Inflammatory Bowel Disease vs. Thyroid Disease and Diet

Hi all,

I apologize for spelling errors in advance and I know this is long. I just wanted to make sure I gave an accurate picture of what is going on.

So I have strange one. It started over a year ago when my cat (Rikki) started to lose weight in a major way. He was hungry all of the time, acting like he was starving. He also had diarrhea. My vet at the time diagnosed cancer, put him on predisolone and recommended against wasting my money on an ultra-sound. She said he was hungry because he couldn't get the nutrition he needed and the diarrhea was a secondary problem.

On the predisolone, he started to plummet.  I changed vets, and went to a veterinary oncologist. The Oncologist could find no signs of cancer, but suspected inflammatory bowel disease. She also said that he had signs of recently having pancreatitis.  My new vet discovered he was diabetic. We took him off the predisolone and I started to research cat foods.  After going to web sites recommended by site members  I put Rikki on a raw-ish food diet. I could never get him 100% on raw food, but I did get him off of dry completely. I intermixed frozen raw, with freeze dry raw with single protein canned foods.  We had him on insulin and I bolised with fluids him every 2 to 3 days. Oh, and no more grains. I credit those website and the recommendations of your members as having saving his life. Rikki is a large cat. At 15 lbs he is at a health lean weight. He was down to 11 lbs. His sides were sticking to each other.

Monitoring his blood sugar levels was a challenge and it took some time to get him stabilized but by Thanksgiving he was doing better. At that point I let him eat some cooked turkey and everything fell apart because I could not get him to eat anything else afterwards. I ended up having to go back to adding some dry into his food to get him to eat. The big problem was I could not give him his insulin if he did not eat. With repeated trips to the vets and rechecks on his blood sugar levels we realized that his diabetes was improving and we started to decrease his insulin. My vet recommended I let him eat foods that he liked more. He gained some weight and was at 13 lbs and overall he was looking better. By February we realized his diabetes was in remission (cured?). I continued to mix his foods but I added a grain based dry into the mix.

Recently, he started to exhibit most of the signs he showed over a year ago, minus the diarrhea - weight loss, acting like he was starving, acting out behaviorally. In February we had a full blood panel on him and everything looked really good - kidney function, blood sugar, thyroid levels etc. We rechecked his blood sugar levels, and they were low normal.

I have switched him to a grain free dry (he does not like any brand I have tried so far)  mixed with freeze dried raw and/or canned and/or frozen raw.  I have started to add cooked meat to get him to eat. I know the fat content of what I have am feeding him now is much higher. And, he is calming down. He is not acting like he is starving. A little too early to tell if he is gaining back some weight but maybe.

Is this all inflammatory bowel disease or could there be some other component that is helped by added fat? Is it possible for him to have a thyroid problem even if his test seem normal? Is there some other metabolic disorder that we are missing?

My vet is thinking inflammatory bowl disease and feels that if I don't get him back under control we will have to consider putting him back on predisolone. Predisolone means diabetes again. Other than rechecking for cancer, which I know is an issue with IBD I am at a loss for what to do.

Any ideas?

IBD is a general catch all diagnoses of elimination because nothing shows up on bloodwork.  I have a kitty who is on a steroid for IBD but it sounds like your kitty is one of the ones who has blood sugar problems with steroids.  Have you tried B12 injections?  They seem to help kitties who apparently aren't absorbing nutrients.  You could maybe try digestive enzymes.  They work with some kitties and not others.  They get a little iffy if pancreatitis is involved.  

As far as steroids go you could try budesonide.  More of it stays in the digestive system rather than going into the rest of the body.  Some kitties who have blood sugar issues with steroids can tolerate a low dose of budesonide.

Thanks- we have used B12 when everything was flared up and he didn't have an appetite. It helped a lot at the time. I didn't realize it could was a general treatment. We have tried flagil, but pulling him is problematic. I can give him shots without a problem. Pred is manageable because it is small. I have yet to be able to be consistent long term with flagil.

But knowing there may be another type of steroid helps. My vet thinks he started to develop diabetes after he had pancreatitis but before steroids. Steroids just made everything worse.

Just to update you, thinking back on your advice, I think I will try B-12 again. Maybe if I am quicker to react and little more aggressive he won't slide any further.

Thanks