food for a cat with issues - constipation, urinary crystals, food sensitivites, asthma

[abbyntim]

I wanted to add a quick update, a week following our visit with the holistic veterinarian. Feeling a bit paranoid as I wean Tim off Cisapride, I created two other posts, in case you're interested in reading.

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/274087/...e-weaning-off-cisapride-should-i-be-concerned

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/274139/cisapride-regular-vet-vs-holistic-vet

Regarding food, it might take a little longer to get Tim off Cisapride than I had hoped. During this process, I am trying to minimize change as much as possible. As a result, I am going to keep him on the current food regimen:

• am - Natures Variety Instinct LID turkey with added homemade turkey bone broth and boiled shredded turkey meat as a topper. Both cats love this. Probiotic added to Tim's food. May add to Abby's, as well.
• pm - alternate NV LID duck and NV rabbit - he's tolerating the rabbit and both cats really seem to like it.

Once he has settled in, hopefully without Cisapride, I am going to add foods to the rotation, including raw, although very slowly. I'll continue to update this post as I do so, but it probably won't be for a while.

Thank you, again, everyone who posted and shared their thoughts and experiences regarding food for cats with various issues. Reading of others' experiences has given me the courage to be a better advocate for Tim's health (and to keep Abby healthy).

 

[abbyntim]

Super quick update. Tim continues to do well on his half-dose of Cisapride and I will check in with the holistic vet regarding recommended next steps. I am also going to check in with the regular vet, to let him know I intend to try weaning Tim off Cisapride and would appreciate his guidance. I am going to keep Tim on the probiotic and just purchased more so I can give to Abby, too.

No changes in food, though I think the rabbit is the new favorite. Both cats go crazy when I'm dishing it up and both got up on the counter last night for the very first time in attempts to help themselves. To cut Tim's fiber load, I pick out the peas and carrots (and I pick the peas out of the LID formulas). I pick some of the peas and carrots out of Abby's; I tend to think she does better on a little more fiber, but we're still experimenting. At breakfast, I continue with the homemade broth and cooked, shredded turkey as supplements to the canned turkey. I am afraid I am creating monsters, as they both go crazy for the turkey and Abby actually jumped on the counter this morning as I was preparing their bowls.

Tim had his first bit of raw last night and loved it. I gave it to him as a treat, as I don't want to make any major dietary changes until we're done with the Cisapride weaning process. I gave him Natures Variety Instinct Raw Freeze Dried Meal in rabbit. Just two pieces, well-hydrated in warm water. For now, this will be just an occasional treat but I intend to add more raw in the future.

 

[peaches08]

I'm glad that you're seeing improvements!

 

[abbyntim]

Another quick update.

I emailed the holistic vet yesterday regarding my observations over the past week: Great bowel movement consistency and quality, continued improved energy, but still licking his lips on occasion. Plus, I found dried stomach acid under a desk but have no idea how old it was.

The holistic vet suspects indigestion or acid reflux and wants us to feed more rabbit, as it is a lower-fat food and might be better for his system. For now, we're swapping the duck for rabbit but will continue with the turkey in the morning. If the lip licking doesn't get better, she wants us to feed him exclusively rabbit to see how he does. This continues for a week.

Regarding cisapride, we are continuing every other day as I adjust the food. Once we settle in with food, we'll cut the dose to twice per week, which we'll continue for two to three weeks. If Tim continues to do well, then we'll stop. For now, we are keeping him on probiotics, but hopefully we can stop or slow that. The holistic vet also continues to encourage raw, but only after Tim is off cisapride - she doesn't want to throw too many changes at him at once.

We gave him another freeze-dried raw treat last night, which he loved. I am slowly buying small sizes of various raw so that we're ready. Tim is excited for raw, I think!

