A few questions to help with Cat with Celiac

My newest kitty, Teekie, probably has Celiac disease. I've got her on gluten free food, but I have a couple of questions about other cat products.
I had recently switched to egg layer crumbles for kitty litter and LOVE it.  I don't have a bag handy to check the ingredient list.  Should I switch back to clay?  I worry that after she uses the box, if she washes her paws, she's going to ingest some crumble dust.  With 4 cats and 3 giant Sterlite boxes, the crumbles were a much more economical way to keep them filled.

I've been buying organic oat grass for my kitties and they all love to nibble it. But Teekie gets super excited and uproots it. This brings up the oat seeds. I've never SEEN her eat the seeds, but she might. Should I refrain from buying this kind of grass and maybe try growing a tray of lawn grass for them instead?

Everything I've read indicates that Celiac is different for every individual, some can tolerate a little gluten once in a while, and some need to not even touch dust that might have gluten in it. I'm afraid Teekie is super sensitive to it.  I've also read that other than avoiding gluten like the plague, there's really no treatment for Celiac. 
Has anyone here had any experience with cats with Celiac? 
What kinds of things have you done to help your kitty?


The long version....
Without having an expensive intestinal biopsy done, I've pretty well determined that my newest cat, Teekie, has Celiac disease.  She's probably about a year old, a little less. I've had her since July 4th last year.  She was a barn cat, and either born with a bob tail, or her tail was accidentally bitten off along with her umbilical cord. She's possibly inbred.
She has always been tiny, had a round (bloated?) belly, eats like a horse, has gas that could kill, diarrhea that sometimes gets as bad as anal leakage, cries and grumbles when she washes her butt, and hates being picked up, cuddled or even petted.
She went to the vet for her diarrhea and an upper respiratory infection she had. They found no trace of intestinal parasites, but medicated her for worms anyways, just in case. She was on antibiotics for the infection and probiotics to help her guts, as well as something to ease the inflammation in her digestive tract. The cold cleared right up, but she continued to have diarrhea.   She was spayed a month later, once she was over the cold.  Vet thought her gut issue was just stress related, so I made some changes, and her overall behavior improved, but she continued to have the runs and was never particularly friendly.
A friend's cat was allergic to fish, so thinking that something she was eating was the culprit, I tried a week of no fish flavors, and her condition improved a little. But it never got completely better.  Then, one day I noticed that a can of food I was offering had wheat gluten in the ingredients. 

I didn't think much of it until later that day when she was back to all the old symptoms in the worst way. 

Two weeks later, she was finally over it and down to just loose stool.  Turns out she actually IS a cuddly lover when her insides don't hurt!

Just the other day, she got into a tiny amount (maybe a quarter teaspoon) of a canned food that included gluten.  The result was her fumigating the entire house, and crying about washing her bottom again, along with hershey squirts.

That pretty much settled it.  She's super sensitive to gluten.

Our kibble is gluten free, thank goodness, but I share a small can of Friskies between my 4 cats daily, and now I'm having to watch out for gluten in those ingredients.
I HOPE this will eventually settle her guts, but then I've started looking around and realizing she might be getting gluten from other sources.
 

Thanks for any input!

~Hawke

She will improve on wet food only, the Friskies pates have no wheat gluten but have rice

I know there are a quite a few brands out there now that don't have gluten. Gluten comes from wheat, rye, barley and triticale and is very common. It's also found in some ingredients you wouldn't expect, that have been modified to contain gluten. But if a label says gluten free, you should be able to trust it.
It's up to you as to whether you feed just wet or give her kibble as well. Not everyone's budget allows for feeding wet only as the cost certainly does mount quickly.

As for eating oat grass, oat doesn't contain gluten (celiacs often avoid it because it's usually processed in facilities than grind wheat, and it gets contaminated with gluten). So the grass should be fine, however cats can easily throw it up if they eat too much. My cats do this all the time, but they love chewing grass so much that I always grow them some anyway.

Until you find out the ingredients for the layer crumbles, you won't know if it could be a gluten source. If she is as sensitive as she appears to be, then I wouldn't use the litter if it contained gluten. She could easily ingest the dust. Can you go to where you bought them and look at another bag? Or online if you can remember the brand name? There was a thread a while back about using layer crumble as litter, and some people loved it. It was much more cost effective for them.

If you want to still use a natural litter without wheat, try corn cob horse bedding. It shouldn't have any gluten, it's just ground-up corn cobs pressed into pellets. And, yeah, most gravy-type canned foods do have wheat gluten in the gravy. So stick with pate types. . .and read the ingredient list!

