Senior Cat Vomiting, Potential Ibd??

daftcat75

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The best you can do for an IBd kitty is find a stable food: a baseline that you can always come back to. If she’s doing well on the FF Classic salmon, I see no reason to change that now. Give it a few weeks. If no incident, you could try to rotate in another FF flavor. There’s honestly nothing wrong with their Classic line. The others have suspect ingredients.
 
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sidneykitty

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Thanks! That makes sense. I'll pick up some more FF salmon as well since she's enjoying it and doing well on it.

I got a variety of other novel protein canned foods to try as well if something goes downhill with the salmon. We're going to try Natural Balance Green Pea & Venison dry first, though now I see how much green pea is in it I'm considering trying for the Instinct LID Rabbit instead...but then, that has Tapioca and Canola Oil quite high up the ingredient list which confused me. I guess there's always going to be something weird added to these foods to keep them affordable and nothing's perfect!
 

sabrinah

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Peas seem to make some cats sick but help others. Of course, peas aren't ideal in cat food but the most important part is that she eats it and keeps it down. If she does well on NB I wouldn't worry about the pea content. Whatever you choose, stick with it for a couple months if she's keeping it down. You could also consider trying a salmon dry food as well so you're only working with one animal protein at a time. I know American Journey, Natural Balance, I and Love and You, Canidae, Instinct, and Merrick all make salmon dry food with no poultry. Generally, it's best to minimize fish consumption but when it comes to figuring out what's making the kitty throw up slow and steady is the best way to go.
 

daftcat75

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I don’t like the idea of dry food for IBD cats at all. But if you’re going that route, I would suggest looking at Rawz, Tiki Cat, or Dr Elsleys. They are more expensive but they have given some thought to what’s wrong with dry and tried to make it less problematic.
 
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sidneykitty

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Yes, I guess we'll see... I was hoping to have her only eating one meat, rabbit, but it was really difficult to find at the stores. I went to every pet store in town. There were a lot of bare shelves at the one store so I wonder if they were restocking soon.

I guess we have to see if she'll even eat the venison or rabbit first and then go from there. The reason I'm not going for salmon initially is that I know she's had a lot more salmon previously so I'm uncertain if she should really eat it or not.

I'd love it if she only ate wet food and I'll definitely try to get here there, but sometimes there's a point I'd rather her eat something, dry food, than nothing as there's been many times I'll put out a wet food and sometimes she just won't touch it.

We'll see how she goes with what I've got now, but I foresee another pet store visit in my imminent future depending on how this goes!
 

daftcat75

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The reason why I would prefer she just stay on the FF that she's stable on is twofold:

1. Dry food can be irritating to an already irritated gut. You may not be able to find a dry food that doesn't cause some kind of reaction.

2. Adding dry food expands the universe of possible trigger ingredients immensely. It's so hard to find a clean wet food (meat, organs, and supplements) but it's damn near impossible to find a clean dry food because starches are needed to make it dry. And then fruits and vegetables get added to make the food look healthy on the label. If you buy the rabbit dry food and she throws it up, was it the rabbit, the peas, the clay, the cranberries, the starch, or chickpeas, or other nonsense ingredients? Many of these so-called limited ingredient diet foods aren't worth the ink to print that on the bag.

The more she vomits, the more inflammation and irritation her gut will experience leading to more vomting. It's one of those things that you should stop as soon as possible before it feeds upon itself. If you can feed her FF exclusively for a few weeks (a couple months preferred!), her gut will have a chance to heal itself. If you add dry food trials and they don't agree with her, how long are you going to keep her barfing before you land on one that works or stop giving her dry altogether? I would say if she's stable right now, don't touch a thing. Better she eats whatever she's eating whatever you think about it and not barfing than going through distressing food trials trying to resolve your ideas about food and plans for her with her sensitive gut.

If you're going to go with dry anyway, keep dry and wet meals separate. The dry will be less digestible and adding it to wet will make the wet less digestible too.
 
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sidneykitty

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Right that makes sense! And I agree, it was much harder to find a "single protein" dry food without a ton of weird things.