 

[abbyntim]

Tim is continuing to do well on the following food plan:

• AM - Nature's Variety Instinct Limited Ingredient Diet turkey plus homemade turkey broth plus shredded turkey meat plus probiotic
• PM - Nature's Variety Instinct rabbit with some filtered water mixed in to add moisture

We lengthened his cisapride interval to two days between doses. That has mostly been going well. I posted more details here: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/274139/cisapride-regular-vet-vs-holistic-vet. We may have run into a minor issue (very hard stools) with too much true "bone broth" and shredded turkey, particularly with our female cat, Abby, but I've made adjustments. Tim is already doing better. If Abby is not improved by Tuesday, off to the holistic veterinarian we go.

We tried feeding Tim some Tiki Cat chicken one evening and the following morning. Following that, he had one of his "asthma" coughing fits. He has not had one of those that we've heard since early February. And he has not had once since. I continue to believe I cannot feed him chicken. However, after some time goes by, I might try again.

The holistic veterinarian wants Tim completely off cisapride before we introduce raw. The reason for this is because cats digest raw much faster than canned or, especially, dry food and she is worried that with cisapride in his system, it will be too quick. This makes sense and I've already experienced it: I was letting Tim snack on Primal Pronto rabbit, and he had serious diarrhea after a slightly-larger-than-snack-size quantity. So no more raw snacks. One thing at a time. First priority is getting him off cisapride.

Other observations lead me to believe Tim is much improved. I don't see any signs of nausea, which I think the "bone broth" helped with. He's not coughing, other than the episode following the chicken. His urine is flowing well and he is not showing any signs of straining or discomfort. His bowel movements are regular, mostly every 24 hours with a few 36-hour stretches thrown in. Other than couple of days of harder-than-normal stools, which I believe may have been due to too much "bone broth", he's back to normal. I want him to be off cisapride and totally symptom-free for several weeks before I start testing suspect ingredients: chicken, carrageenan, xantham gum, and guar gum. As such, I might not test these ingredients for quite some time, but will update when I do. And I will update with other dietary changes I am making to manage him.

 

[3catsandabird]

 
Is anyone aware of any other limited ingredient or single protein canned foods for cats? At this point, I would even consider a food with two protein sources, as long as they're not chicken or fish, especially if low fiber/carb. Please don't recommend raw, as I'm not ready to go there yet. I want to make sure Tim's insides are healed before I consider that.

EVO is Innova's super premium line of food. They have a Beef, Turkey, Duck, and Venison flavor

you might try.

My kitty's didn't like EVO much, so I switched them back to the Innova Cat & Kitten Food (red can).

I am feeding them all wet food and will never, ever, consider going back to dry.

 

[abbyntim]

 
EVO is Innova's super premium line of food. They have a Beef, Turkey, Duck, and Venison flavor

you might try.

My kitty's didn't like EVO much, so I switched them back to the Innova Cat & Kitten Food (red can).

I am feeding them all wet food and will never, ever, consider going back to dry.

Like you, I will never go back to dry food for my cats. In fact, once I get Tim off cisapride, we are going to introduce raw. He's excited.

Thank you for the EVO suggestion. This is a brand I considered when searching for foods, but ended up not purchasing because it contains two suspect ingredients: carrageenan and guar gum. Tim has gotten very sick on food with one or more of the following: chicken, carrageenan, guar gum, and xantham gum. So I am avoiding any foods with these ingredients for quite some time. Right now, he's doing well on Nature's Variety Instinct and I am going to stick with this until he's off cisapride.

 

[sarah ann]

DO NOT USE NATURES VARIETY LID.  It is not formulated for a cat with urinary issues! My cat's urine is supposed to be in the 6.0 ph range. On Natures variety it was at 8.0!  Why? Natures variety does not add Methionine. All urinary track diets add L Methionine back in them. Without the methionine the ph will get too high and you will end up with crystals.

It is better to deal with the digestion issues, than have your cat get a urinary blockage and die!

Buy some Ph test strips in the 5.5 to 9.0 range. You can test urine samples yourself. That is the only way I have been able to keep my cat Pounce on a hypoallergenic diet. I buy a small (sample size of cat food), feed it to him for 2 days, and then take a urine sample and check it.

