Toothless Young Cat...we Need Food Clarity

[auntie]

hi! My cat Little Kitty is 4 years old, and has had all of her teeth removed due to severe stomatitis. She has been eating vet food: Royal Canin Gastrointestinal & Hydrolyzed Protein dry foods, and some Purina wet food stuff. Her favorites are the shredded-up wet foods. She had been eating really poorly, due to painful mouth/throat sores & nausea, but has gained some appetite as her mouth and body problems become less dramatic.

So, I don’t want to keep her on this vet office food forever; it’s really expensive and sort of seems worse than a lot of commercial fancy cat food. What might be good substitutes? Kibble needs to be quite small, and she does seem to prefer shredded wet food vs “pâté”. But hopefully she can be flexible. We’re actually just giving her baby food at the moment to keep her hydrated, along with the dry food.

Any other toothless kitties out there? What’s best for stomatitis, which we would love to see go into remission? Do we need to stick with the exact same foods at all times to avoid upset stomach? Lastly, what’s the deal with fruit/vegetables in the food, I have heard this is not good for chronic stomatitis somehow. Oh yeah, and fish—does it have some histamine issue? Confusing! And to think we just gave everybody Meow Mix when I was growing up...

Any advice would be very welcome! Thanks so much

 

[himawari]

Reading that Little Kitty has had all her teeth removed, I would advise against dry food and convert to grain-free all canned diet. It helps decrease inflammation in the mouth and irritability of gums because it isn't as hard as kibble. If you can afford it, you can do commercial raw food. And if you have the time too, you can do homemade raw food. If you don't want to do raw at all, there are the freeze-dried options. Also, Ziwi Peak has an air-dried food version but that is on the slightly expensive side.

For now, syringe feed her with grain-free wet food (mix it with water to create a slurry/liquid form) so that she can at least have a balanced meal. If you don't already have it, get a water fountain to encourage her to drink water.

Fruits and veggies are not necessary to an obligate carnivore cat.

 

[auntie]

H himawari
Thank you! The weird thing about stomatitis is that dry food is actually easier and less painful for affected cats to eat. Cats don't need to chew kibble, they just crunch it for fun. And the wetness of wet food can be very irritating to the sores & ulcers in the mouth and throat. That's why she's on dry food right now, with a little wet supplement if it's not too hard on her mouth. She's actually a good water drinker, but I also want to keep her in the habit of eating wet food so I can give her more if the sores resolve. She developed quite a fear of wet food after it caused her a lot of pain, but she's doing okay with it at the moment.
Right: cats don't need fruit and veg. But, can it harm them? It's been suggested that it can, if they have any kind of inflammation. I will check out Ziwi Peak...I definitely do not have time to make home-made cat food, sadly!

 

[himawari]

H himawari
Thank you! The weird thing about stomatitis is that dry food is actually easier and less painful for affected cats to eat. Cats don't need to chew kibble, they just crunch it for fun. And the wetness of wet food can be very irritating to the sores & ulcers in the mouth and throat. That's why she's on dry food right now, with a little wet supplement if it's not too hard on her mouth. She's actually a good water drinker, but I also want to keep her in the habit of eating wet food so I can give her more if the sores resolve. She developed quite a fear of wet food after it caused her a lot of pain, but she's doing okay with it at the moment.
Right: cats don't need fruit and veg. But, can it harm them? It's been suggested that it can, if they have any kind of inflammation. I will check out Ziwi Peak...I definitely do not have time to make home-made cat food, sadly!

