Specialized protein diet, treats

[njg55]

One of my cats was recently tentatively diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease (the vet isn't 100% certain, which is why I said tentatively). She recommended placing my cat on specialized protein foods; I bought both the wet and dry varieties she recommended. She also gave me some probiotic capsules for short-term or introductory use. They're huge—I don't think I could swallow one, much less my 7-pound cat—so the alternative recommendation is to open them and mix the powder with food. The only thing I have around that I'm certain the cat would eat with the powder mixed in is a brand of pureed treats; however, they're certainly not made with the special proteins. That presents a quandary; she can't be on a 100% special diet if she eats these treats, but I need them to give her the nutritional product. Technically she's not on a 100% specialized food diet yet since it's been less than a week since the diagnosis and I'm still phasing it in, but I still need to give her the probiotic powder for another 10 days or so. Are there any readily available treats or foods I could use instead of this puree that would fit within the special diet? I tried adding it to a small amount of the wet special protein food a short time ago, but she didn't eat much of it. I then added some of the puree, hoping that would be enough to entice her to finish it. However, she wasn't interested, so this time around she didn't get a full dose. I don't know if this stuff tastes or smells bad, and I'm also worried that in another day or two she won't even eat the puree if it includes the powder and I'll need another option.

 

[maggie101]

I feed my cat with ibd mostly weruva becaus it's low phosphorus, high protein,low carb. Also orijen and instinct canned with venison. Has your cat had an ultrasound? I give her freeze dried chicken or duck for toppers. Probiotics I've used proviable dc,advita,and adored beast. You will get many responses! Also do a search on here

 

[njg55]

I have some Wervua varieties. Another cat was not eating well and ultimately diagnosed with anemia (she's doing better and still being monitored; vets aren't sure about the cause yet) so I started buying different brands of food to encourage her appetite. I have a variety of fish and chicken flavors, although I think some of the cans also include lamb and duck. Are there any particular ingredients I should be looking for or avoiding? I definitely need a wet product that she likes in order to sneak the probiotic powder into it. The cat hasn't had an ultrasound yet. The vet made her preliminary diagnosis based on symptoms (frequent diarrhea, vomiting) and lab tests; she recommended either trying the special proteins diet for a few weeks to see what happened or starting with tests like ultrasound. We decided to try the dietary changes first.

 

[FeebysOwner]

What 'meat' is in this special protein diet? It is hard to recommend possible treats or canned foods that would be the same protein if we don't know what the protein is to begin with.

Oftentimes, cats will take probiotics on a permanent basis, so you might ask the vet for an alternative option to the one that they prescribed to see if you can get your cat to eat it more willingly. What is this probiotic that you have?

 

[njg55]

The dry and wet food are Royal Canin special protein, with the primary ingredient being rabbit. The probiotic is made by a company called Nutramax. It's a kit called Proviable-Forte with a paste (the cat has already received the recommended number of doses) and 15 probiotic capsules.

 

[FeebysOwner]

That will be tough to find a lickable treat with rabbit. This one is considered a treat/food topper, but it will have pieces of rabbit in it.
INSTINCT Limited Ingredient Diet Grain-Free Cuts & Gravy Real Rabbit Recipe Wet Cat Food Topper, 3-oz pouch, case of 24 - Chewy.com

Here are some other rabbit foods as well.
The Best Rabbit Cat Food - Cats.com
INSTINCT Limited Ingredient Diet Grain-Free Pate Real Rabbit Recipe Canned Cat Food, 5.5-oz, case of 12 - Chewy.com
INSTINCT Limited Ingredient Diet Grain-Free Recipe with Real Rabbit Freeze-Dried Raw Coated Dry Cat Food, 10-lb bag - Chewy.com

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

Not sure how many meals you serve, but try splitting up that probiotic powder between ALL of the meals so there isn't so much in any one session. Unless it's ok with your Vet if you simply start with a quarter of the capsule and work your way up to more. Also, it's possible that what she doesn't like is the texture of the powder vs the taste. With my guys, I actually dissolve their probiotic in a little bit of warm water before mixing it with their food

 

[daftcat75]

Probiotics, with the exception of saccharomyces boulardii, rarely move the needle with IBD. It's much better to avoid trigger foods altogether than to get into "devil's bargains" where you are using a known trigger to hide/disguise medicine/supplements. I can tell you from experience that this can delay remission and cause all kinds of stubborn nonsense. My last cat, Krista, suffered for months with poop nonsense that was somewhere between constipation and diarrhea (multiple rounds that got progressively looser.) It was because I was wrapping her steroid pill in a known trigger food (bonito fish flakes.) When I changed her steroid to a transdermal form and eliminated that "very small amount" of fish flakes every night, lo and behold, she achieved remission. So if you aren't seeing a response yet from the steroids or the probiotics, it could be because you're still feeding her the trigger food in the form of the treat. I'd rather her skip the probiotics altogether than keep fueling the inflammatory fires.