If the ph is too high, than that food will not work.  Ph is crucial- feeding a high meat diet is not enough to prevent crystals. Adding water may help, but you really have to address the ph issue.

I've had plenty of people tell me, that grain free will fix urinary problems. It will only fix urinary problems if: 1) it is low in magnesium 2) it has methionine, and 3) the urine ph is right.

Plenty of people will disagree with this, but I know how my cat is, and if I fail to pay attention to those 3 things, he starts having problems.  I bought a microscope so I can check urine samples for crystals myself. It is not too hard. Get a drop of urine on a glass slide, put on a coverslip and look at it. Crystals look like tiny crystals!

If you do not check ph, and go grain free, you can still end up in trouble. My cat paid the price for my ignorance by getting very bad crystals. Unfortunately he passed them inconsistently so the vet missed it. I started checking urine samples daily with the microscope and on a particularly bad day for him (several accidents), I found he had thousands of crystals in his urine. The day before that, he had none. He was on a grain free, high protein, wet food diet! So if grain free was going to work it should have!

Pounce had struvite crystals and he has severe allergies.  They don't make hypoallergenic foods for the treatment of urinary issues!

Here is what I did for him:

We tried prednisolone for the allergies. It made his urinary issues worse so we stopped.

We tried Nature's variety instinct for his allergies. It made it made his urine too dilute and he developed struvite crystals (was treated for 2 months with the Urinary SO diet, but it made his allergies so much worse).

Then we tried several antihistamines in a row (my vet gave me a list). He started having accidents 2 or 3 times a day. It turns out the antihistamines were making him strain to urinate. As soon as I discontinued the antihistamines, he stopped having accidents.

His allergies started bothering him so I switched him to a hypo-allergenic diet (Royal Canin) . Only he developed crystals again.

I finally took him in for allergy testing and he is on allergy shots (and back on the Urinary SO diet). He also reacts severely to carrageenan. He is allergic to beef, most grains, and chicken.  He does fine on turkey lamb and rabbit.

If you insist on using the Instinct LID - there is a solution to the methionine problem. You can buy methionine pills, crush them and add them to the food. This requires very careful monitoring of urinary ph, and adjustment of the dosage (how many pills). I bought the 200mg strength, and for Pounce to have a urinary ph of 6.0, it takes 4 pills or a total of 1000 mg a day. This keeps his urinary ph in the proper range, and takes care of his urinary and allergy problems. It just is a lot of work crushing pills morning and night.

I would start monitoring the urinary ph very carefully. As that is the only way to prevent a urinary blockage and crystal formation.

Please talk to your vet. See if they can teach you how to monitor your cat at home!

 

[sarah ann]

Cisapride is not safe for heart conditions. I can't believe your vet did not tell you this!

Cisapride was withdrawn from the US market due to causing heart attacks and deaths in people!

There are several other laxatives you can try- laxatone, miralax, lactulose, etc.

Benefiber is what my vet recommended but may be an allergy.

 

[abbyntim]

 
Cisapride is not safe for heart conditions. I can't believe your vet did not tell you this!

Cisapride was withdrawn from the US market due to causing heart attacks and deaths in people!

We are concerned with safety, as well as potential dependency. This is why we are weaning Tim off cisapride. His original dose, which he was on for nine months, was one 5mg capsule daily. In early March, we started skipping a day. In late March, we started skipping two days. This is where we are now and we are planning our next change, skipping three days, which we will initiate in a week or two. After several weeks of that, we'll stop. In total, then, I think the weaning process will take close to three months.

I was disappointed our vet did not share any of this information with us, and each time I asked to take Tim off cisapride, they said "no". Because they could not help us with all of his other problems, which I still believe are related, we have since found a holistic veterinarian. She is helping us wean Tim off cisapride and has been very available to me by phone each time I freak out that he's not had a bowel movement "on schedule" or something else comes up. She is providing guidance regarding his other issues, which she also believes are related.

