What's worked for your cats with IBS?

I know there isn't one specific food that will work for every case of IBS but what has worked for your cats?  I went through this with another cat years ago and we landed on a limited ingredient canned diet without any poultry, fish, grains, or vegetables/fruits.  My current guy has seen his symptoms increase a bit over the last few years.  Vet visits haven't revealed anything remarkable.  We've tried so many foods for him.  He cannot/will not eat raw.  He throws up quickly after consuming it.  I've been able to get small amounts into his canned food before but now he won't eat it.  He gets diarrhea from Hounds and Gato chicken and I think I recall him disliking the lamb(which his brother would throw up, hence stopping it).  He also gets diarrhea from Evo, Weruva, By Nature(venison), Wellness, and so many other foods we've tried.  I suspect that he, like my other cat, is allergic to poultry and sensitive to vegetable/fruit additions.  I can't recall how he did on NV Instinct, which I stopped buying due to the cost/the transition to mostly raw for my other guys. 

As far as supplements, we've started to give him Vet's Best Hairball Relief more regularly(he LOVES these!) and he occasionally gets probiotics/ezymes(which he doesn't care for; will try another brand).  

Any suggestions on other foods to try?  At someone's suggestion, I might give the Hounds and Gato Rabbit a try for him.  I noticed it has duck liver in it, though, so if he has an across the board poultry allergy that might be a no-go.  

I don't know if this is an option for you, but home-cooked might be worth a try.  You'd have to use something other than fresh bone for the calcium source, but that's not a big deal. 

To answer your question, raw is what helped my cats.  I'm sure part of that was being able to fully control ingredients (no carrageenan, no guar gum, etc.).

I've considered home-cooked.  I'll have to decide on a meat source he can handle as chicken SEEMS to be out.  I really have my hands full right now but maybe I'll try something like Alnutrin(I believe it's called) mixed with (whatever meat I come up with).  

He's become ill from all commercial raw(Primal, Rad Cat, a few freeze-dried varieties) and won't touch it now.  I used enzymes(Prozyme Plus) and probiotics(various) as well.  It would just come right back up.  I don't have high hopes that he'd eat homemade raw as my other cats, who happily eat their Rad Cat, won't touch "plain" raw meat.  

I'll revisit the home-cooked idea.  Thanks for the suggestion.  I think that's probably the way to go; controlling everything that goes into his meals.  

I consulted a nutritionist to get our cat's IBD under control. Raw is out due to the fat content (it goes through him in a matter of minutes) and chicken as well as grains (including rice) give him diarrhea. She put him on a limited ingredient canned diet (German brand) with two snacks of grain-free dry a day.

We started with one unique protein, and added others over the course of almost a year: rabbit, kangaroo, horse, reindeer, duck and goat. The food is one meat plus up to 3% potatoes or turnips. The prescription dry - he gets 10 kibbles 2x a day - is rabbit and potato.

I've meanwhile added a commercial grain-free brand (Catz, also German) twice a week - veal or beef, with an occasional can of lamb & rabbit. That brand doesn't have potatoes or turnips.

He gets 2 or 3 meals of plain roasted lean beef or pork a week, too.

To sum up, what has worked is low-fat, grain-free single-protein canned with potatoes or turnips to slow down his digestion, and 4 meals a day, 2 main ones with 2 snacks.

For treats, he can have freeze-dried meat (veal, venison, rabbit).

What works for one cat with IBD won't necessarily work for another, and the process of finding what your cat can eat is a slow one.

that you find the right solution for yours.

I dealt with a cat with IBS. Well, he is my niece's cat, but I am the one who mostly took care of him while my niece lived with me. Totally awesome and hysterical cat but boy was his belly hard too handle. I did not know as much about cat nutrition and digestion then as I do now and looking back would have done a lot of things differently. Oddly enough the only thing that could get his poops solid and manageable was Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul kibble which has rice in it and is pretty carby. As another poster said, all cats with IBS have different needs.

The best idea is to get as many novel proteins as possible and add just enough carby material to help slow how fast stuff moves through him and. Also low fat is ideal.