Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Hi Everyone,

I am new to the boards and desperately need some advice. My 15 month old baby was just diagnosed with IBD, on Friday. The vet said his small intestine was extremely inflamed, parts of his large intestine are inflamed but not as much as are his lymph nodes. She gave him a steroid and anti-nausea shot, saying his insides are so inflamed it will take 6 weeks for it to go down. Normally it would only take 2. I brought him in to see her again yesterday at which time she gave him another vitamin B12 shot, examined him and said it felt like some of the inflammation came down. I started giving him the transdermal prednisone last night. Since the ultrasound and shots he had on Friday he has been very lethargic. I mentioned it to the vet yesterday and she did not seem overly concerned. Today he is sleeping a lot. he is eating on and off, not sure if it is a lot. I am very worried about him and just want Zach to be ok. Can anyone tell me if this behavior is normal given what he is going through, if i should be concerned? Has anyone experienced this with a cat?  Your input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Zach's mom

I have a nine year old cat who had his first episode of this when he was 18 months old. Being lethargic is part of it when there is a flare he does need to eat enough to keep from using his own fat stores and this sometimes means force feeding with a syringe. If he starts using his fat stores than he could go into something called fatty liver syndrome which sometimes means have a feeding tube inserted and its a long process getting over it. When my cat was having flares he was also put on an antibiotic to stave off infection in his liver. I never did find out what triggered his flares so he is on a maintenance dose of prednisolone. Many people are successful in finding the right diet to stop flares of the disease. It really is trial and error but wheat seems to be a very common trigger.

Seems he is having a reaction to the steroids shot..... It has this effect on Bugsy.Unfortunately, depending on the steroid, it takes a while to pass - especially if it was depo-medrol.... However, Depo does increase the appetite.....
I too have a kitty with IBD, Bugsy..... After trying everything for no avail, and pretty much giving up hope, I decided to give a Raw diet a shot - and since the first day he was on it, he has been 100% good - to never look back.
Bugsy had horrible diarrhea, daily, for 1 year and 2 months. We tried it all. Every treatment on the book.... so many vet visits, so many tests, emergency visits, medications..... I can't begin to tell you..... Nothing, nothing worked.
A raw diet did - he's been health and medication free ever since - it's been 6 months now. It's the first time in his life that he has been this healthy.....
Anyways.....
For any pet parent with IBD I would highly recommend a raw diet, any day..... In a lot of cases it will solve the issue without any medication, with diet alone.... In other cases, it will greatly reduce the need for medication.
We have a Forum here - Raw Feeding for cats http://www.thecatsite.com/f/65/raw-feeding-for-cats with a lot of information and threads - youy can open a thread there, if you want more information, and members can help....
for your little man

Thanks to all that replied. I thought Zach was doing better, then I think he vomited again today. Don't think it was his brother given Zach is the one with the IBD. I've ready that some people feed their cats a raw diet and it seems to help. I will check out the raw feeding forum.

Of course you need to be very careful with the raw diet if you try it. That is not as simple as opening a can and dumping it in the bowl.