Regarding Tim's urinary situation, right now I am not terribly concerned, though I do monitor his box habits very closely. If he missed a scheduled BM, I would make note and call the holistic veterinarian after a certain amount of time passed. If he missed a scheduled urination, and he's pretty much on schedule with this, or if the quantity reduced or if we noticed any straining or if we noticed in and out behavior or if he urinated outside the box, I would not wait and we'd go to whatever vet we could get to: Either the holistic veterinarian, the conventional veterinarian, or the emergency veterinarian.

Since I originally started this thread in early February, I had a chance to closely review Tim's medical records and re-read, multiple times, Dr. Lynn Pierson's http://catinfo.org/. Based on all of this, I believe this single urinalysis of many this poor cat has had was either a false positive, or we resolved it by removing fish from his diet. He had a single subsequent urinalysis, which showed no crystals at all, but a slightly elevated pH. At that time, he was still eating chicken and turkey Wellness grain-free canned, which contains three "suspect ingredients", and he was very, very sick, all of which may have contributed to this slightly elevated pH via inflammation and/or stress. Tim's many outward signs of inflammation have disappeared over time and he has very good litterbox habits now. I'll know more about his internal condition when his annual exam comes up, which is in early June. But all outward signs indicate no urinary tract problems.

While I intend to keep Tim on Nature's Variety Instinct for now, my goal is to add other foods. I worry about relying on a single brand of cat food for a multitude of reasons. I am particularly interested in raw, but the holistic veterinarian wants him off cisapride first. As I wean him off cisapride, I need to know if any changes are due to that and not dietary changes, so I can't make any changes during this process. Because both cats are doing well on NVI, we will stick with that for now. I have heard what you report, and while I am afraid of tinkering too much with Tim's diet and causing calcium oxalate stones, which are much more difficult to treat, I do add about one ounce of shredded turkey meat per day, which is naturally rich in methionine.

It sounds like our cats are similar in terms of food sensitivities. What do you feed your cat? Other than Nature's Variety Instinct, I have found only two other brands that do not contain carrageenan, xantham gum, or guar gum, which are all suspect ingredients for Tim: Nature's Logic and Tiki Cat. Unfortunately, Tiki Cat is now off the list because their only varieties are fish and chicken. I'm obviously not feeding fish, as that may have caused Tim to develop urinary crystals. And I think chicken is off the table, particularly since we recently tried feeding Tiki Cat chicken and he started exhibiting some of his old symptoms. They disappeared after about 24 hours of his last meal with that food. I am definitely looking forward to getting Tim of cisapride so we can introduce raw, as I think that will greatly expand the variety of foods I can feed him.

 

[oneandahalfcats]

 
DO NOT USE NATURES VARIETY LID.  It is not formulated for a cat with urinary issues! My cat's urine is supposed to be in the 6.0 ph range. On Natures variety it was at 8.0!  Why? Natures variety does not add Methionine. All urinary track diets add L Methionine back in them. Without the methionine the ph will get too high and you will end up with crystals.

It is better to deal with the digestion issues, than have your cat get a urinary blockage and die!

Buy some Ph test strips in the 5.5 to 9.0 range. You can test urine samples yourself. That is the only way I have been able to keep my cat Pounce on a hypoallergenic diet. I buy a small (sample size of cat food), feed it to him for 2 days, and then take a urine sample and check it.

If the ph is too high, than that food will not work.  Ph is crucial- feeding a high meat diet is not enough to prevent crystals. Adding water may help, but you really have to address the ph issue.

I've had plenty of people tell me, that grain free will fix urinary problems. It will only fix urinary problems if: 1) it is low in magnesium 2) it has methionine, and 3) the urine ph is right.

Plenty of people will disagree with this, but I know how my cat is, and if I fail to pay attention to those 3 things, he starts having problems.  I bought a microscope so I can check urine samples for crystals myself. It is not too hard. Get a drop of urine on a glass slide, put on a coverslip and look at it. Crystals look like tiny crystals!

