Best way to help a cat with either IBS or Feline lymphoma to regain weight

I recently discovered this website in my search for a cat food that might assist my 10 year old baby boy with gaining weight.  Looking through the forum I thought it might be a good idea to ask others to potentially weigh in with their thoughts in regards to my situation since I am very knowledgeable in my lack of knowledge about cat foods and illnesses.

Dexter (short for C.K.Dexter Haven) has always had an issue with urinary tract infections.  So much so that when he was a kitten he almost died from a severe infection and has had them ever since.  He's also always been a big cat.  Long and rather large (16 lbs average). 

About a year and a half ago he started losing weight and acting differently then his usual self.  The vet, as well as I suspected another urinary tract infection.  He'd been getting them every year since the first one almost like clockwork.  She decided to do a full panel of blood work and check everything just to make sure as well as asked me to bring in a stool sample to analyze.  Everything came back normal except that he was losing weight.  At this point he dropped from a 16 lb cat at his last visit to a 10 lb cat in roughly a month and he had stopped eating.  The vet recommended trying canned chicken or tuna and once I gave him that he would eat some but only small amounts.  Still, he was steadily losing weight.  This was about the time when she noticed that he had a thickening of the GI tract (in particular the small intestines *I think* and that one of his kidneys seemed to be larger then the other.  She explained that with his age (he's 10), his medical history of urinary tract infections and the absence of abnormalities in his stool and blood work there was a strong possibility for one of two diagnoses; IBS or feline lymphoma.  She told me that to rule out the possibility of lymphoma they would have to do a biopsy and she explained what that entailed and that it tended to be extremely painful for the cat.  I declined the biopsy.

When he hit 8lbs the vet started him on B 12 shots once a month as well as 5mg of Prednisone twice a day until he started to eat and then cutting it down to 5mg once a day as well as Pancrezyme twice per day.  He'd actually been on Pancrezyme before years ago and refused to take it so I decided to cut the pill on fourths and give it to him by hand rather then hoping he'd eat it crushed in his food (I tried the later and he refused to eat anything that had the med in it).  For a time he seemed to get better before taking a turn for the worse.  He also started having incurable runny and incredibly foul smelling stool which was an incredibly odd color.  The vet analyzed the stool and found nothing out of the ordinary about it aside from the obvious.  He continued to lose weight; by this point he was a whopping 6 lbs and we could now see the outline of his ribs and feel his spine.  At this point the vet started talking about leaning toward thinking that it was more then likely lymphoma rather then IBS due to the lack of any abnormalities as well as the continued thickened GI tract (which she stated could also be scar tissue from his chronic infections), his age and his past history.  She did not give a hard diagnosis however because there is still that off chance that it's not lymphoma.

At this point Dext is about 6 lbs and mostly bone and sleeps most of the time (I have a 150 watt heat bulb in one of my lamps and when I have it on he likes to sleep on the chair next to it).  Overall he's become more social then he was, choosing to stay on the bed with me when I'm there or in any room I'm in most days (which is a major improvement from when I had to pull the bed out to get hold of him to give him his meds and that would be all I would see of him in a day).  He's an incredibly picky eater (has a reputation for refusing pate foods in general and won't eat anything with meds in it.  Literally eats around the pill and leaves the pill there) and I've worked in an apatite stimulant to try and get him to eat more.  It's worked, most days he eats quite a lot (roughly 2 8 oz cans of wet food per day and has free urinary tract dry food to snack on throughout the day.  His stool has hardened again and, while still horribly smelling, is now a normal cat consistency.  He's still, however, not gaining weight.  At least not that I can tell.  During his last B12 shot the needle went through him (as near as we can tell) and he was very uncomfortable the whole time (very loudly complaining and wanting to get out of dodge).  

I have neither the time nor the money to make his food for him and to be quite frank, I'm afraid I would screw up doing it and cause more harm then good for him so I've been hunting for foods that have a high protein content.  I thought I was doing a good job with Friskies (which I'm not keen on feeding him but initially it was all he was eating no matter what I put in front of him) until I discovered the thing about 'animal by-products'.  So now I'm sort of back to square one.  Google searches sent me here and when looking through the forum I thought it would be worth a shot to post; especially since all this cat food stuff is starting to make my head swim.

