Food Allergy?

My cat Pooka has had diarrhea for a long time now(on and off about a year). It is really awful smelling and we for the longest time thought it was because of her teeth being infected. We finally saved 200 dollars and got that taken care of and she still has diarrhea. I believe now, due to the on and off nature of her loose stools that it is a food allergy. She only eats wet food unlike our other cats so I was wondering what everyone recommends to try?

I was thinking of doing a selective diet such as; all chicken one week, all beef another and then all fish based. Only catch is she refuses to eat any wet food but Friskies(I know...yuk)and I was wondering if maybe Friskies adds a color/preservative that may be causing it as well. I am at my wits end...and need some serious advice. HELP!


P.S. When I say refuses, I mean REFUSES. She will starve herself to death if we don't give her Friskies, I know I tried and she nearly died.

Maybe try meow mix .... better quality limited grains and kitty might eat it ....

Food trials should consist of one meat and grain for 8-12 weeks then you add things in one a week

I heard Meow Mix is very fish heavy, and all she eats is wet food so that scares me. I dont need her getting UTI and all that good stuff. She was born with only one kidney so urinary stuff is really bad with her. 8-12 weeks seems really long.....plus I am kinda confused as to how that would work. 8 weeks on each meat? Or just one meat for 8 and add others once a week.....if so what meat should I start with? She has a pretty immediate reaction to wheither she has loose stools or not and I think 8 weeks is a little much.

If Friskies is the only thing she will eat, trying a different food for a week at a time will not be a good idea for several reasons, she probably won't eat it, it takes a while for their digestive systems to get used to a new food or flavour and you won't see that within a week, and like Sharky said, you should feed a 'limited diet'

basically, you feed the most basic/limited food you can find (your vet can recommend one in your area) and you feed it for 8-12 weeks (how long a kitties system takes to cleanse from the old food), then you try introducing a food that has say Chicken and see if she is ok with that, if that is ok, you try one with corn and keep going until you find the 'problem' ingredient.

It is a long process and with the introducing of foods, can take close to a year if your kitty is allergic to something lesser than the main ingredients (a colouring or additive etc)

We used Venison and Pea when we did it... I must have the only cat who has an allergy to a low allergy food!

As far as the immediate reaction to foods, ignore it (as long as it doesn't warrant a vet trip) and carry on the trial as they do get upset tummies for a while with changes of food

A vet can help you more with this, mine runs allergy clinics that are cheaper than a regular vet visit

Is it possible your cat may be allergic to Wheet Gluten? My cat has food allergies and the vet prescribed diets she either didn't like or that still had by products and wheat gluten. I started to suspect that my cat had IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) Well I've spent well over a thousand dollars trying to diagnose her and I still get (food allergies and a new PX diet). I decided to try and figure it out on my own. A former co-worker of mine has IBS due to wheat gluten. So I decided to check the cat's food. To my amazement it was in the wet food too. I was feeding her Friskies as well.

Good News. Some special diet flavors of Friskies do not have Wheat Gluten. Unfortunately they are not the sliced or prime filet kinds, but they are still Friskies.

Also when you change your cats diet it may take them time to adjust. But after a few weeks I noticed improvement with my cats stool and her coat. It's been a month and I think I pinpointed the problem. I also give her Holistic Select Chicken and Rice dry food. It has no wheat gluten or by products and is highly digestible.

Some of the prescription diets still have wheat gluten in them. I know Science Diet Sensitive Stomach does. Also, the wet food persription diet did not have gluten, BUT she would try to cover it like it was something in her litter box. lol

I actually had several x-rays for Shadow and they found that her intestines were inflammed. They suggested that it be food allergies. I think this is what hse was allergic to. (gluten). Also I had good results with mixing pumpkin as advised on this forum in her food to stop her diahrea. It was pumpkin pure' in a can.

JUst a suggestion that my vets didn't mention. I hope that you can narrow down what your cat is allergic to.

{ hi, i wanted to let people with allergic cats to be on the lookout for ingredients called 'lecithin' and 'carrageenan'. i didn't know what either of these were, but after some research today i found out that lecithin can be derived from soy, and can cause reactions (especially if your cat is allergic to soy like mine!). carrageenan is an algae/seaweed extract that can also sometimes cause reactions in allergic animals/humans (my ashley is allergic to kelp, so i'm thinking she might be allergic to this as well.) }

I did a search on gluten and found this post. I hope Heidinyny doesn't mind that I copied it into this message.

I'ts something I am going to look into as well.