Inflammatory Bowel Disease

My 13 year old cat was just diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease (confirmed by a biopsy). Does anyone else have any experience with this condition? She takes 5mg prednisone once a day, and that controls the vomitting. She still has loose stool however.

I am trying to find a good food to switch her to, and wet food made of lamb seems to be a winner so far. The ultimate goal of course would be to get off the prednisone entirely, or take one every other day.

Does anyone know of a good dry food made of lamb , WITHOUT beef, chicken (or by products or broth of either)? This has been hard to find so far as most dry foods, even in the bigger chain stores with a big selection, seems to have some form of chicken!

I don't know what food is available but soon...people will give you suggestions. Fri. night tends to be kind of slow so don't give up. I am so sorry that you & your kitty are going through this. I wish you well & stay with TCS...there is wonderful help here.
Lei

Joe, I'm not sure why you want to put your cat on dry food, especially since you said the canned food she's on right now is a "winner". Is there some advantage to feeding dry food for IBD? Or are you staying with the canned lamb flavor but thinking the dry version would offer some variety? Wet food in general is healthier for cats - it's closer to what they'd naturally eat, and the moisture it contains is important.

Regarding the vomiting - ask your vet about using Pepcid. My oldest girl has kidney problems which cause vomiting. The pepcid has been a big help is cutting down on the nausea and vomiting kidney disease can cause. Maybe it would help your cat too.

I second the ask about Pepcid but try the tablets cut , mine thought the liquid was not kewl...

IBD should be on canned and or homemade or canned rx .... dry may give fiber but it is not the kind you would want .... this is just basic research so talk to your vet

What canned food are you feeding??

my IBD kitty did reasonably well on IVD rabbit and green pea canned. i saw the most improvement, however, when the symptoms subsided and i was able to wean him off of the prednisone.... that stuff made him awfully sick, though it did help his gut. im with the others, and IBD kitty should be eating canned if you can make him. i kept him eating by garnishing his food with a veal babyfood on the advice of my vet... apparently veal is not digested in the same way as beef. this is something that you should def. ask your vet about first, though... it was some years ago that i had an IBD cat. LOL, the only time in my life i ever bought veal and it was for my kitty... well, he was worth it to me.

this is a bit late, but:

I have an 8 year old boy with IBS/IBD. He can't eat any wet food - it comes right back out of both ends.
Every cat is different, and it definitely takes trial and error to figure out what's right.

He eats only feline IVD duck and pea, dry. He still has problems (every month, he has a flare up of about 1-2 days of diarrhea or throwing up, though that's getting less frequent), but no more incidents multiple times a day. Teddy is so sensitive that he can't eat other flavors of IVD either - we tried rabbit once and it made him throw up again.

We really hope to try wet food again at some point, but it seems that Teddy just isn't designed to eat it. You vet probably has a host of prescription foods that are good for IBS/IBD cats. My vet gave me samples of different foods to try until we found what work - otherwise, you can spend a fortune trying things and finding that most of them don't work. To me, paying for the IVD - which is expensive compared to more commercially available brands - is well worth the price.

Anyone heard of an IBD cat who can't eat wet food, like mine? Or is he just weird?

Natural Balance Venison and Pea is a hypoallergenic dry food. I would think that would also be helpful for IBD.

I had a cat with IBD and it went away when I started feeding raw meat.

Hello,

My baby girl Nitosha, 16 years old has had IBS for about 1 1/2 to 2 years. She also is on Pred's every day. She is suppose to have 1 tablet every 12 hours but I only give her one in the morning. She seems to be doing great!!! I feed her Innova Lite dry food and California Natural wet (any flavor) once in awhile. I have found this product called "Digestive Upset" at my local pet speciality store and when she has bad bowel movements i give her some of that, it seems to help. I actually forget that she has IBS because she is doing so well with it.

Godd Luck