If you do not check ph, and go grain free, you can still end up in trouble. My cat paid the price for my ignorance by getting very bad crystals. Unfortunately he passed them inconsistently so the vet missed it. I started checking urine samples daily with the microscope and on a particularly bad day for him (several accidents), I found he had thousands of crystals in his urine. The day before that, he had none. He was on a grain free, high protein, wet food diet! So if grain free was going to work it should have!

Pounce had struvite crystals and he has severe allergies.  They don't make hypoallergenic foods for the treatment of urinary issues!

Here is what I did for him:

We tried prednisolone for the allergies. It made his urinary issues worse so we stopped.

We tried Nature's variety instinct for his allergies. It made it made his urine too dilute and he developed struvite crystals (was treated for 2 months with the Urinary SO diet, but it made his allergies so much worse).

Then we tried several antihistamines in a row (my vet gave me a list). He started having accidents 2 or 3 times a day. It turns out the antihistamines were making him strain to urinate. As soon as I discontinued the antihistamines, he stopped having accidents.

His allergies started bothering him so I switched him to a hypo-allergenic diet (Royal Canin) . Only he developed crystals again.

I finally took him in for allergy testing and he is on allergy shots (and back on the Urinary SO diet). He also reacts severely to carrageenan. He is allergic to beef, most grains, and chicken.  He does fine on turkey lamb and rabbit.

If you insist on using the Instinct LID - there is a solution to the methionine problem. You can buy methionine pills, crush them and add them to the food. This requires very careful monitoring of urinary ph, and adjustment of the dosage (how many pills). I bought the 200mg strength, and for Pounce to have a urinary ph of 6.0, it takes 4 pills or a total of 1000 mg a day. This keeps his urinary ph in the proper range, and takes care of his urinary and allergy problems. It just is a lot of work crushing pills morning and night.

I would start monitoring the urinary ph very carefully. As that is the only way to prevent a urinary blockage and crystal formation.

Please talk to your vet. See if they can teach you how to monitor your cat at home!

Some cats are just predisposed to crystals, while other cats develop them as the result of diet, some cats never develop crystals. Some cats also do not block or display symptoms of straining or peeing outside the box, but can still have crystals. This was my younger cat recently who was found to have struvite crystals from a routine urinalysis. My other two cats are crystal-free and everyone eats the same food - Nature's Variety Instinct (Not the LID).

Crystals can develop in ALL PH levels, but are favored in an alkaline environment. While it is important to monitor PH level to check that urine is acidic, urine PH alone will not protect cats from struvite crystals. Getting urine testing done is the only definitive way of determining whether crystals are present or not. Ensuring that there is sufficient water in the diet means that the bladder is getting flushed, and keeping crystals from accumulating. Moisture and an acidifying diet low in phosphorus (which contributes to crystal formation), will help to protect cats from URIs.

You mentioned that the NV Instinct LID doesn't contain L-methionine which may be the case, but then the Urinary S/O, which is typically used to dissolve struvite crystals, no longer contains this either. They changed the formula awhile back. What the S/O does contain is corn which is an acidifying ingredient, and an elevated sodium level to aid in a dilute urine. You are right that meat may not be enough to dissolve crystals in SOME cats, and so using DL-Methionine can be useful, but this should always be on the advice and guidance of a vet. You have to be VERY careful not to use too much DL-Methionine which can cause urine to become too acidic and cause imbalances and problems with the kidneys.

Paste

Obviously what you are doing works for your cat, but what works for another cat may be something different.

 

[abbyntim]

We took both cats to the holistic veterinarian yesterday afternoon. A progress check for Tim as we continue to wean him off cisapride, and a general check for Abby as she's been experiencing slightly hard stools and hasn't been as active. Because I had both cats there and we've been through a lot of changes recently, I asked to do blood work and urinalyses. Just got the results and both cats look perfect. I am especially excited to report that there is no evidence of crystals in Tim's urine - yay! As such, I continue to believe the January test was a false positive, or removing the fish from his diet resolved the issue.

