Royal Canin gastrointestinal versus other dry brands?

[Linux]

We have a lovely Maincoon age 13 and a short black and white 9 year old both adopted as kitten from VOKRA. (Vancouver orphan Kitten Rescue Association) They are indoor home cats. Beside Linux about three years ago got the running we never had any major problems.
I switched to home made wet cat food for the last years but about half a year ago sometime reverted to shop bought wet food and it worked fine.
Two wet portions morning and night and a mix of dry food in a ball every dinner time as a treat. The wet I switched between beef chicken turkey and fish of mis priced brands.
Just about three weeks ago, Chanel the black and white girl, started pooping away from the two litters they share. Yellowish poop covered in shiny mucus around. Took her to the vet who sold me for 65$ 125ml liquid of Metronazindole, a friend Dr. Gynecologist told me it's used for infections in the lower parts of ladies! Really and the value really not more than 12$..Mmh anyway...and a bag of 8.8 (4kg) pounds of ROYAL CANINE Gastrointestinal. 70$ (that's nearly the double of other upper shelve dry foods. Both did NOT help much over the next week.
So called all Cat parents friends for help. I was given a menu of fresh chicken puree with pumpkin puree with a bit of yogourt (she loves a lick of yogourt) and Bentonite comestible clay from a health store (something I never heard of). This has helped somewhat. But we are still not back to normal after a week of that.
I now look at the content of that dry food and the amount of grain etc. makes me wonder can that really be good in the long?
Thanks for any input, opinions and shared experiences.

 

[Lranders29]

I am following this as I have a kitten on that same formula.

 

[She's a witch]

this food has terrible ingredients and personally I would never feed it long term, I'd be too scared of the consequences. My cats were getting it (canned version) for a month when they had been recovering from giardia and it did help with diarrhea and soft stools, so I slowly introduced them to their regular canned food. But I would never feed it without knowing what's causing your cat's problems, as lots of ingredients can be irritant to intestines and it could do more damage than good (eg. if your cat has IBD, or allergies). So I'd first focus on finding a reason why your cat has problems and then take it from there, rather than masking the symptoms through this food.

 

[Lranders29]

this food has terrible ingredients and personally I would never feed it long term, I'd be too scared of the consequences. My cats were getting it (canned version) for a month when they had been recovering from giardia and it did help with diarrhea and soft stools, so I slowly introduced them to their regular canned food. But I would never feed it without knowing what's causing your cat's problems, as lots of ingredients can be irritant to intestines and it could do more damage than good (eg. if your cat has IBD, or allergies). So I'd first focus on finding a reason why your cat has problems and then take it from there, rather than masking the symptoms through this food.

I agree. Slowly weaning him off this and trying higher quality stuff to see what could be triggers.

 

[MissClouseau]

Did the vet run tests? How does the bloodwork look like? If food intolerance is just an assumption over stool, I would get a second opinion and have them run some tests.

To me it looks like gastrointestinal foods help if the cat is allergic/intolerant to animal protein. They usually use hydrolized protein. And they all have probiotics in them, it's the probiotics that help if it will.

For the probiotics part, non-prescription Royal Canin Sensible 33 has the same probiotic Royal Canin Gastrointestinal food has. And it's cheaper. https://www.royalcanin.com/uk/cats/products/retail-products/sensible-33

But my cat for example has some grain intolerances starting with wheat and this Gastrointestinal food which has multiple glutens or Sensible 33 do not work well for my cat and wouldn't for any cat that is intolerant to one of the things in the ingredients.