Inflammatory Bowl Disease Diet

[wrs2]

he's been My ct who has been having some digestive issues was recently diagnosed with Inflammatory Bowl Disease. She's been eating Royal Canine Selected Protein in Rabbit and venison. My vet said she should be able to eat an LID limited ingredient diet, as those foods are good for cats with IBD. She suggested Natural Balance, buts aid there were other brands. So I am wondering, for anyone else that has a cat with Inflammatory Bowl, what diet do you have your cat on? I am looking for some suggested other types of wet, or dry food. She isn't too keen on some of the flavors we have tried, of course we are offering them slowly, one new food every two weeks. Thank you!

 

[cataholic07]

Cats with IBD should be fed wet food that is carrageenan free only. No dry at all. Rawz is a great brand, as is hounds and gatos. Tiki cat, weruva, are also good brands.

 

[wrs2]

Is carrageenan listed as an ingredient? The Vet said that Royal Canin made a IBD sensitive dry food, rabbit flavored.
And then is it not just an LID diet? It just needs to be carrageenan free foods?

 

[artiemom]

I have always used RC Rabbit, both wet and dry. It is a prescription food. The Vet sends a script to Chewy, I get it shipped .

 

[wrs2]

I have always used RC Rabbit, both wet and dry. It is a prescription food. The Vet sends a script to Chewy, I get it shipped .

Yes I think that is what it is for the dry food. My cat is very picky though, she likes something one day, will devour it, then the next day she hates it and won't touch it. So I have to try and find some variety for her. She got down to 6 lbs before she was diagnosed, so I don't want her to stop eating and lose weight. She has actually gained between 6 and 9 oz (depending on which vet scale she is on) since she started the diet. She was also super low on B12 so she's going in for B12 shots as well in addition to the diet change.

 

[daftcat75]

If you can afford to work with an internal medicine specialist, that will get you the best responses. IBD is a big, but manageable condition and you'll hear lots of advice and sometimes conflicting information.

You can read about it here: IBDKitties – Helping Save Lives…One Paw at a Time.

My notes after managing my cat's IBD (and later lymphoma) for the last three plus years of her life.

1. Dry food is pretty much out. There's just too many nonsense ingredients that don't belong in a cat's diet. It's also hard on their digestion. Whatever is hard on digestion is going to aggravate IBD. Carageenan is an ingredient, mostly in wet foods, a thickener and gum, that is hard on digestion and irritating to the intestinal tract.

2. Carbohydrates are difficult for cats to digest. They aren't a natural part of their diet and their body doesn't produce as much carb-digesting enzymes as it does for protein and fat. Your cat doesn't need carbs. If you can find carb-free foods, you're doing her and yourself a favor. One less thing to wonder and worry about when you're trying to figure out her intolerances and sensitivities.

3. "Limited Ingredient Diet" foods usually aren't. They usually are not limited in ingredients. The main thing here is that when your cat vomits her food (or however her IBD is presenting), you need to be able to point a finger at an ingredient on the label and think, "it's probably that. If we can find a similar recipe but change this ingredient, we can test out this theory." If you've eliminated the carbohydrates, then you should be looking at the protein ingredients. Fat generally doesn't trigger a reaction. Though too much fat can cause loose stools.

4. More important than "limited ingredient diet" is single protein source--the animal, not the tissue. Turkey meat and turkey liver is single protein source: turkey. But turkey meat with chicken liver or more often, "poultry giblets" or "poultry by-products" is not single protein. The truth is: if it was turkey giblets, they would have said so. So if your cat vomits this food, you won't know whether it was the turkey meat or the "poultry" organs that caused her reaction. Similarly, if your "limited ingredient diet" food contains both rabbit and venison, it's not helpful. If she vomits this food, was it the rabbit or was it the venison? You can't tell if you can't isolate them.

5. Rawz is a fantastic brand that is fantastically expensive and hard to come by. But then the same can be said about quality vet care. You can pay now or you can pay later. With Rawz, you have your choice of several carb-free (or virtually carb-free, pumpkin is okay), single protein foods in a number of different animals. Rawz will even send you samples if you write them. My Krista did very well on Rawz turkey for a couple of years and then rabbit this last year.
RAWZ | Where to Buy

6. At some point, a vet may recommend steroids therapy. This is where it's advantageous to work with a specialist. However, if that's not something you can do, keep this in mind. Steroids should be used at the minimum effective dose for the minimum amount of time to achieve the response, a remission from IBD symptoms. Then they should be responsibly tapered back to a maintenance dose, preferably not everyday. When your cat is no longer presenting IBD the way she was presenting IBD, talk to your doctor about the tapering schedule. Don't use steroids to fatten up your cat. That's not what they are for.

7. At some point, you may hear the words, "IBD or lymphoma" and other scary and expensive words like biopsy, endoscope, and surgery. If your cat is maintaining her weight, it's probably not lymphoma. If she is not maintaining her weight, you may discuss with your specialist or vet about adding chemotherapy to her treatment. Often times, the chemo drug itself is less risky than the procedure to confirm the lymphoma diagnosis (endoscopy or surgical biopsy.)

8. B12 shots. Ask your vet about buying a bottle of B12 and the syringes/needles and learning how to give B12 shots to your cat. It's not that hard. Most cats don't mind. You get good at it. You can search for it in Youtube to see how it's done. The B12 is so necessary and it usually perks the cat up too. It will save you all lots of time, travel, and money to not have to take her down to the vet office whenever she needs a shot. That could be weekly to begin with.

