canned diet for cats with GI issues?

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Theresa6

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My cat was a frequent barfer. She would throw up multiple times a day until finally we found royal canin hypoallergenic diet, hydrolized protein. It is a dry kibble. I also give her famatitine daily. Reading on this site I understand the recomendations for lower carb and eliminating dry kibble. However, my cat really cannot tolerate it. Even with the famatidine she still throws up daily (sometimes multiple times) on any canned food. I have tried a million and one brands. Even as much as one spoonful added to her meals daily will cause vomiting.

She is not responding to her insulin after more than two weeks so I am looking at what else I can do. The food she is on now does not come in a canned variety. Any suggestions or anyone been there and have feedback?
 
I have never had any personal experience with GI issues but I do know of one particular kitty at a shelter that had IBD which cause a lot of vomiting, they switched him to a raw diet and he is doing great now. Some also use novel protein sources for kitties with GI issues, like bison, duck, venison and rabbit. I know there is a canned food out there that is duck and green pea that has been known to help but for the life of me right now I can't think who makes it, so hopefully someone else will weigh in with that information.

Mel, Maxwell, Musette & The Fur Gang
 
Maybe I can help with some suggestion on food. I have been going through a food problem with Baxter. He is allergic to beef, won't eat turkey, doesn't like canned cat chicken. I can't feed fish, but 2 a week. I started to research raw diet more & eventually would like to have him on raw.
Duck is higher in fat. The brands I found that offer duck are Blue Buffalo Wilderness. I am sure you already know they are gluten & grain free.
For lamb, venison & rabbit Natures Variety offer those two. It is pricey Petco $3 5.5 oz. those are good alternatives to raw. Baxter seems to like the rabbit.
I have a thread on here about feeding raw diet. Take a peek at it there are some good suggestions & Dr. Lisa even replied on it with a suggestion.

I am sure there are other brands of duck, venison & rabbit. Those are the ones I found.

Good Luck!
Happy New Year!
Jenn & Baxter
 
My kitty is having some Royal Canin Gastro Intestinal Dry but I make the bulk of his food raw breast chicken. This is not a balanced diet but my kitty has many food issues so I go with what causes the least issues for him. It's very early days for the diabetes from what you are saying? Keep going with what you know your kitty can tolerate and keep trying the foods that others are suggesting to you. Numbers won't come down if the allergic response is high. I have this all the time with my kitty who is 18 months into FD. He will eat most things but 80% of them will send his numbers high with an allergic response. I think you need to keep posting with the dynamics of your kitty's situation. More information is needed. Insulin type. Age of kitty. Numbers you are experiencing. Dose you are giving. There are a lot of experienced people on this site who can advise you with regards insulin. But you MUST always let people know that you have a co-existing food allergy problem that has to be taken into consideration when advising you about your kitty. The vomiting sounds horrendous.

Have you tried Royal Canin Gastro Intestinal? Apparently it comes in a wet form. I think it probably follows a similar principal to the hypoallergenic (but I don't know). I cannot get the wet form in Australia but I am sure you can in the US. It might be worth trying. But if you've tried all these varieties with no luck then feed the dry but increase the insulin to the amount that will control your kitties BGs. Follow the protocol and increase until the numbers are within healthy range.
 
eating is more important than insulin dose, so if you can't find any low-carb canned food that will work, the insulin dose can always be adjusted upwards to accommodate the food. it's not an ideal situation, a little bit like a human diabetic eating candy daily and taking more insulin to accommodate it, but you have to do what you have to do! kitties have to eat!!!

my non-diabetic cat has IBD, i think, at least she's had chronic diarrhea and was on prescription dry foods for it. that did help, but when punkin became diabetic i switched both of them to canned food. her diarrhea cleared up as long as she only eats canned chicken. the turkey & giblets and any cat food that's high carb with gravy both give her more diarrhea.

you may have to just continue being a detective on the food issue. as far as the insulin goes, if you tell us more about it (kind of insulin, dose) perhaps we can help you.
 
I have a civvie who is a barfer, and I have been able to hone in on it more since I am treating his brother for FD.

There are certain flavors that make him barf, and he does do better if it is frozen or mixed with a little low carb dry (EVO low carb dry). Now he doesn't puke up huge amounts of food any more, just hairballs. You can also get hairball gel from the vet or maybe at pet store. It comes in many flavors and helps them pass the hairballs instead of puke them up. (I am thinking his system can digest the wet faster than the dry and so it's just the hairball now???)

I look at him, and just think, "You're a gonner so don't even think about coming down with FD." because of the barfing all the time. His norm is about 3x per day and it still is at about 1-2 even with the adjustments but now I feel really good that it's just the hairball and not a whole bunch of food. It took him about 1-2 weeks to get used to more wet food around the house. He will still puke up FF beef if he ever gets it no matter what though. Even one lick and it's off to erp land.

I give wet to everyone over night by freezing the food in muffin tins and leaving the cat-food-sicles out over night. They work on it a bit at a time which helps everyone keep it down. It did take him a while to keep it down and the first week we were up to probably 5-8 pukes of food. (It was everywhere!) He just couldn't resist snarfing some of Duncan's food. He seems fine now though, and I have been giving him more and more wet in the dry mixed up. He has even gotten a hold of Duncan's dish and didn't puke all over now that he is more used to it.

Hope that helps in some way. Barfers are hard to feed. :) But he barfs nasty food just as much as wet so what the hay right?
 
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