My vet suggested rice and tuna for 3 months. So many questions...

For those who don't know me, Minou is a 4 year old feral i adopted a couple months ago. He is FIV pos and TNRed. He mostly lives inside now cause of the cold, and i alternate between letting him loose in the apartment and letting my other cat loose. He mostly lives in my kitchen with a screen door and a huge cat tree and all the comforts and foods and toys. He has had the runs since...i don't know when. Probably a long time. In the past 6 weeks, he has been on fenbendazole, then metrodanizole, then cortisone. Nothing worked but rice and tuna for 3 days seem to help a bit 2 weeks ago. He was then put on Z\d. My vet suspects allergies.
His stool test and blood tests came back normal.

It appears Minou is one of the 5% of cats who do not respond well to Hills Z/d. He still has the runs after 2 weeks of it on top of seeming very itchy (mostly ears and chin, and a weird twitch of the skin on his back), so today the vet told me to give him strictly rice and tuna for 3 months. No treats.
She said she is not worried about him not getting enough nutrients since it's only for 3 months, but i don't know..Really? Mercury!
As for feeding guidelines, she said to double the amount of kibble he usually eats. He eats one cup of kibble, so he has to get 2 cups of rice and tuna per day? The ratio is one cup of tuna (2 cans) with one cup of COOKED rice. So he has to eat 2 cans of tuna per day (on top of the rice)? He weighs 13lbs.

I have so many questions...Like what the heck is he allergic to if Z/d did not work? Corn? Soy?

Also, i know Pure Bites makes freeze dried white ocean fish treats, but would that work with tuna or is that another type of fish and possibly an allergen? He is still in 'training' and i'm trying to introduce him to my other cat, so treats are important.

Funny how i am so against commercial pet food and how i gave my dogs raw meat for 12 years, but did not want to bother with feeding cats home made diets cause it's much more complex, i think. But i'm starting to wonder if Minou will need a home made diet for the rest of his life.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experience with me!

Rice and tuna? That's awful. Cats shouldn't have rice. This vet sounds terrible. Can you get a second opinion with someone else? I can't believe a vet would even recommend that. I'd look at making homecooked for him. EZcomplete is the best for this, but it's a little pricey to ship to Canada. There's also u-stew for cats, which is cheaper.  I'm not totally sure what brands of food are available in Canada, can you get any limited ingredients foods like Merrick LID? 

http://www.foodfurlife.com/store/c1/Featured_Products.html

http://www.knowbetterpetfood.com/cat_food_u-stew

I agree: that sounds more than a bit crazy! It's unbalanced, cats don't need all that rice, and tuna's generally not recommended as a food to feed often. (For lots of good reasons!)

Yes, it's thoroughly possible that Minou can't eat the z/d because of the corn or soy. They're also not ingredients that are especially great for cats.

What was Minou eating before? Are there any common threads? (Like, say, it was all food with chicken?) Have you already tried a "novel protein," some sort of meat that he hasn't eaten before? Preferably in a very, very simple canned recipe so you don't have to sort through too many ingredients? Or you could do that, as missmimz suggested, with homemade food. It really is pretty easy with a premade supplement.

Not sure is we have Merrick, but we do have Natural Balance LID.

Before, Minou ate garbage, Whiskas and Friskies from the neighbors.
Since i have been feeding him in august, he has had Pro Plan cans, and other cheapish brands. Then i took it more seriously in october and he was eating Taste of the wild Venison and salmon (i think it had chicken in it too) and Wellness cans (mostly chicken and herring)
He ate a bit of GO! duck cans, but not for long as my vet put him on I/d, then Z/d.

Should i just try the NB LID then? Venison or duck? Cause if he's allergic to chicken, duck is pretty close no?
Gods, i know nothing about food allergies.

Pixies Ma said:

 
Should i just try the NB LID then? Venison or duck? Cause if he's allergic to chicken, duck is pretty close no?
Gods, i know nothing about food allergies.

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I think NB LID has peas and some other weird things in it that the Merrick LID doesn't.

missmimz said:

 
I think NB LID has peas and some other weird things in it that the Merrick LID doesn't.

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I just researched and we do have ONE store that carries some Merrick, but it does contain peas and potatoes.
<<Deboned Salmon, Salmon Meal, Potatoes, Peas, Potato Protein, Sunflower Oil (preserved with mixed tocopherols), Pea Fiber, Natural Flavor, Ground Flaxseed, Dried Yeast Culture, Salt, Organic Dried Alfalfa Meal,...<<

He just did a soft stool and it smells so awful. It hits your nose like a vinegar smell.
He's had Z/d today, and then rice and tuna tonight.

Pixies Ma said:

 
I just researched and we do have ONE store that carries some Merrick, but it does contain peas and potatoes.
<<Deboned Salmon, Salmon Meal, Potatoes, Peas, Potato Protein, Sunflower Oil (preserved with mixed tocopherols), Pea Fiber, Natural Flavor, Ground Flaxseed, Dried Yeast Culture, Salt, Organic Dried Alfalfa Meal,...<<

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Oh I was referring to the wet food, not the kibble. I would all avoid kibble. The wet food does have pea protein in it, but no potatoes and no actual peas. If i were in your situation though I would go towards cooked food over these subpar LID foods. Especially a kitty with special needs, they thrive much better off pure foods with no fillers with high protein. 