S. boulardii has a yeasty flavor. Some cats like it and some don't. If your cat likes the taste, consider yourself lucky because you'll get a lot better response out of s. boulardii than Proviable anyway. Most cats enjoy the taste of FortiFlora. It's kinda useless as a probiotic (one strain--too few CFUs.) But there's no reason why you couldn't mix it with either the Proviable or s. boulardii to make either one more appealing. Ask your vet for a few packets of FortiFlora.

Rawz and Mouser both make rabbit foods in a smooth pate. You might be able to use one of these as your medicine mixer.

Incredible Pets sells by the can so you don't have to order a whole case to see what she might like.
Search: 10 results found for "mouser" - Incredible Pets

If you find that she likes one of these very much, you might reserve it only for meds and supplements. You can pack/re-pack meds into capsules and your cat can learn to take meds on her own (as long as your highly appealing food or treat is not a trigger food.)

My Betty takes three capsules twice a day on her own. She always shows up for meds and yells at me for them. I know you can't use A/D because it has chicken ingredients. But perhaps one of those Rawz or Mouser foods can fit that bill instead.

 

[Kris107]

In the past I've lightly moistened dry kibble then sprinkled the powder on and rolled it around. Just another trick if you need to try it.

 

[AbbysMom]

But there's no reason why you couldn't mix it with either the Proviable or s. boulardii to make either one more appealing. Ask your vet for a few packets of FortiFlora.

I asked my vet about mixing the two and was told not to do it. She said it was OK to give them both but not at the same meal.

 

[lisahe]

Further on probiotics is that it's often best to start very small because they can cause stomach upset in some cats. We've been there, done that with one so when we recently started another (Adored Beast Feline Gut Soothe, which combines anti-inflammatory herbs and probiotics) I started with just one pinch. A month later, we've worked Edwina up to a small cat dose. We're now increasing that to a medium cat dose. Big excitement! And it does seem to help her feel better.

I totally agree with what daftcat75 says about devil's bargains. The last thing you want to do is get your cat dependent on the ingredient that's causing her symptoms.

Speaking of ingredients, unfortunately, just about anything can cause digestive trouble (be it an allergy or a sensitivity or something else) like vomiting or diarrhea. In our experience with Brooksie (our previous cat) fish and grains likely caused her problems. But our current cat, Edwina, who has intestinal thickening confirmed by ultrasound, definitely can't eat potato or agar agar, and there's a whole list of other things (including carby veg, xathan gum, mussels, and tapioca starch) that I suspect may cause trouble. IBD can be painfully difficult to unravel. Reading and comparing ingredient lists is a must. Keeping an incident log that mentions "last meal fed" can also be helpful in identifying common threads,

I particularly wanted to mention this because the Royal Canin foods could potentially contain something your cat is sensitive to. If chicken is her only food issue, though, you should be fine! If that doesn't work, though, the Rawz and Mouser foods that daftcat75 mentioned are very good: We feed both those brands (pate Rawz only since their shreds have tapioca) to our cats and they work well for them since the recipes are relatively simple, without gums or peas. If the RC food doesn't work, both those brands would be worth considering. I also make cooked food and don't know where we'd be without it.

Good luck!

 

[daftcat75]

I asked my vet about mixing the two and was told not to do it. She said it was OK to give them both but not at the same meal.

I don’t understand that. Proviable and FortiFlora both contain e.faecium. But Proviable contains maybe as much as 10X more. In other words, you could use a small amount of FortiFlora (don’t even need to use the whole packet) for the flavoring and rest assured that your cat won’t get too much e.faecium. Proviable is only useful if you can get it into the cat. That’s where that flavoring in FortifFlora really helps. I think your vet is being overly cautious. FortiFlora is weak sauce as a probiotic (100 million CFU is not very much and it will be less if you don’t use the whole packet.) But it excels as a flavoring. It’s like a ramen seasoning packet for cats. You don’t need very much of it to bring a lot of flavor that cats really enjoy.