9. You'll want to reduce or eliminate treats until you know which treats she's okay with. As I found out almost too late for Krista, treats themselves can be powerful inflammation triggers preventing the remission. Once you've determined that, say, turkey is a good protein with your cat, then you can look for turkey treats (probably freeze-dried turkey liver or turkey heart.) I was using fish flakes to get Krista to take her steroids pill. The fish flakes themselves were preventing her remission. When I had to switch her from pill to transdermal, she finally achieved an IBD/lymphoma remission. Unfortunately, she'd been on daily steroids for too long at this point and she was never quite strong enough again to regain weight. If you ignore everything else I've written here, see a specialist if you can afford it.

 

[LTS3]

I feed my IBD cat a commercial raw diet in rabbit. He has been eating the same brand since he was a kitten so no issues with diet transition.

Novel proteins and a food that has few fillers seems to work for many IBD cats. A raw or home cooked diet is also an option. There is a forum here on TCS to get more info on those types of diets.

Chicken is usually a cause for a flare up. Some IBD cats can eat other poultry while others can't. It's helpful to keep a log of what you feed and if the cat has any flare up.

Some brands of LID foods:

BLUE Basics® Limited Ingredient Cat Food | Blue Buffalo
Limited Ingredient Diet - Grain Free Cat | Merrick Pet Care
Cat Food - Limited Ingredient Diet - Kohapet
Instinct Limited Ingredient Diet | Instinct Pet Food
RAWZ | 100% Rendered Free Cat Food
Grain Free Wet Recipes - NutriSource Pet Foods (not exactly an LID food but some of the canned are novel protein)

Carrageenan is listed as an ingredient. If you are looking to avoid that and other ingredients that may cause an IBD flare up, use the chart here: Check This Out.... Chart For Cat Food Ingredients

IBDKitties – Helping Save Lives…One Paw at a Time

www.ibdkitties.net

Feline IBD

Address the root cause of IBD in your cat. Treat inflammation and gut dysbiosis with proper tools to restore health, not just manage symptoms.

www.rawfeedingforibdcats.org

 

[wrs2]

Thanks guys!

We didn't do the biopsy on her as she's 15, and I didn't want to put her through a surgery. But she did get some gastro blood panel done, which showed she had digestive issues which lead the vet to believe it was more likely IBD vs lymphoma.

As for flare ups, the 1st time she had a big issue was in March, she was having diarrhea and vomiting. The most recent one which was in July she just had vomiting. Since starting the diet, she has had some hair balls (long haired, she pulls out and eats her own hair when cleaning even though I brush her 2x daily) but that is it. No issues with her pooping either. She's been having small issues with weight loss since 2018 and some vomiting and soft stools, so I think it has been going on for a while, but just after years of not eating a proper IBD diet it came to a head.

As for the flare ups, the only things that I can really say I have noticed was when she would eat foods with tuna and that fake dairy stuff. So I am guessing dairy and tuna, but I can't be 100% sure. She;s never had any issues with any poultry products that I know of.

 

[LTS3]

For my IBD cat, chicken gives him diarrhea. I found that out with a single Pill Pocket. When he has a minor flare up, he's usually just nauseous and sits in a hunched position. Definitely keep track of everything your cat eats and make note of symptoms so you can see if there are foods that may be causing flare ups and then just avoid feeding those as much as possible.

 

[wrs2]

I tried the Merrick turkey LID, and at first it seemed to be okay, but yesterday she vomited. I thought it was because she ate some nonfood items, as there was a string in her vomit, and try as I might, she always finds string somewhere to chew on! But today she had it again, and she vomited. There looked like there may have been red specks in the vomit too. She had been doing so good for over a month with no issues. I guess this food is off the list!

 

[lisahe]

I tried the Merrick turkey LID, and at first it seemed to be okay, but yesterday she vomited. I thought it was because she ate some nonfood items, as there was a string in her vomit, and try as I might, she always finds string somewhere to chew on! But today she had it again, and she vomited. There looked like there may have been red specks in the vomit too. She had been doing so good for over a month with no issues. I guess this food is off the list!

This is a big part of figuring out the diet: trial and error. If you haven't already, I would highly recommend starting a "food log" file to keep track of what gives her symptoms. Something went wrong with this food and you'll eliminate it but you'll also need to keep track of possible ingredients that might have caused the vomiting. It might not have been the turkey so if you haven't fed many turkey foods, try another (maybe Rawz?) with a simple recipe. If this was the Merrick canned LID, I would highly suspect the peas as tne culprit.

The suggestion of wet foods only is very good. Wet food is generally far lower in carbs and fillers than dry food; many of those carby ingredients can cause gastric distress. (Dr. Elsey's Clean Protein dry food is an exception, with no fillers, and it makes a great treat or topper.) Our cats don't have IBD but they do have sensitive digestive systems. They don't get foods with carrageenan, agar agar (makes both vomit!), green lipped mussels (makes one vomit), potato (makes one vomit), peas, lentils and other legumes, grains, or fish.

 

[wrs2]

When she went to the vet for the last major flare up, it was a special GI specialist who treated her at an overnight clinic. They said to eat the Royal Canin select protein in venison, which has carrageenan as an ingredient.

I got something else for her, called Natural Balance, that has pees and that never bothered her. When I was younger turkey always made me vomit too, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was the turkey, based on personal experiences lol. But who really knows.

There is a store down the road from me in the next town that sells rawz. I will go this week and get some for her to try.