Food allergy, no idea to what!

MistyDawn

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So, I've recently gotten married and moved out of my folks' place. My mother's senior cat doesn't have long left and my snowshoe, Jinx, has taken to sleeping with her, so she begged and begged and I finally let her keep Jinx to ease her grief when she loses her old girl.

Neither my cat-loving husband (the best kind!) nor I were even close to accepting having just three cats, we set out scouring the rescues for number four.

We found a large, beautiful, black senior Tom and fell in love with him, but the rescue says he has a food allergy and needs a special diet. He also has some dental issues (maybe due to the same allergy) and needs soft food. He's missing fur because of the allergy, but it's slowly coming back.

Since the vet says it's nearly impossible to pinpoint what specifically he's allergic to, I have him on a limited ingredient canned diet. The brand is Instinct, and it's their canned Turkey Limited Ingredient food.

Is that a good food for this situation? Or maybe I should just put him on a raw meat diet? What do you folks suggest? This is one issue I've never been up against before!
 

lalagimp

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The LID looks like a pretty safe bet. I would try it with my pets as it is simply 1 protein. Nature's Variety makes raw medallions at Petco, but when it says Rabbit it really means Rabbit and Pork, so it wouldn't be good for eliminating. 
I make my raw. It's cheaper than stocking the Nature's Variety Instinct duck cans by the case. I make mine with rabbit and turkey. If duck works well for you and you didn't want to try any other LID varieties you can get premade raw in duck from Darwin's Pet (monthly mail subscription). If you want to check the LID rabbit and LID turkey (and you need to do any of them for a solid 3 weeks I read) then you can make it. I use catinfo.org recipe. The cost with rabbit and turkey would run almost the same  monthly as Darwin's AFTER you've paid for supplies like the mixing bowl, the ice cube trays, the supplements.
 
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artiemom

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I think limited ingredient is the way to go. I would probably stay away from chicken because a lot of cats have allergies to that protein...

Or even better, try a novel protein diet.. like duck, buffalo, venison, rabbit, pork...make sure it is limited ingredient and contains no chicken.. you have to read the labels, because companies sneak a lot of stuff into their limited ingredients...

Nature's Variety is a good company. We can always mention more companies..

Does he have diarrhea, or just skin allergies?

What were they feeding him in the shelter? If it was not causing any issues, I would tend to stick with that....

There are also some allergies to guar guar and caragean. 
 
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lalagimp

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Oh I misread that. I thought you were already doing duck. My mistake. 
 

missmimz

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If you're feeding commercial food it is almost impossible to narrow down the allergy, but if you're feeding homecooked or raw, it's pretty easy because there aren't really any fillers are additives that could be triggering the allergy, so you're dealing with a protein allergy or you aren't. NV LID is decent food, but it may not solve the allergy issue. 
 
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MistyDawn

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Thank you all so much. This has been a lot of help. The diet we are doing now seems to be working and I'll know for sure in a couple of weeks, but I might switch to Darwin's.

And no diarrhea. Just hair loss.
 
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cocobutterfly

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Our cat Coco has bad food allergies. When we first got her, the insides of her ears used to ooze with wet brown crusty "coffee grounds" that looked like ear mite infection. Her ears were also bright pink from her scratching them nonstop. We took her to the vet immediately. While our vet saw no evidence of ear mites, she said that it could possibly be a yeast/fungal infection which is common in cats who passed through a shelter. Her ears were then flushed out, cleaned and treated with tresaderm for 10 days.

The symptoms (brown crusty ears, scratching) came back within a few weeks. We took her back to the vet thinking it was a recurring infection. The vet told us it could also be due to food allergies. We flushed out her ears, cleaned them again.

Symptoms returned, and at that point, it was pointing more to food allergies than anything else. We were feeding her a rotation of homemade raw chicken, canned rabbit, canned venison.

We took her to a cat only vet who, upon examination, suggested food allergy. She said the "coffee grounds" a common sighting for her and that all owners bring their cats in thinking they're ear mites. This vet knew a lot more about cat nutrition than our first vet. She recommended a limited ingredient diet of novel proteins (wet food, of course) - i.e. venison, rabbit. She said poultry is often the culprit with food allergies so we cut out all poultry (chicken, turkey, duck). The vet advised us to feed Coco only ONE novel protein source. For instance, most canned foods will say "RABBIT" or "VENISON" but added in are pork liver and chicken heart. 

We switched her over to strictly raw rabbit. I'm all for homemade food and really enjoyed making her food, but fresh rabbit meat is not as easy to find as fresh chicken. She now eats mostly Primal Raw Frozen Rabbit and a little bit of Stella & Chewy's Rabbit Morsels as a snack/treat. Canned Nature's Variety Instinct LID Rabbit was also recommended by our vet and it has ALL rabbit meat and rabbit organs. Venison is also a good novel protein - Rad Cat makes raw venison. Unfortunately, our cat LOVES to eat a little too much and the venison proved to be a little higher in calories and fattening to our little piglet. 