@bonepicker I can't do wet food only. I keep kibble out 24/7 and canned food is just a treat when I get home from work.  It would be easier to go without any wet food, but my kitties would complain loudly.  Rice doesn't seem to be a problem for Teekie.

@pushylady Thank you for the tip about oats not having gluten. I'm so new to all of this! I'll have to double check what the grocery store sells. I THINK it's oat grass, so it could be safe.  I haven't had vomiting or blockage issues with grass and they do all enjoy it, so I would like to keep offering it to them.  I need more kitty litter, which was part of why I even considered it as a contamination source late last night. I'll check the ingredients list when I'm at the store and if it's a no-go, then I'll have to go back to clay.  I was trying to find an ingredient list online last night, but no luck.  I've been using the crumbles for about as long as I've had Teekie, and overall, I'm extremely pleased with it as a litter. It clumps well, it's not as dusty, and what dust there is, is easy enough to clean up. It sweeps up much more easily than clay, and after scooping out clumps and chunks, it's compostable. And the cost factor. I'll be bummed if I do have to go back to clay, but I'd rather give Teekie a safe, happy home and spend a little more to do it than have her sick all the time or rehome her.

@Willowy does the corn cob stuff clump?  With 4 cats, I really need a litter that does. It keeps the entire house from smelling like a zoo after a day.  I remember ages (like 25 years) ago, we tried a corncob bedding with our hamsters and HATED it.  It didn't absorb anything and they didn't seem to like walking on it, but that was just ground up cobs, it wasn't pelletted or anything.

Thank you all for answering!  I really appreciate it.

~Hawke

It doesn't really clump, it turns to sawdust. Or cob dust or whatever :tongue2:. But it's not hard to scoop the wet stuff out. If you keep it well scooped, it does a pretty good job of odor control, about the same as chicken crumbles. It's not like the corn cob small animal bedding they used to sell---I remember that stuff and it was awful. Give it a try; you never know until you try it.

You can switch to scheduled feedings for your kitties and go to more wet food than dry.  We feed Canidae Pure Grain-free (canned), Natural Balance Wild Pursuit canned, and Taste of the Wild dry.  We'd like to try the Canidae Pure dry food, but we haven't gotten around to doing that yet.

@Willowy   Yuck. I very much dislike litter that turns to dust. I did that when I had ferrets, and it worked well enough, but I much prefer clumping stuff.  I have to be super careful of smells because my dad has a super sensitive nose after his treatment for throat cancer (free and clear- WOO!), so the clumping seems to be best.  Good to know that new stuff is better.

@stephanietx I could, but our vet likes the way we currently feed. I have a filtered water fountain for them, that I clean every other day, so they drink a lot (at least, a lot more than they did when I just had a simple bowl)  Our vet believes the kibble is good for their teeth, and all my kitties like it.  One of my cats even prefers kibble over canned.  She'll take a few licks and then walk away.

I checked the ingredients on the layer crumbles and #1 is "wheat products". It doesn't specify gluten...  So, I'm going to switch to clay for a month or two.  If Teekie starts having normal poops, then I'll stick with the clay and just consider it a cost of a special needs cat, but if she continues to have the low level loose stools that seems to be her current 'normal', then I'll switch back to the crumbles since removing it isn't helping enough to make the cost worth it.

Thank you all for your input!

So it's been 3 weeks since we got rid of all the cat food with gluten in it, and just over a week since I got rid of the egg layer crumble 'cat litter' and went back to sand.  Teekie is a whole new cat!  She is playful and enjoys being petted. She's even becoming cuddly!  And she's learning that multiple hands on her is nice, not painful.  It's so much fun seeing her actual personality come out.

That's awesome! Thanks for the update. I'm pleased things are going so well for you and Teekie.

Teekie has become obnoxiously playful, bouncing all the other pets, and rubbing on dog faces. She even convinced Jack to rassel with her for a little bit today. Then she comes over and demands snuggles and lets me pet her all over instead of leaving any time a hand touched more than her head, shoulder-blades or tail base.

I think she may be growing finally too!

Silly kitty wasn't really an antisocial, feral, barn cat, she was just sick.  Yay for not having a belly full of lava!

I'm so happy she's feeling better!

"bellyful of lava" can't be fun for anybody! It's great that you've sorted out was was wrong with Teekie and now she's a healthy, happy kitten annoying everyone.

It never occurred to me that she never sprawled across the floor like other cats until I saw her do it yesterday!  Sprawl and stretch and roll and take over the entire floor.  She even let me get a picture of her.  I'm going to add it to her gallery.