Tim is continuing to do really well on his diet as described in a recent post. I think I might have mentioned that he exhibited his "asthma cough" when we fed him a bit of chicken, so chicken is likely out of the picture for him. And I plan to keep him on this diet until we get him off cisapride. Then I may try a couple of foods that look good but contain guar gum. I will also begin to add raw; the holistic vet wants him entirely off cisapride before starting raw. The reason is cats digest raw more quickly and she is concerned the cisapride may cause the food to move too quickly through his system. But I am very happy with his progress and have no desire to change anything right now. Later this week we will increase the interval between doses to three days. And we are experimenting with a small amount of psyillium to see if we can provide added intestinal support with the lower dose of cisapride but without bulking his stool.

The holistic vet agreed that too much calcium may have been behind Abby's hard stools, which started looking better yesterday morning. But during the exam, the vet discovered a tender spot near Abby's left hip. Through other manipulations, she believes it is a soft-tissue injury. We decided to try laser therapy to treat it, as many pain medications for cats can cause constipation. Abby is a jumper, and she and Tim play rough on occasion, which is a likely cause for the injury. We also gave her supportive fluids. She's already more active this morning.

All in all, I am a happy cat-mom.

 

[abbyntim]

Of all the issues I presented when I first created this thread, I think the significant ones that remain are the potential for constipation and food sensitivities. So far, we are managing the food sensitivities with a pretty strict diet. Happily, all other symptoms have gone away, except for mild nausea at times. We are in the process of tapering Tim's Cisapride dose, so I don't know if his constipation will be resolved with dietary changes. This, frankly, is causing me the most anxiety right now.

The good news is that Abby's constipation seems to be resolved. We did this by 1) reducing her excess calcium intake and 2) ensuring she gets appropriately balanced foods. I've not given her a single constipation aid in a week and she's doing well so far. 

I wanted to see if there was any other tweak I could make to their diets to slightly soften their stools. As of yesterday morning, I am giving both cats equal calories of their regular breakfast, Nature's Variety Instinct LID turkey, and a new food: Lotus Just Juicy turkey. In terms of volume, they're getting a bit more of the Lotus, but they really like that it's shredded turkey. This food contains no carrageenan, guar gum, or xantham gum. However, it contains potato starch and agar agar, which do not thrill me, and is a bit higher in carbs. But I pick out the carrots to reduce that. It is high protein and moisture, very low fiber, and moderate fat. I blend the two foods and the cats really seem to enjoy the mix. We're only on day two and we'll see how it goes. I caught Tim drooling a bit and shaking his head today, consistent with nausea for him, and I gave him a Pepcid AC. A bit disappointed, as he hadn't needed one since April 3. Hope it's not the new food.

As far as Tim's progress with constipation and tapering Cisapride, I have realized it was the Cisapride that was keeping him very regular. I need to re-set my expectations: he won't be going between 5:30 and 6:00 every single morning and I need to be okay with that. Right now, I'm not there yet; those days that he does not make me nervous, which I hope will pass. We had another 36-hour stretch yesterday (third this week) and I expect we are on another one right now, but won't know for sure until tonight or tomorrow morning. When he does go, he doesn't appear to have any trouble and the output looks good. I just hope everything is signalling okay and the damage hasn't already been done from nine-plus months of Cisapride. Right now, we are skipping two days between doses and my tapering schedule has us going to three days after today. I have until Tuesday to decide.

