Possibly clueless vet!!

I have been taking my cats to the same vet for about 20 years, and she has a partner that joined her practice about 5 years ago. She sees my cats as well. Both of them seem caring and have always been good with my cats, but I fear that they don't know very much about nutrition.

When my adult female cat was constantly vomiting after eating every food that I gave her (including two prescription foods), one of them told me that she was just eating too fast and to put a big rock in her bowl to slow her down. I am the one that did the research and suggested to them that the corn and corn gluten in all of the foods could be an issue. They agreed to let me try a different food and suggested Blue Buffalo, which has no corn, wheat or soy (that much they knew about). Sure enough, when I started giving her the new food the vomiting stopped almost immediately. It has been about a month and a half on the new food, and so far, no vomiting! Neither of them had ever suggested a diet issue until I brought it up.

I have a kitten that has chronic loose stools, and both of the vets seem to blow me off when I suggest that it could be a diet issue. They want me to keep sticking with the same food while they keep giving him different medications. He did have coccidia parasites when I first got him a few months ago. He doesn't anymore. A stool sample sent to a lab confirmed that there are no parasites present. They seem to think that the coccidiosis wreaked havc on his intestines and he is not quite over it yet and there could still be some leftover bacteria in there. This sounds reasonable and the Sulfasalazine did work when I gave it to him, but he was back to loose stools after a couple of weeks of being off of it. He is now on his second round of it. They have said that it could be IBD as well. I have been told to avoid chicken, beef, wheat, corn, soy, dairy, and eggs. The Blue Buffalo Basics Fish and Potato that I am feeding has none of these things. I asked one of the vets if all grains could be an issue and if I should start feeding grain-free (the formula I am currently feeding has whole ground brown rice and oatmeal). She didn't think it was an issue but said that I could mix some of the Blue Basics grain-free in with the other food if I wanted to, but that it had to be the same brand. I mentioned to her the problems that I had read about online with Blue Buffalo, but she insists that it is a good brand and she has never had any clients that had problems with it. I am currently feeding all dry, and they want me to keep it that way. I give the kitten just a tiny bit of canned with his pill, and he always cries for more. I think he wants to eat wet food, even though he does like his dry. I asked one of the vets if I could start giving him more wet food. She was amused by this and said that I just want to give him the wet food for ME so that I don't feel bad when he cries. She said that I could give him just a little bit of wet food as a treat but that he doesn't really need it. This goes against a lot of what I have been reading lately.

I really don't want to switch vets, but I'm not sure if they are giving me very good nutritional advice. Could TWO vets that I trust be wrong or are all of the pet owners on the Internet wrong? It's tough to decide.
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By the way, I asked if I should switch from fish to something else, since I have heard bad things about fish but was told that fish is fine.

It's pretty common that vets aren't real well versed in nutrition.  I have one that is pretty good on that score I think because she is a feline only vet and has dealt with a lot of chronic feline digestive issues.  The big red flag for me with what you have said about your vet is her thinking that dry food is a better choice than wet food.  My vet won't go so far as approving of a raw diet but she does believe that wet food is a better choice.

Your vet continuing to look for parasites was actually a point in her favor.  With kittens diarrhea is usually some type of parasite.  I do know that giardia can cause lingering digestive problems and left untreated can cause IBD later on.

It's hard to find a really good vet that you trust.  I can also imagine that liking your vet personally would make it more difficult as far as deciding if she is the right choice for your cats.

Well, the experiences I've had dealing with diet have turned out to be true in favor of the internet information. Fed 100% wet, far fewer hairballs and no recurrence of UTI.

Many, many feline diseases are nutritionally linked. I've heard several reports of late that the GI system is involved in something like 70% of both a feline's and a human being's health. So I would value a vet that knows nutrition. You typically have to find an integrated or holistic vet for that. My current vet is integrated and treating Poppy for IBD. My old vets were floundering with a diagnosis. I brought Poppy in to the new vet because my old ones were booked solid for a holiday weekend. I feel like I took a shortcut because the new vet immediately knew Poppy had IBD. He was talking about classic diagnosis and remedies on our first visit, before the ultrasound which he based his diagnosis off of. The initial visit fee was $$$, but considering that I have made more progress in 2.5 months than in 6 at the old vet's, I never even think of the initial consultation fee anymore.

Dry food and fish indicate to me that your vets don't know much about nutrition. Some of the other recommendations, though, are not bad. Fast eating can cause vomitting, and a typical trick is to put something  heavy in the middle of the bowl. Vomitting after every meal should warrant tests, though.

Many traditional vets are now at least subscribing to the theory that a wet food diet is better than dry, especially if the cat has/has had a medical issue like UTI, IBD, constipation or kidney disease, so your vets seem a bit behind. While passion for animals is an important quality, I think lack of nutritional knowledge can be a big handicap. If you read this Little Big Cat article, many, many diseases are linked to dry food. If your vet doesn't have the nutritional background to understand this, then making a diagnosis as to cause will be difficult.

The vet prescribed a medicine that is supposed to "draw water out of the stool" and firm it up. Wouldn't increasing the water by adding canned have an opposite effect and make the diarrhea reoccur? Maybe that is part of her thinking. I don't know. I'm just playing devil's advocate.

Well, my kitty has constipation, so I can't speak too much about diarrhea. I do know, though, that a cat's bowel system is naturally designed to draw water out of it. It's a design tactic to keep the body hydrated because cats evolved from a desert climate. Beyond a certain point adding water doesn't make diarrhea, it just makes the cat urinate more because it is getting water from the bowel system.

I don't know what medicine you were given, but simply drawing water out of the bowel doesn't seem to address the problem--why is there diarrhea in the first place? The most likely cause is something irritating the digestive system. Could be allergies, could be auto-immune. To simplify things I'd feed a simple diet for a while. I think one member mentioned feeding chicken and rice TEMPORARILY to settle things down (you won't be feeding a balanced diet with only chicken and rice), then trying a limited ingredient or grain-free diet. Sorry, I don't know the details on the chicken and rice like what portions or how long.