Gods,  home cooked with venison or duck? Sounds way too expensive. I can pretty much only afford chicken, fish, turkey, or beef. All meats that usually cause allergic reactions.

Pixies Ma said:

 
Gods,  home cooked with venison or duck? Sounds way too expensive. I can pretty much only afford chicken, fish, turkey, or beef. All meats that usually cause allergic reactions.

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Just because those meats "usually" cause an allergic reaction doesn't mean it's the cause in your cat. I would avoid fish and probably beef, if chicken has been an issue in the past maybe avoid that one but turkey might be a good place to start. The bigger issue is if you've been feeding kibble up to this point its more likely something in that kibble caused the reaction over a protein. The fact he's immunocompromised just makes his system a bit more sensitive. 

You could test this out by giving him some poached chicken breast, or turkey, plain for a few days and see if he has a reaction, if not then you know its not the protein. This is similar to what your vet is suggesting, just with better protein and no rice. 

Here's a site with home prepared diets, some with rice, some without, I think the diets rely too much on supplements but they are balanced and don't have all the nonsense that's in commercial foods, and are very quick and easy to make: http://dogcathomeprepareddiet.com/feeding_a_normal_dog_or_cat.html#cats

If you use chunk light tuna, no salt added, it should be OK. Chunk light is made from smaller tuna so they don't have as much mercury. Avoid using albacore. You can also try sardines, they're small fish and don't have much mercury, and they're higher in omega 3 fatty acids too. Or you could skip the canned fish and just buy raw fish and cook it yourself.

I personally would try other proteins too, just to see how he reacts. Commercial foods have so many ingredients that it's hard to know what the cat is reacting to, but homemade food is simple and you can control what's added. So he might be OK with plain chicken but not chicken in commercial cat food.

It's sounds like his diet has changed quite often over the last few months. Switching so often might have contributed to the soft stool. Of course soft, smelly stools always makes me suspect tritrichomonas, especially when the tests for coccidia and giardia come back negative.

I have to go to work, but i'll look into all of this later. Thanks for your inputs!

A friend's cat had a similar problem and was fed fish and rice for a good few months - I can't remember what it's called but it's basically white fish scraps, not tuna, and pretty cheap.

She eventually, very, very slowly moved him back onto cat food - again I can't remember which brand but it was Swedish organic stuff, possibly Yarrah, and he was fine.

Good luck with him.

ETA: Do try organic if you can, the rspca vet thought it could have been a reaction to what goes into the animals which go into the food.

missmimz said:

You could test this out by giving him some poached chicken breast, or turkey, plain for a few days and see if he has a reaction, if not then you know its not the protein. This is similar to what your vet is suggesting, just with better protein and no rice. 

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Willowy said:

I personally would try other proteins too, just to see how he reacts. Commercial foods have so many ingredients that it's hard to know what the cat is reacting to, but homemade food is simple and you can control what's added. So he might be OK with plain chicken but not chicken in commercial cat food.

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I think these are good thoughts, a much better variation of the vet's idea!

After seeing what Minou had been eating, I'd particularly stay away from the vet's tuna menu since both the Taste of the Wild and the Wellness foods have fish in them and fish is a common irritant. No matter what, just plain meat for a few days would be a good start. Willowy is so right about the "nonsense" ingredients in commercial foods: they make it hard to sort out what's causing a problem and cats don't need a lot of them anyway. (Like all those peas, which I just love to rant about...)

missmimz said:

You could test this out by giving him some poached chicken breast, or turkey, plain for a few days and see if he has a reaction, if not then you know its not the protein. This is similar to what your vet is suggesting, just with better protein and no rice. 

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I just bought two young turkeys. They were 99C a pound. I'll thaw it out for a day or two then oven bake it plain. What do you think of Hillary's blend for supplementing after a few days of plain turkey? I know it's available at the vet's.

MingsMongols said:

It's sounds like his diet has changed quite often over the last few months. Switching so often might have contributed to the soft stool. Of course soft, smelly stools always makes me suspect tritrichomonas, especially when the tests for coccidia and giardia come back negative.

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They do smell so awful. Sometimes i smell it from a different room while he is still in the box.
He has changed foods often indeed. I asked about Tritri and the vet did not seem to know what it is. I find it strange...she has been a vet for 30 yrs and is the owner of the clinic. She suspected giardia even if the test came back neg, and that's why she gave him metrodanizole.
He did have a formed stool last week though, shortly after i put him back on Z/d after 3 days of rice and tuna. Wonder if tritri pos cats can sometimes produce firm stools?

Sorry for the multiple posts, i have yet to figure out how to quote more than one person in one message.

Thank you Pegleg, and all who respond and share their knowledge. I'll go with turkey as it is on special these days and i don't think he's ever had it.
I wish i could give him kibble though, or at least one day. I keep thinking about how i'll be gone for over 24 hours at Christmas. I can't leave fresh food out without it spoiling, even with ice packs.
 

Y'all let me know about what you think of supplementing with Hillary's Blend if you can.