As of today I have Merrick perfect bistro, Halo, Wellness, Naturally Complete Whole Earth Farms and Natures Variety instincts that I picked up to try with him.  He was surprisingly excited and even ate the whole pate for the Natures Variety (including licking the bowl clean) but then I discovered on this forum that it adds a rather negative ingredient in the form of clay.  So now I'm back to square one and confused again.  On top of this I have six other cats so I need to be able to find a food that isn't going to bankrupt me to buy in bulk.  

Anyway, that is my story.  Any input would be greatly appreciated.  Even getting him back up to 8 lbs would be a miracle to me right now.  

Have you tried ruling out different proteins?  A novel protein diet could make a difference for him if it's IBS.  Any other food allergens you've tried to rule out?  If I were you, I would just feed whatever he will eat and make it the food with the highest calories.  Vets have special high-calorie food and paste.  Could you ask for some to supplement with?

I'd honestly never thought of any of that.  For the past year and a half I've just been giving him whatever he'll eat since he kept losing weight and being in pain/miserable.  I know this is going to sound dumb, but what do you mean by a novel protein diet and how would I do that without physically making the food myself (I'm envisioning this as basically taking everything but one kind of protein out of the food equation at a time).

I will have to call my vet tomorrow and see if she has any ideas.  I know we have GM paste floating around the house I just want to make sure it's alright with everything else.

Exactly. Poultry is the most common culprit for food allergies, but grains are up there too. So, you could start him on a grain-free rabbit diet, for example, and see if there are any improvements.

Artie is on a rabbit diet. He eats Natures Variety; although not exclusively rabbit, it has pork mixed in, he tolerates this enough to have it every day.

He is allergic to chicken. I also add a probiotic to his food; per specialist. 

good luck!

Try something with high protein and low carbs. Also, with IBS, that means that he is extremely food sensitive to something he is eating NOW. I took my vet's advice and gave Cleopatra a novel diet about a month ago. Royal Canin Rabbit and Peas, but she STILL has a problem. So, I transferred her to Turkey and Duck Wellness Core. It is a MUCH better diet than Royal Canin. You see, cats are obligate carnivores, and they used to never eat anything but meat. But now, we are feeding them grain, wheat, oils, ect which is horrible for them.

I am going through a very similiar predicament to yours. Cleopatra had blood in her stools since early December. She weighed 6lbs 2 oz. They gave her Albon"just in case", and that was that. A few months later, I brought her to a new vet, the vet we bring our dogs. She said she looked in perfect health, and with their little scale, they weighed her at approx 6lbs 6 oz. They said it may be a food sensitivity, and gave her Royal Canin. It did not work, so I brought her back a month later. They only took a blood panel, because it seemed like she only weighed 6lbs. Everything but the calcium came back normal. So, they suggested it may be cancer. Or, maybe, IBD if she gains weight. Well, here we are, a week later, and she still has blood in her stools at a low dose of Prednisolone.(2.5mg)

If you cannot make your own food, try a better food with less ingredients. A high protein count, low carbs, and grain-free, and it would be best if it was wet. This is what I am doing, with Wellness Core with Turkey and Duck, grain-free. IIf this does not work, I am giving her home-made.

ALSO, try giving him probiotics! With a higher protein and meat based diet, the higher the calories, and the more they will eat it. I hope WE ALL find a cure for our animals, and let us hope, it is not a dreaded disease like cancer.

After reading this (I happened to be in my car and heading home from work) I stopped by the pet store and picked up foods to completely cut grains and poultry out of all the cat's diets (for now). Ironically they all seem to agree that duck is right out as a food they like as when I tried to feed it to Dext this morning neither he nor any of the other cats would eat it and I know he tried it. (someone DID end up eating it though as it was gone by the time I came home from work today).

