Constipated Kitty

I'm new to this forum, but just thought that I could use some outside opinions regarding my boyfriend's cat.

Our cat, Fatty, is about 5-6 years old, she is a little overweight, but otherwise healthy. Within the last year or so, she has been having severe constipation. After the first time it happened, my boyfriend took her to the vet where they manually went in and cleaned her out so to speak. She was giving a small amount of laxative for a few weeks and they sent her home with a case of canned Hill's W/D perscription food and that was it. I however changed her diet completely. I switched her food to Nutro Natural Choice, which is what I feed my cats at home. It has all natural ingredients and no crazy animal products. After switching her diet, she shed less, looked healthier, and her fur turned into this smooth, shiny coat! She stopped eating the w/d food after awhile, losing interest in it. Fatty had been doing really really well for 7 months without any sort of problems.

Recently, Fatty had again developed signs of constipation, she was still passing bowels, but I could tell that she was struggling. I took her off dry food, and gave her that canned w/d food again, which she actually ate. It still wasn't helping as much as I would have liked, so we took her to the vet again, where they again recommened the Hill's W/D canned food and gave us a large contatiner of Enulose laxative to give her twice a day. The laxative had been helping, but she still seems backed up a bit. I feel like the laxative is becoming a vicious circle and that we are becoming too reliant upon it to help her have a bowel movement.

To sum this long story up, I am concerned with how much or if the Hill's W/D food is actually helping her whatsoever. I honestly hate the ingredients in that food and cringe when I have to feed it to her.

Does anyone have any suggestions or dealt with this situation with their pet??? Help

HOW is the wt issue going???

do you feed any wet food??

W/D if memory serves has LOTS of fiber ... you can add PLAIN canned pumpkin to add fiber

Coco has the same prob. Constipated no matter what. I have Can C/D but she refuses to eat it ever since they changed the formala in it. She eats alot of the C/D Dry. I hope your Cat feels better. Last night after Coco went she came flying out of the Pan like a maniac. She also has Lax'aire. I hate for her to be on that for so long. Its hard because she can not have alot of things because her Bladder problems.

I am a member of a cat constipation group on Yahoo and the consensus is that W/D is HORRIBLE for cats. I've personally never used W/D but my pals said that W/D exacerbated their cat's constipation issues due to the high fiber content. I know it sounds logical to feed a cat a lot of fiber in this situation but it can backfire because the fiber can bulk up and clog the colon. A lot of vets are now prescribing I/D because it's very low residue and produces smaller poop. However, I personally choose not to use that brand.

Well the W/D that we are feeding Fatty is the canned formula, not the dry. In fact the vet didn't even offer or suggest the dry kind.

I know that she needs an increased fiber diet to help her bowels move, but too much fiber could just clog her up even more. There has to be some sort of happy medium...the medium that we were at about 7 months ago, when she was eating dry Natural Choice food and really really happy with nice stinky poop.

I wonder if the amount of fiber in this W/D food is too much that its making her bowels too firm. I mean, they are pretty darn firm. I still have plenty of the laxative that the vet gave us, so I am thinking about giving her some different canned food and some dry and seeing how she does on that for a week.

Originally Posted by Blast-Off-Girl

I am a member of a cat constipation group on Yahoo and the consensus is that W/D is HORRIBLE for cats. I've personally never used W/D but my pals said that W/D exacerbated their cat's constipation issues due to the high fiber content. I know it sounds logical to feed a cat a lot of fiber in this situation but it can backfire because the fiber can bulk up and clog the colon. A lot of vets are now prescribing I/D because it's very low residue and produces smaller poop. However, I personally choose not to use that brand.

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What kind of food do you feed your cat?

I know this is going to sound very hypocritical but I feed my cat Fancy Feast wet and Science Diet dry. However, let me explain my reasons. I feed Fancy Feast because I have to mix two medications into his wet (Kristalose and senna herbs), as prescribed by the vet. Since those meds are not exactly pleasing to Buster's palette, I have to use a commercial and rich tasting food to encourage him to eat. I was previously using premium brands such as Wellness but Buster didn't want to touch the food. If he doesn't eat his wet food, then he won't get his desperately needed medication to enter his system. It's a happy medium. As for Science Diet dry, it was one of the few dry foods with less than 2% fiber. I just didn't want to give him I/D because it was overpriced. Plus, the holistic vet thought it was too bland.

I definitely don't recommend Buster's regimen. I have more experience in this domain and have spent hours and nearly a thousand dollars trying to a find a solution to Buster's constipation problems. I think you should try Wellness brand because a lot of others have reported great results.

Wellness has some good fat in it which should help it move along. I feed my cats only wet food. Maybe if you use only wet for a few days and then see how it goes. All of the moisture will certainly help.

We have tried all wet food. She is picky, and gets sick of just wet food and begs for dry after a while. Also, the W/D is wet, and isn't helping matters any. The Wellness dry stuff looks good, but the wet doesn't have anything specific for hairball or digestive issues. Is there any specific wet food that helps with these issues?

Natural Balance has a hairball formula. I have never used it because I have never had a hairball problem. The cat expert at the pet store says she has great luck.But I know that some people swear by using some butter if your cat will eat it.

I actually like the Nutro Natural Choice dry food and Nutro wet foods. There is a Nutro wet food for weight management that has all natural ingredients, absolutely no by products, and some veggies in it. It stinks to high heaven, but the cat just scarfed it down and loves it. I think we're going to try and see if some other type of canned diet, with more natural ingredients will help her have better BMs, cause the more I'm reading, the more I'm not liking the Hill's W/D.