I see. Does that mean a toothless cat would just swallow kibble? Interesting because that would mean you'd need a small kibble as large ones could potentially be hazardous, no? I found three links that suggested a canned or raw diet, and they have experience with stomatitis which is why I suggested it too. Here, here and this last one. But I'm sorry to hear that she has a fear of wet food now. I do hope the issues she has with it resolves. As for fruits & veggies harming a cat who has an inflammation, I don't know about that. Sorry. Have you tried asking your trusted vet? I would recommend giving Lysine to your cat which is an amino acid that boosts their immune system. Personally, my cat has gingivitis and developed/flared an upper respiratory infection leading to a very inflamed gums of the mouth. So he's been on that which erased the sneezing, drooling, and eye discharge. Unfortunately I can't be anymore of a help as I don't have experience in a cat with stomatitis/is toothless. I'm sorry.

 

[summermh]

Ran across your post as our kitty recently had multiple extractions but still dealing with residual pain. I believe our first step is going to be probiotics and colostrum. I learned about the reasons + benefits here: Stomatitis in Cats Natural Treatment | Treatment for Stomatitis in Cats I'll be researching food as well! Mine won't eat dry at all anymore, and prior that's all he ate. We have him on a 100% canned diet, but not anything "approved" for keeping stomatitis at bay. My hope is the supplements will do that though. This is certainly a frustrating condition, I hope it goes well for you and your kitty!

 

[Willowy]

My stomatitis cat gets canned Friskies pate. He has no trouble with dry treats (cats don't really chew kibble anyway; that's why dry food vomit has whole pieces in it, eww), but the cats in his group only get canned food . He gets a spoonful of chicken baby food every night with his meds and supplements mixed in. He's getting PlaqueOff, lysine, and lactoferrin. I've seen some improvement since adding the supplements, but whether that's his body adjusting to everything since the FME or the supplements I couldn't say.

 

[summermh]

My stomatitis cat gets canned Friskies pate. He has no trouble with dry treats (cats don't really chew kibble anyway; that's why dry food vomit has whole pieces in it, eww), but the cats in his group only get canned food . He gets a spoonful of chicken baby food every night with his meds and supplements mixed in. He's getting PlaqueOff, lysine, and lactoferrin. I've seen some improvement since adding the supplements, but whether that's his body adjusting to everything since the FME or the supplements I couldn't say.

Good point about the dry rarely being chewed. Not sure why our kitty won’t go near it now. It’s offered, as it’s what our other kitty still eats

 

[ArchyCat]

Twenty years ago I had a neutered tom that had all his teeth pulled. The veterinarian said feed him pate. So I did. Since there were other cats in the house I also free fed them kibble (Science Diet, I believe). A week or so after the extractions, I saw him eating the dry food, even though I had also put out pate for him. Unfortunately, cell phones with cameras had not invented yet. The kibble was small size pellets. What he would do, in one single movement, was bend down to the bowl, bite a mouthful of kibble, then lift his head, release the kibble in a small cloud, then open his mouth again and lunge his head forward and catch the kibble in his mouth and swallow. Most unusual feat of eating I have ever seen.

Now a days, I would feed him KMR the first for days then offer him pate.

But I loved that cat. A few years latter he developed a cancerous tumor on his left cheek below his eye. The vet said he could operate on it, but he would not be able to remove all of it and it would return within a few months, and he could not predict how much of his upper jaw he would have left post op. At this time, chemo therapy for cats was not commonly available from general practice suburban vets.

 

[Tillybug]

I’ve got two toothless wonders! They both do fine with both dry and wet.

The smallest grain-free kibble I’ve found is Fussy Cat. Both have access to this at all times but they don’t eat it much.

They both get a can in the am and pm of Fancy Feast pâtés only. It’s the only wet food they will eat (trust me I tried every brand, raw, me cooking etc and they won’t touch it). In the grand scheme of things the pâtés don’t read too terrible and since I go through about 120 cans a month I can’t complain. In fact, my vet gave me a few sample cans of food in their clinic and the ingredients were almost exactly the same (for the Purina).

Both are rescues. I just had the old guy to the vet last week for his senior checkup. My vet was so happy with how good his blood panel came back.

 

[duckpond]

Like Tillybug said, maybe try both? put down a bowl of dry, and some wet, see which she seems to do best with?