- Joined
- Jun 19, 2021
- Messages
- 241
- Purraise
- 303
Please know you're not alone in this journey! You are in the exact same spot as us when we began our IBD journey.What frustrates me most is that I am working with one of the most experienced IM specialists in our area, and the specialist did not provide me any of the comments that were provided here, such as the fillers of the RC (pea products) possibly causing the diarrhea, or possibly doing a round of B12 despite her normal level, and NO explanation overall to why she reacted the way she did to either the prednisolone or the antibiotic.
We worked with a fantastic IM specialist and the best board certified nutritionist in our state. Both of them were highly proficient and their technical knowledge was off the charts. But what ended up bothering me, and led me to search elsewhere for additional help, is they were both completely "by the book". What I mean by that is they both relied solely on published research and any topics that had not been fully researched were disregarded. The problem is that pets are much more under-researched than people, and cats are far more under-researched than dogs. I suspect that's why you were encountering the problems you mentioned, such as no discussions around fillers/pea products, recurrences of diarrhea, B12 levels... things like that. To phrase it another way, I have one (human) doctor who responds to some of my questions by saying, "the medical literature does not support that". In fact, I asked the board certified nutritionist about different probiotics for IBD and the response was, "there is no research that indicates probiotics are needed". There just isn't a lot of researched, peer-reviewed studies on nutrition as it relates to GI disorders. Almost all of what I've seen assumes protein allergies are the root cause, and everything else is idiopathic.
You mentioned a holistic vet and I think that is a great idea. We did this and it helped a great deal. Our "team" of vets that we now have consist of our regular vet, the IM specialist as needed, our holistic vet and our new veterinary nutritionist (who was recommended by the holistic vet and I truly cannot compliment her enough - she has been an absolute game changer for our cat's health). And they all keep in touch regarding their patients, so all treatments and recommendations are ensured to compliment each other, not compete.