IBD

Hi! I am looking for some help with treatments for my IBD kitty.

They suspected IBD in my boy, a long haired mix, as a baby. He used to have mucous and blood in his stool and had some digestion problem. We put him on a high quality kibble with occasional wet food and he didn't have any issues for 4 years.

Recently he got sick and was hospitalized for gastroenteritis. It was very sudden, he was dehydrated and could not keep anything down. He recovered quickly and was on metronidazole and flagyl temporarily. He seemed fine after that but has now started throwing up every few days. He will throw up some hair, undigested food and some brown liquids. His stool is soft on occasion, but mostly normal. Otherwise he is totally normal, super playful, great appetite etc.

I have read a lot of blogs and stories with very heartbreaking endings and i am still hopeful that I will be able to manage this disease.

I am wondering if he is becoming resistant to his food and this could be causing the recent flare ups? Any thoughts or similar experiences would be very appreciated.

I have also read about the benefits of changing him to a raw diet, high fibre diet (which in my mind is contradictory with a raw protein based diet), slippery elm and pumpkin to manage the hair that could also be causing an irritation to his stomach, omega 3 fatty acids. I have also read about corticosteroids, but am very hesitant to go to a drug therapy if i do not have to.

Thanks so much

Thankfully, I have never had  cat with IBD, but from EVERYTHING I have read, dry food is the worst thing they can eat.  Low Carb wet food is the ticket, and probably no carrageenan. 

Egg Yolk Lecithin is GREAT for controlling hairballs, of that I CAN attest.  I give it to my cats every day of their lives, and this year, which was particular bad for hairballs, we haven't seen any

I DO know of people using steroids (the type I'm not sure of), and my understanding is that if you can keep it to really small doses, it might not be too bad long term....may be better than having them suffer with vomiting and diarrhea and the other long term effects of IBD. 

At least one of our Advisors, @Denice, has a cat with IBD, so I have tagged her to see if she can add anything here. 

Are you familiar with this website:  http://www.ibdkitties.net/Food.html  It's full of good information for IBD cats.  Maybe it will be helpful also.

Thank you for your advice and the website! 

Steroids can be very helpful if the IBD can't be kept under control.  I had two cats with IBD--one was on long term prednisolone, and one didn't tolerate that well so she was on budesonide.  Every time we tried to taper them off of it, they'd get flares so we just stopped fighting it and left them on it.  

I used both slippery elm and pumpkin.  Both helped but I found that the kitties wouldn't stay on either long term.  Both Jake and Molly ate food with pumpkin in it and it helped with their diarrhea but after awhile one or the other wouldn't eat it.  So I switched to slippery elm--that helped IMMENSELY with the vomiting.  Then I'd try the pumpkin again and sometimes they'd eat it, sometimes not.  

It's such a difficult disease and a lot of it is trial and error to find out what kinds of foods, meds and supplements your kitty will tolerate.  

If you search IBD on this website, you'll find several threads about dealing with it, and using slippery elm and pumpkin.  There's one in particular that I referenced a lot--I'll do a search and will post the link here if I find it.

You need to make sure that your cat is on a grain free diet. No soy, corn, no grains at all! I use slippery Elm bark on my suspected IBD cat and it has worked great. Another thing you need to invest in is a good probiotic.

Don't get all down about the things you read about kitties that ultimately don't make it.  My kitty actually had his first flare when he was only 18 months old.  After much vet hopping and two hospitalizations he was finally properly diagnosed when he was 7 1/2.  He is 12 now and is still doing well.  He is on a steroid and has been for 4 1/2 years now.  When he was finally diagnosed he had gone into fatty liver so we went with the steroid because it is the quickest way to get the inflammation under control.  Since I had tried many many diets during the six years of vet hopping none of which was successful I never considered trying too completely taper him off of the steroid.  There are some people who are able to keep it controlled with diet and many people swear by a raw diet.  

What made it so difficult with Patches was that there was absolutely no rhyme or reason to his flares.  He would sometimes go a short time between flares and sometimes a longer time.  The  longest time was 8 months.  He would have symptoms that were like a foreign object, constipation, vomiting bile, and anorexia.  

I'd just like to note that steroids can cause high blood glucose in cats, so I'd recommend feeding a diet that doesn't lend itself towards also increasing blood glucose.

Some people are unable to get their cats to go straight to a raw diet from a dry food diet. I would suggest moving to a canned food diet, high protein, low carb, grain-free, that type of thing. It may take a while to find a canned food your cat can both like and tolerate (to wit, one that will not produce vomiting), but I think it is worth the effort.

Thanks! He has been on grain free his whole life but has started to not tollerate it regardless.
What company of probiotics do you use?

I use Proviable DC and buy it through Chewy.com

I am new to IBD also and still having issues ....

I do use Proviable probiotic and as MPHS has said: I order it from Chew.com.  I also order my food from there. I am using Natures Variety. 

If you order form chew.com, there is a bit of a discount for automatic delivery...

I am interested in hearing how you are doing with this...

I am going thru a hard time right now, but the people here are awesome..they are very helpful..

I am at the point where I am considering changing specialists.....if my guys does not improve this week, then I am going to find another. 

I have a very long thread going here...if you would like, you can view it and see if can help you at all..Many great thoughts on there from members. 

I do not know how to send a link to it, but it is: Artie very sick after biopsy

Just look up my profile and see my posts..you will find it..