 

[abbyntim]

Originally Posted by AbbyNTim  

I wanted to see if there was any other tweak I could make to their diets to slightly soften their stools. As of yesterday morning, I am giving both cats equal calories of their regular breakfast, Nature's Variety Instinct LID turkey, and a new food: Lotus Just Juicy turkey. In terms of volume, they're getting a bit more of the Lotus, but they really like that it's shredded turkey. This food contains no carrageenan, guar gum, or xantham gum. However, it contains potato starch and agar agar, which do not thrill me, and is a bit higher in carbs. But I pick out the carrots to reduce that. It is high protein and moisture, very low fiber, and moderate fat. I blend the two foods and the cats really seem to enjoy the mix. We're only on day two and we'll see how it goes. I caught Tim drooling a bit and shaking his head today, consistent with nausea for him, and I gave him a Pepcid AC. A bit disappointed, as he hadn't needed one since April 3. Hope it's not the new food.

Now I am having second thoughts about the addition of this food into our rotation; see this post: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/276345/agar-agar-carrageenan#post_3540174. I think I need to stick with the Nature's Variety Instinct until I can get Tim off Cisapride and try raw. Because I'm a little worried about Abby's hard poops, though, I am strongly considering home-cooked to supplement the NVI. Will be researching and shopping for a supplement, such as Balance It.

 

[loganregina]

I am glad that Tim is continuously improving- thank you for keeping him updated on his progress.  My cat currently eats Tiki Cat Chicken , but I am interested in switching to raw food- I am going to to try Radcat.  I am nervous about switching to a raw diet, but I know there are numerous health benefits .  I hope you will let us know how the transition to the raw diet goes!  Also, I give my cat a health supplement called Bio Superfood-I learned about it on Dr. Jean Hofvre's website -little big cat.com.   

 

[abbyntim]

 
I am glad that Tim is continuously improving- thank you for keeping him updated on his progress.  My cat currently eats Tiki Cat Chicken , but I am interested in switching to raw food- I am going to to try Radcat.  I am nervous about switching to a raw diet, but I know there are numerous health benefits .  I hope you will let us know how the transition to the raw diet goes!  Also, I give my cat a health supplement called Bio Superfood-I learned about it on Dr. Jean Hofvre's website -little big cat.com.   

Thanks for your comment. I haven't updated this thread in a while because I haven't made any significant changes to Tim's food. Right now, he's eating mostly Nature's Variety Instinct canned rabbit and I am gradually increasing the NVI Limited Ingredient Diet canned turkey. Both cats had pretty severe but short-lived diarrhea at the beginning of this month, right about the time I noticed the turkey looked different. The holistic veterinarian and I suspected the diarrhea may have been due to too much rich food, via a possible formulation or batch change with the turkey as well as the introduction of home-cooked ground turkey at about the same time. So we stopped all turkey and are gradually adding it back, watching for signs of nausea in Tim. Abby is tolerating the increasing amounts well.

Tim had a couple of hairballs and at least one coughing episode in the week following the diarrhea. Additionally, he had one coughing episode a couple of weeks ago. I plan to have his airways checked via chest x-ray some time in June to see if mild asthma is still suspected or if the occasional coughing is due to something else (we will also have a cardiac ultrasound at the same time to check on his mild HCM). I am not surprised about the hairballs and coughing following the diarrhea, as he was likely suffering from inflammation and I believe chronic inflammation is what set off this entire set of issues.

I have no concerns about Tim's urine right now. He's very well hydrated and leaves nice urine clumps in the litter box at intervals I would expect. I do add a bit of water to their food to ensure adequate hydration, and this is also to help with digestive support. I continue to believe his single urinalysis that showed struvite crystals was either a false positive or we resolved the problem by removing fish from his diet.

Tim is doing well with the cisapride weaning process. As of today, we are skipping 5 days between doses and the length of time we keep him at this dose will be up to him. Because cisapride takes about a week to entirely leave the body, we are planning to decrease his dose two more times before entirely stopping. The timing with which we do this will be up to Tim. He was on his previous dose only 12 days, which is the least amount of time for a given dose since we started this process, but he's been doing extraordinarily well with a nice BM every day for 20 days in a row now. So why drag this out? And we don't want him to get too comfortable at a given dose. But we'll see how he does with this dose before decreasing again.

