaneously want to overhaul our 2-year-old cat’s diet, as well, after reading how damaging a dry food only diet can be (and he’s a chunk).

mrsgreenjeens mrsgreenjeens & Juniper_Junebug Juniper_Junebug - So good to hear your experiences! I’m surprised my vet didn’t mention anything about this possibility. I am going to try a probiotic, along with a higher quality food, and see what that does. He is due for his neutering within the next couple weeks, so I’ll discuss it further with our vet then.

Luckily, despite the odds, he continues to put on weight! Just hit 8 lbs today at 7 months.
 

TardisDance

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My male cat had giardia too when I adopted him at 1.5 years old and I suspect he may have had it most of his life (he was originally a TNR only in a foster home for 1 month). He was on liquid metronidazole for about 10 days and while his poops were less greasy and foul smelling, he still had semi solid poops. My vet had him on Proviable paste and capsules but it was costly ($35 for a 15 capsules!). After my supply ran out, I put him on the Fera Pet Probiotics which contains S. Boulardii. He’s been on this for about 2 months now and for the most part, his poops are now solid (he gets some semi soft poops every few weeks but I do feed a large variety of wet food).

I know there’s human ones that others can recommend the dosing for, but I was most comfortable with a product that had dosing for pets. Fera Pet is around $20 and it’s a 120 day supply (dosing is half a scoop, it looks like a 1/4 teaspoon).
 
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