Help w/ Hypoallergenic diets?

My cat Peanut has had mild diarrhea off and on his whole life. He has had bloodwork and fecal checks time and time again with nothing abnormal. They started him on a hypoallergenic diet, IVD duck & pea. He reluctently ate it for about 1 month, his diarrhea cleared up. Then he started boycotting the food all together. I didn't offer him anything else, only tough love. Well, he went 48 hours without eating. Finally, I gave in and gave him what my other three cats eat, the Science Diet sensitive stomach. He loves that stuff. He was doing fine on that for about 3 weeks, and then today I'm noticing some very small amounts of diarrhea again.

Since he doesn't like the duck, has anyone had any luck with any of the other flavors/protein sources available? I think there is rabbit and venison if I'm not mistaken. Please help, I'm not sure what to do with him anymore!

One of my kitties is also on a low allergen prescription food. It has worked really well for her. It is Hills ZD, a dry food, and she loves it.

We tried the low allergen *wet* foods, but she absolutely hated them — and I don't blame her cuz the ones she tried looked like plastic. Her allergy shows up in skin rashes, not diarhea. . .I don't know if that would make a difference.

Hope you find something Peanut likes.

Well, because they can't really find a diagnosis, they say it is probably a combination of food intolerence and inflammatory bowel disease. I forgot about the ZD, I'll ask about that one. I work at an animal hospital, so I'll have easy access to the different foods, and will also get a discount! Luckily, the diarrhea isn't severe, and he seems to feel just fine. No diarrhea is normal though, and I want to get control over it, as Peanut is my special baby.

I was just wondering about the different varieties and what people have had success with. Peanut is not the first cat to reject the IVD duck & pea. I've had multiple customers returning the food with the same problem. They just went back to their original food though.

This reply might be a little late, but just in case anyone else is interested, my cats like the IVD lamb and green pea. They are eating both the dry and canned food. One of my cats is quite ill, suspect either inflammatory disease or cancer. She is taking six different meds every day. Please let me know if anyone has any info on either of these diseases or any good websites, etc.

Hope your cats like the lamb and green pea!!

This reply is also a little late but I wanted to share my solution to the same problem. My cat, Max, had the exact same problem. He had diarrhea a lot but it would clear up everytime we put him on a new food (including ones with "novel proteins", Hill's and another hypoallergenic), but only for 3-4 weeks and then come back the same. I finally took him for a 4th opinion because it was getting very frustrating switching him to a new food every three months and my vet suggested that we try a round of antibiotics (amoxicillin). He said that sometimes cats with IBS irritate their digestive tract so bad that an infection can result. I was very leary of putting him on meds (as always) but I really trust this vet because of his abundant experience. Anyway, we gave him the meds and sure enough, it worked like a charm! He has not had a bout of diarrhea in over a year now and has been eating "normal" cat food (Nutro for awhile and now Innova) with no problems whatsoever.