I am wishing you and you kitty the best of luck with this disease...It is so frustrating....

Good Luck!!

With my 15 year old kitty, that is her pic above, I tried this diet and that diet and she wouldn't eat any of them and was starving herself to death as well as puking up or having diarrhea with any calories she did eat. I tried adding pumpkin, tried probiotics, tried so many things!! The cat was clearly going to die unless drugs were used. Metronidazole didn't do the trick by itself, but with the steroid (prednisalone, I think), it was a miracle (!!!) and she was very comfortable and gained weight and stayed well hydrated (even with some kidney failure going on)  the last year of her life. I fed her mostly fancy feast canned cat food and Iams old cat food (11+ years) because that is what she would eat. Eventually (1 year later or a little longer) the steroid would not work at any semi-reasonable dose, and I did have to have my cat put to sleep at age 16. I was loathe to use steroids, but the steroid gave her a year of happy times, and some of those months, it was like it took 4 or 5 years off her age. I didn't worry about diabetes too much as a side effect of the steroid because it was either the steroid or she would die. idk if others agree, but my vet said cats handle steroids a little better than people do, generally speaking.  I think there is a thing where you give the cat periods of time off the steroid (every other day? I have forgotten) so the cat can recover from it hormonally or something like that - that was never an option with my cat. She relapsed terribly, immediately. But for many (most?) cats it is an option, and it's supposedly important, so google that if you must use steroids. All the best!

Glad I read this thread.

My oldest baby, Madalynn, was diagnosed with IBD last week; the pathologist also saw what could be pre-cancerous cells in her intestines. Right now we have decided to treat the IBD and pray that it will take care of everything. Once she has healed up some more from her exploratory surgery, our vet has recommnded prednisalone and B12 injections.

After receiving the diagnosis, The Boyfriend and I started doing research. The Boyfriend did a lot of research on making your own cat food and after many discussions, we have gone this route in feeding our cats and the cats that we foster. We have seen a dramatic difference in their health and activity. One this that has come up since the diagnosis in regards to the home food is to use a "novel protein". Has anyone heard of this before? 

We also read that there are different types of IBD. Does anyone know how to figure out which type your cat has?

I know there are different types of inflammatory cells.  I didn't go the biopsy route because by the time I found a good vet for a diagnosis my kitty was in fatty liver so we went ahead and started the prednisolone.  I would think that the type of cells found would be somewhere in the pathology report.

I do know that based on the variety of symptoms I have seen here and the different things that work IBD is not a specific disease.  My kitty had his first flare when he was only 18 months old which is very unusual.  He is also prone to constipation instead of diarrhea.  His symptoms mimick foreign body ingestion, nothing would go in unless forced and then it wouldn't stay down, vomiting bile and constipation.  I think that is why it took so long and several vets to get a good diagnosis.  To be honest I never found a dietary link for my kitties flares.  There was no rhyme or reason to his flares.  He would sometimes go a few weeks, the longest he went between flares was 8 months.

Hi A novel protein is something like Bison,venison,not duck as it is too close to the poultry family.I have seen kangaroo out there.So you had an exploratory done & were samples of the small intestinal walls taken & sent away? That is the only way of a diagnosis.Also they will do a blood run Folate/cobalmin test to see if your kitty is absorbing.But is not 100% Good idea on the B's.My Boy was on b12 injectable for 6 yrs.The pred does help but kitties with say small cell after a proper diagnosis & treatment do very well.There is an IBD group @ yahoo I belong to that that's what they deal with.Hope your kitty is feeling better soon.C  https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/felineibd1/info

Thanks @Denice  and @MomofMaxwell for the information.

I'm going to check out the yahoo group when I get home and let The Boyfriend know about it as well.  Tomorrow, Maddie is going for bandage change on her feeding tube and to get her staples/stitches checked. We will be discussing when to start the predinisalone.

MomofMaxwell - We did have the exploratory surgery done and they collected samples of Maddie's intestine (3 places), liver, pancreas and lymph nodes. The pathologist is the one who recommended another test to check if the "pre-cancerous" cells were actually cancer. Our vet waited on the test because she wanted to talk to us first before incurring a $400 expense. She didn't really see the need because the initial treatment for both issues would be the predinisalone. Once she explained how everything would work, we agreed with her decision. If the steroids work then we know that Maddie probably doesn't have cancer. If they don't, then she probably does and we would make more decisions from there.

Hi Troub95.I'm glad you had the samples taken.Cats with small cell can live a very long time.It is the slowest cancer there is.I lost my boy to it,but i decided to go the pred route & not chemo.I lost him in a year.I belong to the lymphoma group also at yahoo and there is an Internist there.This is just in case for you.I am not saying your baby has this.Dr.Olsen.If things end up the other way please join this group as well and make your posting huge ATT; Dr.Olsen.he volunteers crucial time answering questions about cancer.He has been an Internist for 27 yrs.Knows his stuff.The link for that group is

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/feline_lymphoma/info

One thing I noticed with my Boy as i belong to both the groups i posted for you is IBD kitties always seemed to have diarrhea.Maxwell never had diarrhea in his life.He just went off food completely.On ultrasound his small intestines were thickened.But his folate/cobalamin was right on.But the pred got him eating after me syringe feeding  him for 3 months.The last month was the hardest.Sending you nothing but positive vibes your way to your baby.Hugs C.Yes I have regrets.