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- Aug 5, 2015
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Background
My stray kitty came to me with an ear infection. We battled it by removing a polyp in her ear and then it still raged for months even after nightly cleaning. My vet tested her for everything under the sun and the ear NEVER improved until she suggested it could a food allergy. We had tried every drop, every antibiotic, every anti fungal, every ear cleaning solution the vet could imagine and NOTHING helped and some made it worse. It seemed allergy was the ONLY thing left on the exclusion list.
We swiftly put her on a royal canin hypoallergenic hydrolyzed protein but did not see any improvement for almost 2 months. We moved cross country and slowly over the 5 day trek we watched her poor miserable little ear canal have less and less discharge. Two weeks in our new home and the allergy disappeared. Best we could figure it, we thought she had an environmental allergy to our old apartment. We were elated we had solved the mystery… until she started PROFUSELY vomiting and shaking about a month later.
We tried to figure out if she had been poisoned after vomiting 12 times in one day, with miserable yoweling and scratching at the ground and hiding before attacks. I took her to the emergency vet hospital and tests showed nothing wrong. I also noticed at the same time her limbs would start rhythmically contracting like she having a seizure when she was sleeping, but when i would wake her she was fine. This was not the normal trembling i have seen when cats sleep, it looked more like constant uncomfortable spasms that just never quit. And her BM turned into a rank, watery smelling affair that made the litter box unbearable to be around after just one day. I also noticed she was shedding like CRAZY, but i figured that was just because it was REALLY hot seattle summer.
These symptoms kept persisting through a third month on the food until she ran out of it, and we (stupidly) decided to try a slightly cheaper organic multi-meat, hypoallergenic dry food (which was the wrong thing to do I know now.) The vomiting entirely disappeared. The profuse shedding stopped. We are two weeks in with the new food and the spasming while she sleeps seems to have tapered to less and less but…gosh darn it… I saw her starting to scratch her ears and act agitated again.
I checked in the previously problematic ear canal and what do you know, the slight brown grainy discharge is back, and its bothering the other ear now to. Can't keep her on this food, and after reading the reviews of longterm use with the RC HP soy stuff, I am afraid her previous symptoms (vomiting, lethargy, excessive shedding, running bowel moments and maybe even the muscle contractions) were from constant use of a food not naturally designed for cats bodies as I saw many complaints of people complaining of similar problems when using it...
… Whats left???
Neither food works 100% so is there a diet out there you know of that most cats with food allergies can tolerate for a long time, not just short term? Is there a reasonably priced one as well?
Sorry for the novel. SOO very frustrated and depressed about this. To fight with the allergy for 9 months just to have it come back is maddening.
My stray kitty came to me with an ear infection. We battled it by removing a polyp in her ear and then it still raged for months even after nightly cleaning. My vet tested her for everything under the sun and the ear NEVER improved until she suggested it could a food allergy. We had tried every drop, every antibiotic, every anti fungal, every ear cleaning solution the vet could imagine and NOTHING helped and some made it worse. It seemed allergy was the ONLY thing left on the exclusion list.
We swiftly put her on a royal canin hypoallergenic hydrolyzed protein but did not see any improvement for almost 2 months. We moved cross country and slowly over the 5 day trek we watched her poor miserable little ear canal have less and less discharge. Two weeks in our new home and the allergy disappeared. Best we could figure it, we thought she had an environmental allergy to our old apartment. We were elated we had solved the mystery… until she started PROFUSELY vomiting and shaking about a month later.
We tried to figure out if she had been poisoned after vomiting 12 times in one day, with miserable yoweling and scratching at the ground and hiding before attacks. I took her to the emergency vet hospital and tests showed nothing wrong. I also noticed at the same time her limbs would start rhythmically contracting like she having a seizure when she was sleeping, but when i would wake her she was fine. This was not the normal trembling i have seen when cats sleep, it looked more like constant uncomfortable spasms that just never quit. And her BM turned into a rank, watery smelling affair that made the litter box unbearable to be around after just one day. I also noticed she was shedding like CRAZY, but i figured that was just because it was REALLY hot seattle summer.
These symptoms kept persisting through a third month on the food until she ran out of it, and we (stupidly) decided to try a slightly cheaper organic multi-meat, hypoallergenic dry food (which was the wrong thing to do I know now.) The vomiting entirely disappeared. The profuse shedding stopped. We are two weeks in with the new food and the spasming while she sleeps seems to have tapered to less and less but…gosh darn it… I saw her starting to scratch her ears and act agitated again.
I checked in the previously problematic ear canal and what do you know, the slight brown grainy discharge is back, and its bothering the other ear now to. Can't keep her on this food, and after reading the reviews of longterm use with the RC HP soy stuff, I am afraid her previous symptoms (vomiting, lethargy, excessive shedding, running bowel moments and maybe even the muscle contractions) were from constant use of a food not naturally designed for cats bodies as I saw many complaints of people complaining of similar problems when using it...
… Whats left???
Neither food works 100% so is there a diet out there you know of that most cats with food allergies can tolerate for a long time, not just short term? Is there a reasonably priced one as well?
Sorry for the novel. SOO very frustrated and depressed about this. To fight with the allergy for 9 months just to have it come back is maddening.