I'm going to phase out the Purina urinary tract health dry that we've been giving them for years (it was vet recommended when he started having chronic UTIs and is the only food constant that I can think of when not thinking on individual ingredients) and start him on Wellness complete health poultry free. We're also going to make the amount of dry food that's around during the day a bit smaller. I picked up several more various cans of nature's variety instinct (rabbit, beef, salmon and venison) all ones that do not have poultry listed in the ingredients and all ones that he seems keen to eat.The secondary wet that I picked up was Wellness Core poultry free whitefish, salmon and herring. All are grain free.

For about three weeks I have been adding a supplement called Nu-Pet Feline Granular which is also high in protein and helps to stimulate eating. However it contains wheat grass sprouts so I'm not sure if I should keep giving it to him while taking out all other grains. Thoughts? I had also been recently giving him Vitality science to try to boost his immune system (since were were heavily leaning toward the idea of it being cancer). I'm wondering if I should stop all of those with the advent of the diet change.

Rebecca Snyder said:

 
I'd honestly never thought of any of that.  For the past year and a half I've just been giving him whatever he'll eat since he kept losing weight and being in pain/miserable.  I know this is going to sound dumb, but what do you mean by a novel protein diet and how would I do that without physically making the food myself (I'm envisioning this as basically taking everything but one kind of protein out of the food equation at a time).

I will have to call my vet tomorrow and see if she has any ideas.  I know we have GM paste floating around the house I just want to make sure it's alright with everything else.

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Not a dumb question at all, Rebecca. A novel protein diet is a diet based on a protein source that he has never eaten before, and therefore he hasn't developed a sensitivity to it. Novel=new. Some frequently used novel proteins include rabbit, like Artiemom uses... venison... duck... and so on. There are some novel-protein diets available at some of the pet-specialty retailers, but CHECK the label to make sure that the novel protein isn't mixed with ingredients from the "usual" proteins. There are specific allergy diets based on novel proteins at your vet office. Your vet can discuss the choices and decide on the best starting point. Your cat might dislike the taste, or it might disagree with him, or he may actually LOVE it. If it doesn't work, then you can work with the vet to find something that does.

There is also a hydrolyzed protein diet. This is a diet where the chicken protein molecule is "broken down" into very small fragments that the body doesn't recognize as the offender and launch a response. This one is Hill's z/d^tm  and I believe there is also a z/d Ultra. These are veterinary diets, by prescription only. But apparently, the diet is fairly palatable. We had a lot of cats and d*gs on it-- in their respective breed recipes, of course. That's another option.

Now, about me... I am an "inactive" vet assistant with 20+ years of experience of helping vets and providing hospital nursing care and clinical duties .I am also a Hill's Veterinary Nutritional Advocate^tm, and this is exactly the sort of thing I can help with.The VNA program is a course of Continuing Education through Hill's that  helps me to be able to help YOU to provide the best nutritional support for your pet, based on her age, breed/species and health condition. I can't prescribe or diagnose, as I'm not a vet-- but I can help answer some of your nutritional questions and help you to open up and maintain discussion with your vet-- so YOU can be an advocate for your cats.

Another thing: You must stop all of the old offending proteins completely, including byproducts and any possible source like treats or human food bits. In fact, it's best to feed NOTHING but the allergy/novel diet.That also means keeping other food bowls for other pets not on an allergy diet picked up and put away. It means separate feeding so that there is no chance of sneaking a few bites of an offending food. It does take a bit of doing things differently and being diligent-- but it is a manageable issue.

Hang in there, and ask anything you want. And do not be afraid or embarrassed to ask these same things of your vet. That's why vets have folks like me, to help you with these things. 

~MackieMac

I decided to change the diet of all the cats rather then just trying to change just Dexter's.  It's not something that would particularly hurt them and I was never terribly keen on the foods that we were feeding them in the first place (years and years ago I was a huge advocate of Neutro but sadly that never ended up being a food they were on).  They all seem presently happy with the changes and it ensures that Dext doesn't get anything that he's not supposed to.  

I wanted to kinda stay away from prescription diets because of the fussiness of my cats and the fact that I'm not sure how it would affect the others should they end up eating them.  Thankfully I have a really good relationship with my vet and a really open line of communication with her/them.  With seven cats I sort of have to ^_^.  With the stool change (in a good way) I kinda wanted to take him in and get him a general check-up anyway so it will be a good time to talk to her about the food change as well.