Gingival flare?

My 1 year old calico, Zora, developed a very stubborn UTI. It was stress-related, due to my older cat, Allie, freaking out when she goes to the vet for her annual check-up and stressing out Zora; she hasn't been prone to them otherwise). Zora seemed to be recovering with Clavamox, but then she was took a turn for the worse.

So I took her in as a walk-in to my vet hospital. My usual vet was unavailable, but I ended up with a holistic vet named Dr. Plechner. He told me he suspected Zora had a steroid deficiency, and he checked her gums and showed me that she had a red line at the top of her gums and referred to it as "gingival flare" (after doing some online research, I found he calls this gingival flare Plechner's Syndrome). So he gave her an anti-inflammatory shot (Convenia) and a steroid shot (Kenalog). 

The vet also told me that foods I need to avoid from now on are those containing estrogen, like soy (which I already was), apples, carrots, flaxseed and sweet potatoes. 

Thanks to this exchange  on the board, Zora and Allie have been eating Wellness Core dry food for the past year, and never had any problems. With the grain-free food, their coats became shinier and the bowel movements have been solid and less stinky. But while Zora was recovering from the UTI, I introduced some canned food to her diet (Cats in the Kitchen pouches and cans). She'll only eat it sporadically, so as Zora got better, I put her back on the dry food.

One day, Zora seemed to take a turn for the worse again, so I put her exclusively on wet food, and I've had no more problems. She went back for her follow-up after a week, and her gums are a nice pink color all around. Dr. Plechner also gave me a prescription for prednisolone, so I have go to a compounding pharmacy to get it in chicken flavor.

So I have two questions:

* Has anyone here heard of gingival flare and steroid deficiency? The only place I could find research was from Dr. Plechner's own site. There's a summary here. I've heard good things about Dr. Plechner, but I'm curious to know if anyone else has had this issue. He did assure me it's not Addisons Disease, which is the first thing the comes up when you Google steroid deficiency and cats. Specifically you have to look up "gingival flare" to see what this vet is referring to.

* Two, I'd like to keep Zora on wet food, but my schedule doesn't completely allow for it, and realistically, I'll probably need to leave a small amount of kibble for her to while I'm gone during the day. So I've been looking for grain-free dry foods that fit her new dietary restrictions. The Wellness Core unfortunately has flaxseed, so I'll only feed that to the Allie until the bag is gone. Some other grain-free foods I've found that seem to fit within Zora's dietary restrictions are (with links to PetFlow.com)

- California Natural

- Horizon Legacy

- Feline Caviar Salmon

Has anyone had good results with these? I was trying to avoid the ones with peas, but it wasn't easy. And it's not like I could find foods just based on the amount of estrogen in their ingredients. Are there any other brands/varieties you might recommend?

Sorry for the long post. Thanks for your help.

Emile

emilesc said:

 
* Two, I'd like to keep Zora on wet food, but my schedule doesn't completely allow for it, and realistically, I'll probably need to leave a small amount of kibble for her to while I'm gone during the day.

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Canned food can left out all day You  just need a programmable timed feeder. I like the Petsafe 5 compartment one. To keep the canned food from drying out too fast, you could add water to the food or freeze the food into chunks and put the frozen chunks into the feeder to slowly defrost until meal time. I think the Catmate brand of feeder has an ice pack feature that would also help to keep food cool.

Have you tried Nature's Variety Instinct Limited Ingredients?

LTS3 said:

 
Canned food can left out all day

You  just need a programmable timed feeder. I like the Petsafe 5 compartment one. To keep the canned food from drying out too fast, you could add water to the food or freeze the food into chunks and put the frozen chunks into the feeder to slowly defrost until meal time. I think the Catmate brand of feeder has an ice pack feature that would also help to keep food cool.

Have you tried Nature's Variety Instinct Limited Ingredients?

Click to expand...

Thanks, LTS3. I was reading catinfo.org today, and I saw a suggestion about freezing food. And I just found a suggestion for putting it in ice cube trays, which I like.

I haven't tried the Nature's Variety, but that was one of the ones that scared me off due to the peas in the ingredients, plus salt.

Emile

I found another wet food candidate. I was reading the Holistic Health section in the Experts Forum, which lead me to Dr. Jean's Litle Big Cat site. She recommends Life's Abundance Instinctive Choice, which would fit within Zora's diet. Has anyone tried it?

Emile