Once he's off cisapride and we're sure he is fairly regular, then we'll begin gradually introducing raw. Because he is so sensitive, the holistic veterinarian wants us to start with one brand and one protein. It will be a slow process, but our hope is to feed him part raw and part high-quality canned, and we hope we can give him a small variety of proteins and maybe brands. And we'd like to be able to give him a bite of high-quality dry once in a while as a treat.

 

[abbyntim]

It looks like I may be forced to transition Tim to another food sooner than I wanted to. And this is a definite cautionary lesson as to why it's not a good idea for a cat to eat one brand and one protein. I had really resisted doing this (one brand and one protein), but hoped it would be for a very limited amount of time until we got Tim off cisapride and satisfied ourselves that things were functioning as they should in terms of BMs, then gradually introduce new foods, including raw.

It looks like Nature's Variety Instinct changed their canned rabbit formula. I had been feeding a formula with 4.5% fat and 78% moisture. I didn't realize I was low until late last Sunday and my normal store was closed, so we purchased a few cans from a nearby Petco. Opening the can, I saw it looked different. Feeding it to the cats, they ate only part of it; this is very unusual for Tim, who eats almost anything. Looking at the can, I saw the fat is 7.5% and moisture is 75%. The ingredients are mostly the same, but some are re-arranged. I had to feed Abby something else, as she refused to eat more than half of her serving. After some protest, Tim finally ate his.

The next morning, same thing. I had to bump Abby's portion of turkey because she wouldn't eat the new rabbit. I was concerned about bumping Tim's turkey portion too much because of the problem we had early in May. I finally got him to eat the rabbit, but only after mixing in a tiny bit of Lotus Just Juicy pork. I felt that was relatively safe, as the Nature's Variety Instinct rabbit contains pork liver. I looked on Nature's Variety website, and the new formula is what is shown on their website. I am not ready to transition Tim off mostly rabbit yet!

So I spent some time calling around and bought up as much of the old formula rabbit as I could find. I currently have close to 30 5.5 ounce cans and about 15 3 ounce cans. I need to figure out timing for transitioning Tim from old rabbit to new rabbit, gradually blending the two so hopefully he won't notice or protest too much. He seemed to tolerate the added Just Juicy pork, so I can always do that. Hopefully the old rabbit will last through the end of June, though Tim's weaning process from cisapride hit a rough spot this past week and I really don't know how long it will take to finish up.

So right now, Tim is eating all old rabbit in the evening. I am gradually increasing his portion of turkey in the morning and decreasing rabbit. He was eating turkey in the morning and rabbit in the evening until earlier this month, when the turkey formula appeared to change and both cats had terrible diarrhea. I am trying to get Tim to that point again, if he will tolerate it. I don't know; the new turkey formula may be too rich, as even Abby has had a few issues as I increased her turkey portion this week. We will see!

If the turkey just won't work, then I'll start to gradually transition Tim to new rabbit. I am contemplating putting Abby on chicken instead of turkey, but then will need to hover as they eat to ensure Tim doesn't eat the chicken. Abby can eat chicken, but I was trying to feed both cats the same because Tim eats much faster and has a bad habit of pushing Abby away from her bowl. I had figured out a feeding strategy to deal with this when they eat the same foods, but will need to revise if they're eating different foods.

It's always something!

 

[cocheezie]

Have you tried contacting online companies. You'd have to send them an email asking for old batch numbers only.

 

[abbyntim]

Good idea. I had thought about just ordering and checking the label and returning any that weren't what I want. This might be much more efficient. Thanks!

And I am visiting my sister today, who lives about 30 miles away. I plan to hit the independent pet stores around her while I'm in the area.

 

[aoi chan]

Cisapride is used for cats who have motility issues of their colon. Usually used for megacolon cats. Does your cat have motility issues? If you are dealing with hard stool then you can use a stool softener like Miralax. I have never heard of a vet prescribing Cisapride without a stool softener, they go hand-n-hand.

I found the Nature's Variety Instinct to have too much bone in it. Probably has excessive amounts that are not necessary.