15 yo Manx with constipation - diet advise needed

I got back from my vet's a couple hours ago with my 15 year old male Manx, Squirt, who has been having diarrhea for the last 4 days along with a great deal of discomfort for the last few weeks. Originally, due to his age, I thought the growling and moaning when I touched his spine area near his hips and then toward his stub (tail) was due to arthritis in his hips and I started him on Glucosimine, however with the addition of the diarrhea and gas, I decided he needed to be seen by a vet.

So, he had x-rays done which did show some minor hip displysia and arthritis in his hips but it also showed his large intestines about 1/3 blocked with feces and the other 2/3 FULL of gas.

The suggested treatment -

7 days of Lactulose (1.5 mL every 8 hours)
Medical Vet Formula Feline Fibre wet food

They were unable to get a urine sample but I have the non-absorbant litter to collect one and bring it in for tomorrow.

So my problem, I do not like feeding my animals foods with animal by-products and prefer not to feed them foods with fillers. This diet has both. I am fine feeding this to help move things along for him but there is a good chance he will need to be on a permanent diet that is high in fibre and after all this rambling (sorry), my question is, what foods would you all recommend that would deal with the high fibre needs??

I would love both a wet and dry food, if possible.

Would this diet be okay for my other three seniors? Two of which have very slighly off kidney functions (not enough to warrant medications though).

THANK YOU SO MUCH for any and all help.

You may want to add a fiber supplement (like Benefiber) to a higher quality food. Some of the indoor food and "lite" varieties also come with higher fiber content. If you can still find Innova Lite (which is in the process of being discontinued), it has low phosphorus levels and higher fiber.

You might find this site helpful, since it lists both the fiber and phosphorus levels (read the intro to know what the numbers represent):
http://www.geocities.com/jmpeerson/canfood.html

Whenever my cats have been backed up I've used pumpkin. I had to force feed it cause they wont eat it on their own, but it works like a charm.

You can get canned pumpkin, just be sure it's not pumpkin pie filling because that has all kinds of extra spices and such. You want PURE pumpkin.

(this also works wonders for diarreah!)

This is a very natural and safe solution, which definatley works, and you don't have to worry about feeding your cat special "high fibre" foods full of by-products, or even medicate them at all.

My 10-yo cat has a history of constipation, so she's on Lactulose everyday as well as pumpkin. I give her a bit (1/4t to 1/2 t) twice a day mixed in with her canned food.

As mentioned above, make sure you get the plain pumpkin, NOT the pumpkin pie filling.

I even give some to my 18 month old cat. She LOVES it!

Stephanie

Thank you for the replies, I will try these out!

If your cats have kidney problems then part of the problem is that they get dehydrated because their kidneys are no longer able to concentrate the urine thereby causing them to lose fluids. This causes constipation. If you put your cats on a low protein/low phosphorus diet it can take the load off of the kidneys and allow them to be more hydrated.

There is an explanation about constipation in cats with CRF here:

http://www.felinecrf.com/comm0.htm

The following sites can help you choose a low protein/low phosphorus food:

http://webpages.charter.net/katkarma/canfood.htm
http://webpages.charter.net/katkarma/dryfood.htm

Thanks but my cat that has constipation issues does not have any kidney issues - his geriatric tests came back fantastic. The two cats that do have kidney issues (VERY slightly) are both controlled by having wet food daily with the addition of 1 tablespoon of water added.