Most likely ingredients causing tummy upset?

Okay, looks like we're back at square one.  Ah, never a dull moment around here! 

Oscar is about twelve years old, and has always gone through cycles where he'll do really well on a particular food, and then suddenly one day he starts throwing up and sometimes gets a bit of diarrhea until we find a new food that he'll eat that's more agreeable with him.

So I'm in the process of updating my spreadsheet to identify some ingredients that might be contributing to his upset tummy.  Thus far I have corn, wheat, soy, carrageenan (which we try to avoid anyway), and agar-agar.  Is there anything else I need to be on the lookout for while we try to get this sorted out?

Oh goodness - a list of potential allergens can go on forever! Some that spring to mind are:-

Gums (guar, cassia etc)
Peas
Potatoes
Other pulses
Chicken
Beef
Eggs
Fish (including fish oils)
Shellfish
Colouring/flavouring
Other grains (the exception is rice, which is pretty hypoallergenic)

Please remember that it's HIGHLY unlikely that all of these will cause an issue, even in highly sensitive cats. Look at the ingredients in your current foods and see if there are any common to most or all of them, and start from there.

Especially given his age, it's well worth getting Oscar to the vet for a thorough checkup, just in case there's an underlying reason for his tummy upsets. I'd definitely be asking about IBD, just to rule it out

I really hope you're able to get to the bottom of this soon - it can't be much fun for either of you

Thanks much for the list!  That's very helpful. *scampers off to update spreadsheet*

We've had Oscar ever since he was a kitten, and he's always been prone to an upset tummy when a favorite food has been discontinued, a formula has changed and we weren't aware it, and that sort of thing.  So far the vet hasn't found anything wrong with him, and Oscar bounces back quite nicely once we finally figure out a new menu.  It's the journey getting there that's always the hard part.  Well, that and trying not to pull out our hair when the vet's first instinct is suggest a bag of Hill's kibble for whatever he thinks is ailing our cats. ;-)

Menadione sodium bisulfste complex is also a bad ingredient I avoid.

kittyluv387 said:

Menadione sodium bisulfste complex is also a bad ingredient I avoid.

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Eep.  I had forgotten about that one.  Thank you kindly! :-)

What are you currently feeding him?

bonepicker said:

What are you currently feeding him?

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Oscar is mostly a Fancy Feast Classic kind of guy (non-fish flavors), despite our best efforts to provide him with better quality food.  But for the first ten years of his life, we only fed him kibble that he could graze at will, because we didn't know any better until our other cat developed FLUTD. *is so embarrassed*

The weird thing is that Oscar has been throwing up at the same time every day lately.  So just for grins, we started divvying up his food into three smaller meals a day, instead of the usual two.  And so far (*knocks on wood*), that seems to have solved the problem -- for the moment, anyway.

However, since Oscar has had this problem off and on since we got him when he was about nine weeks old, with no diagnosis except for "a sensitive stomach,"  we figure it's just a matter of time before he gets an upset tummy again.  So we're trying to get better organized about identifying ingredients that may be contributing to his gastric distress, and go from there. :-)