The reason I was staying with dry food is she's been eating dry food in the AM and the FF wet in the evening for the last week + and has not vomited since Dec 30. So she has still been eating her regular dry food during that period of stability without vomiting. I was waiting for her ultrasound results before changing her food too much.

I'm only confused that, if she is intolerant of something in the dry food, would she still have been vomiting consistently during that time?

The only food I eliminated in the last two weeks was her wet food she used to eat, which was Weruva. Does that point to Weruva being a problem for her? What are your thoughts?

The venison doesn't seem to be much of a hit with her so far anyway, she's gone and picked out and eaten all her old kibble from my 1/3 new to 2/3 old mix.
 

daftcat75

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It could very well be the Weruva. I tried a Slip-n-Serve packet with Krista when her teeth were bothering her and I wasn't sure she'd get her dental until we could refeed her liver. Well, this isn't our first food trial so I only gave her a half ounce. Her normal meal is 2 oz. That half ounce was enough to make her look really rough for several hours like she wanted to throw up. I honestly thought it was 50/50 whether she was going to keep it down.

Venison is a red meat and not all cats like red meat. Krista doesn't. I thought I'd serve her a bit of venison burger raw for Christmas ("merry christmas! here's some reindeer!".) To her credit, she actually tried a bite but it wasn't for her.

If Amber is stable, don't touch a thing. Don't bother introducing new dry if the old dry isn't causing any issues.
 

sabrinah

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If the dry food was the issue she would have been puking. At least that's what my experience has been. So yes, unfortunately, that points to something in Weruva. Don't change the dry food at all! My cat was never big on venison either. She likes beef, pork, goat, and lamb though. Is the only FF flavor she's eating salmon?
 
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sidneykitty

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Oh gosh. Poor Krista! I gave Amber a BFF chicken + tuna back in October and she threw it up so I never fed that to her again.

It looks like the shared ingredients in her Weruva cans were chicken, tuna, sunflower seed oil and locust bean gum, guar gum or xantham gum. I've made up a document listing all her foods and the ingredients and calories so I can attempt to find common issues as difficult as I know that is.

You know I totally forgot venison is a red meat. That's a good point. She's never liked beef. Being a vegetarian I sometimes forget basic meat facts...

I once accidentally bought a lamb can and fed it to her and she did like that. So that's a backup if I need it. She would never touch duck so I'm not going to even bother trying.

Yep, the only FF she will really eat is the salmon. I do have a couple of other cans lying around, but I'm hesitant to change anything now.
 

daftcat75

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Oh gosh. Poor Krista! I gave Amber a BFF chicken + tuna back in October and she threw it up so I never fed that to her again.

It looks like the shared ingredients in her Weruva cans were chicken, tuna, sunflower seed oil and locust bean gum, guar gum or xantham gum. I've made up a document listing all her foods and the ingredients and calories so I can attempt to find common issues as difficult as I know that is.

You know I totally forgot venison is a red meat. That's a good point. She's never liked beef. Being a vegetarian I sometimes forget basic meat facts...

I once accidentally bought a lamb can and fed it to her and she did like that. So that's a backup if I need it. She would never touch duck so I'm not going to even bother trying.

Yep, the only FF she will really eat is the salmon. I do have a couple of other cans lying around, but I'm hesitant to change anything now.
If she’s stable, don’t change a thing. At least not until you’ve put together a few good weeks to a month without incident. Then you can try a slow transition on one meal only. If it doesn’t work out, you change that meal back. If it does, you keep that for several more weeks. You should steer your cat’s diet like an ocean liner, not a sports car. You can replace the FF salmon with something else one meal at a time once you have found another stable meal. Or better yet, keep both meals and rotate between them. Better still, find a third and rotate between the three. You will occasionally have a vomit or a hairball. If Amber is anything like Krista, she may hold a grudge against a food she recently vomited. These don’t last long. But it’s a good idea to have two or three known good foods in her diet so you can weather out such grudges.
 
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sidneykitty

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That sounds like a great plan! I'd be comfortable knowing I had 2-3 options for just such an occassion as if she does happen to vomit. Thanks so much for your advice, I really a-purr-eciate it!
 
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