Since switching her over to strictly rabbit, her ears have stayed clean. She doesn't violently scratch her ears, and we haven't returned to the vet with any of the previous concerns or symptoms.
 

missmimz

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- Rad Cat makes raw venison. Unfortunately, our cat LOVES to eat a little too much and the venison proved to be a little higher in calories and fattening to our little piglet. 
Venison is actually a really good, lean protein for cats. Rad Cat's venison isn't fatty, in fact it's on par with their chicken. Beef and Lamb are pretty fatty, however. My cats eat a LOT of raw venison, no weight gain around here. 
 

dorimon

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We switched her over to strictly raw rabbit. I'm all for homemade food and really enjoyed making her food, but fresh rabbit meat is not as easy to find as fresh chicken.
Have you looked into ordering from Hare Today?  They specialize in rabbit meat (hence their name). https://hare-today.com/

It would be a lot cheaper than commercial raw/canned rabbit.
 

cocobutterfly

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Hi Dorimon, thank you. I looked into Hare Today. I think they are great, and I would be a frequent shopper there if I were near PA or anywhere on the eastcoast. Unfortunately to ship 10 lbs (their minimum requirement) of rabbit to Los Angeles, the shipping alone costs about $100. They're also frequently out of rabbit w/bone. Many places have a very limited supply of this type of meat if they have it at all. I'm always on a search locally.
 

dorimon

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Hi Dorimon, thank you. I looked into Hare Today. I think they are great, and I would be a frequent shopper there if I were near PA or anywhere on the eastcoast. Unfortunately to ship 10 lbs (their minimum requirement) of rabbit to Los Angeles, the shipping alone costs about $100. They're also frequently out of rabbit w/bone. Many places have a very limited supply of this type of meat if they have it at all. I'm always on a search locally.
Hare Today is definitely a lot more affordable when you order greater quantities all at once, due to the shipping cost.  If you order enough, it will offset the cost of buying commercial raw.

There is another raw supplier on the West Coast, but I can't remember its name right now.
 

missmimz

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There's also Rabbits4U, which has distributers in different parts of the US. I've heard their rabbits are better than HT. 

http://www.rabbits4u.com/

Their ordering system is really cumbersome tho, which i find really annoying. But again, I've heard their products are good. If my cats like rabbit more I'd probably order with them more than HT. 
 
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LTS3

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Hi Dorimon, thank you. I looked into Hare Today. I think they are great, and I would be a frequent shopper there if I were near PA or anywhere on the eastcoast. Unfortunately to ship 10 lbs (their minimum requirement) of rabbit to Los Angeles, the shipping alone costs about $100. They're also frequently out of rabbit w/bone. Many places have a very limited supply of this type of meat if they have it at all. I'm always on a search locally.
Try a local raw meat co-op: http://www.dogaware.com/diet/rawgroups.html
 

cocobutterfly

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There's also Rabbits4U, which has distributers in different parts of the US. I've heard their rabbits are better than HT. 

http://www.rabbits4u.com/

Their ordering system is really cumbersome tho, which i find really annoying. But again, I've heard their products are good. If my cats like rabbit more I'd probably order with them more than HT. 
Thank you! Will definitely look into this site!
 
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danteshuman

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I recently went through this. My one cat Dante is allergic to chicken/poultry & maybe fleas. Unforgettably it is done by elimination. So pinpointing it is difficult. I would suggest trying to eliminate chicken because it is a common allergy. Also those fancy feast cans no matter what the flavor have chicken in it. I had to learn the hard way.

From what I have read your best bet is to at least temporarily for a couple of months change your cat's protein/carbohydrate and let your cat balance out. Then add an ingredient a little bit at a time... like a new one that month. Any symptoms stop. It is a slow painful process.

One thing I did get for Dante was a kitty antihistamine Chlorpheniramine 4mg, 1/2 a pill twice a day.  After 2 expensive steroid shots I pointed out that a kitty antihistamine would be better for him (also cheaper at 19$ versus 120$ for the prednisone shot.) There are a few different kinds of antihistamine for cats. Benadryl is not very effective on them. However your vet should be able to help you out.

Once Dante stopped getting chicken he stopped throwing up , itching every where & his lip stopped swelling up. Also he had picked most of the fur off his belly.

Their dry food is Taste of the Wild Trout/Salmon & for wet food they get a Natural Balance venison & pea L.I.D.  & fancy feast pouches tuna/salmon. However when I was first trying to figure out what was wrong my cats were on dry food only for 2 months. On the wet food/treats you have to be really careful reading the ingredients. They put chicken meal in everything!

Also for severely allergic cats a single flea bite can cause a reaction. So it might pay off temporarily giving your cat a flea bath/keeping your cat inside while you try to figure out what your poor kitty is allergic to.
 

miura

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Hi MistyDawn,

I can relate very much to your situation, and it really is a trial and error experience. My cat started in November overgrooming so much her legs, she ended up with a whole line of skin showing in both of her back legs, plus asthma attacks. My vet put her immediately on a hypoallergenic diet, which cured the bald skin patches, but the poor girl developed severe poop issues. After almost three months of testing, I convinced myself she had to be allergic to something in the hypoallergenic food. She also started to develop FHS, running like crazy after her tail and bitting. I changed her to an all grain free diet, both dry and wet. It's been almost a month and she has been great. No more asthma, no more scratching, no more diarrhea.

This to say, that most cats are prone to chicken, corn and wheat intolerance, but I have came across lots of stories where the animals where actually gluten intolerant. Maybe you could give it a try once he is established :) best of luck with your boy!
 
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