I just found out that my cat, Precious, has a food allergy

Hey everyone. I just found out that my 12 year old Domestic Short Hair cat, Precious, has a food allergy. For several months she had been vomiting on a nearly daily basis. She had also started having diarrhea a couple of months ago. I had wanted to take her in to the veterinarian but they wanted to do a lot of tests and they wanted payment up front and so I was unable to take her in because I am disabled and just simply do not have the money. Anyway, I started a GoFundMe Campaign and was able to raise $400 in donations and so I was able to take my cat to the veterinarian yesterday. While there, they ran several blood tests. They had to sedate Precious to do the blood work though because she became very angry during the examination and clawed my mom in the face. So anyway, we went out to eat and I went to my appointment and then we came back and talked to the veterinarian about the blood work as the results were in. A few things on her complete blood count test were a little low but that was not the main concern for the veterinarian. The main concern was that her liver enzymes were elevated. The veterinarian concluded that she was likely allergic to something in the food we had been giving her. She had originally been on Purina Cat Chow Complete for many years until she started with the vomiting this year and then I switched her to Iams in the hopes that it would solve the problem but unfortunately she had the same problem with Iams. I had no idea that she was allergic to anything in the food. So anyway, the veterinarian told us to try this prescription cat food by Royal Canin which is made for cats with allergies and food sensitivies. So we bought a bag of the food from the veterinarian and we also had to get two medications: Amoxicillin and Prednisolone for her. The Prednisolone was to help her liver enzymes get back to normal and the Amoxicillin was because she also had an Upper Respiratory Infection.

So Precious has been home with me since yesterday evening and I have been giving her the medication and she also gets 1/2 cup of Royal Canin food every day. Since starting her on the new food, she has had no episodes of vomiting at all whereas before she would sometimes vomit up to twice per day. She is still having diarrhea but I am hoping that will resolve on its own within a few days or weeks. I am so grateful that we found out what was wrong with her so that way we could get the problem solved. She is clearly much more comfortable and happy now and that makes me happy too. I love my cat very much. I have had her ever since she was a kitten.

Anyway, I am posting this partly because I want to help raise awareness about food allergies in cats by sharing my own personal story. I am also hoping that the members on this forum can provide me with any tips, advice, or additional information about food allergies that I might find helpful.

Thank you for sharing your story I'm so glad to hear that Precious is doing so much better now

Food allergies can be incredibly difficult to pinpoint in cats. Common ones are gluten, wheat, potato, peas, fish/seafood, chicken, artificial colourings/flavourings, carrageenan, gums (guar gum, xanthan gum etc), and even eggs. Like humans, though, different cats are allergic to different things, and almost any food CAN be the trigger. They can sometimes be a warning sign for illnesses like IBD too, so that might be something you want to discuss with your vet at your next appointment - especially if Precious' symptoms recur when she's finished her meds. [article="32479"][/article]

Columbine said:

Thank you for sharing your story I'm so glad to hear that Precious is doing so much better now

Food allergies can be incredibly difficult to pinpoint in cats. Common ones are gluten, wheat, potato, peas, fish/seafood, chicken, artificial colourings/flavourings, carrageenan, gums (guar gum, xanthan gum etc), and even eggs. Like humans, though, different cats are allergic to different things, and almost any food CAN be the trigger. They can sometimes be a warning sign for illnesses like IBD too, so that might be something you want to discuss with your vet at your next appointment - especially if Precious' symptoms recur when she's finished her meds. [article="32479"][/article]

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Thank you for the information! I do appreciate it! Anyway, she is continuing to do better. She is still not throwing up at all but unfortunately she is still having diarrhea.

Ya know, we figure out when humans have food allergies because we only give babies one new food at a time so if they have symptoms, we immediately know what it is.  It's too bad we can't do that with cats because all cat foods have several ingredients.  I've been thinking about switching my cats to raw food or maybe cooking for them and stories like this make me lean towards that even more.  They don't seem to have any kind of food allergies, but what if they develop allergies later in life like your cat did?