Food Allergies/litterbox issues

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Glassgoblin

Glassgoblin

Member Since 2018
If you suspect your kitty-baby has a food allergy is there any way to know for sure? Even removing that food might not give a clear answer right?

Jaxa has been dealing with some diarrhea for the last month, off and on, and her blood tests were all normal when I took her to the vet, the topical dewormer didn't change anything, adjusting her food (sticking with serving sizes for the YAZM) hasn't helped, and she was already on a supplement with enzymes and probiotics. I started fortiflora this last weekend and if anything it is getting worse. No vomits, no blood/mucus, etc. She is acting normally, eating her food (wet FF and dry YAZM), playing, etc. She has had some itchy spots on her shoulders and is rolling in dirt a lot lately, but I had just put on the flea and tick stuff a week ago.

However, I noticed that three days ago she was reluctant to eat her tuna/shrimp and tuna/chicken bisque (how she takes her dissolvable B12 every morning) but eventually she ate it all, the next morning she left a little, then yesterday she skipped eating it for more than an hour, ate only half so I mixed in her beef food to leave for later. Today we are skipping the bisque, and I'll figure something else out for the B12. She went from begging for this to avoiding it, but has had it daily since April 18th. I wonder if she is developing a fish allergy. She doesn't like seafood flavored Fancy Feast, and won't eat that at all too. The beef Fancy Feast even has fish in it so hard to avoid.

The vet is going to look at a stool sample after I get the tube from them tonight. They want her to switch to their Royal Canin GI food, which is 20+% carb (and she hated the RC Glyco- giant pieces). They seem to think that since she is in remission the carb content doesn't matter, but I want to stick with low carb forever. I am looking at YAZM LID food, or Dr. Elsey's as I looked at a comparison chart and (reg) YAZM had fish and soya oils in top five ingredients, where Dr. E did not. So hard to figure out what the best thing to do will be when the Vet can't even give an answer based on her tests. We have SEB powder on the way, supposed to arrive tomorrow, but I want answers now so I am no so patient.
 
I had Truffles on Young again and he had terrible smelly diarrhea. He was only on a v small amount as a graze in between meals. Stopped it and he was immediately better. Now he just has wet food and solid poo again! Also he has skin issues and us on a grain free diet to help but it still irritates him on occasion. He has just had a flare up and his bg went up but now back on hopefully the path to remission.
 
Two years ago I was able to free feed young again no problem. I actually credited the food with getting cc into remission the first time. Now if she gets more than a few tablespoons she gets the runs. Don't know what changed.
 
I'm with Janet.. something changed. I used to give Mia some YAZM sprinkled on top of her meals, and she never had problems, Then, when I got the last new bag, she started having runny, stinky poop. This was while still getting just a few kibbles on top of her wet food, so not very much at all.

Dr. Elsey's Clean Protein - Chicken has about the 'cleanest' ingredient list of any dry food. One thing to point out though.. even though it is chicken, it does have pork protein isolate which is not a bad ingredient (it's what they use to hold the food together rather than using any kind of starch) but is of pork origin, so if a cat has a sensitivity to pork, that could be an issue.

I never wanted to use Fortiflora because I do not like the ingredients, but I gave in and started it at the vet's recommendation. I now suspect it as the possible culprit in causing a bad allergic reaction that Willow is having. The vet said it can take up to 4 weeks for the symptoms to clear even after you stop feeding them whatever is causing the issues. Mia has now started showing signs that she may be allergic to something, too. She is still getting the Fortiflora, so that is my first suspect.

It sounds like your baby is getting a lot of different proteins. Could you pick one and feed it exclusively for a month to see what happens? When my sister's cat was having issues, her vet told her to feed him only rabbit for a month - it worked. He didn't really like it though, so she re-introduced just chicken. At first he was fed rabbit for one meal and chicken for the other (he is a rare little guy who does not like to graze; he will only eat at breakfast and dinner time). That went okay, so she switched him to all chicken and he has been doing fine. Interestingly, they determined that it was very likely the YA he was getting that had caused the issues in the first place, maybe the pork in it.

Thinking carbs do not matter because the cat is in remission is, well, stupid. If a person was able to control their diabetes with diet, would they tell that person it was okay to go ahead and eat donuts now since they do not currently have high blood glucose? o_O
 
I picked up a sample tube from the Vet this afternoon and we managed to get a sample (more solid today than yesterday). We are going to cut out the bisque. We got the YAZM LID (small bag) in the mail today; I might feed her that for a while and see if it makes a difference, see what the vet says about her test results, and then come up with a plan. I did order a bag of Dr. E's chicken flavor (small size). We only just started the Fancy Feast last week and that seems to have the biggest mix of proteins involved. She was having the issues before that so I don't think it is the FF.

She had been sick after eating something with fish two years ago, and I avoided fish flavored foods for a long time until I was desperately seeking anything she would be willing to eat during a pancreatitis flare and she wanted it again. She was doing fine with the YA (for litter box issues anyway); we can put it away and do a month of Dr. E when I get it, assuming she is willing to eat it. The small bag first and then we will see about reordering or reevaluating, but there is no estimated ship date for the bag I ordered day ago so until then the LID food.

We did get the slippery elm bark powder in the mail today, but now i need to figure out how much to give her each day, and if she will eat it mixed in with the wet food (and the b12) or if I should add it to the dry like the fortiflora. She seems to like the smell of it at least.
 
Butterball said:
Beef is actually a common cat allergy. Maybe try phasing that out for a while and seeing if anything changes?
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We can limit that too- she only gets it in the Fancy Feast, which we just started. I was going to give her the chicken tonight (new can). Unfortunately even that has fish in it, and I'm never clear on what kind of liver they refer to when they just say "liver" or "animal liver flavor" and that is possibly beef related too. Of course beef is her favorite flavor, lol, she actually licks the bowl clean - usually she won't even eat half of the wet food that is in her dish.
 
Test results today; I don't really think she has parasites, but I wanted to say for certain that we ruled out everything.

Now I am wondering if I am giving her too many things; fortiflora, her YA supplement (almost gone, not being replaced), a tiny bit of SEB (all three at different times of day); she is a little gassy this morning and decided to eat all of her food at one time. I think I may have to split the dry food into two servings as well, usually she leaves a bit all day and nibbles at night leaving some in the dish when it gets put up for the night but today- she left crumbs. She needs to diet but if hungry I don't want to deny food after all of the problems I had getting her to eat a few months ago- we have food issues and need therapy. I may set out half a can of FF without any additions for her during the day, and see if she eats any wet.

Her bm is getting firmer; but it starts solid and then gets soft/runny at the end. This morning she was in the dining room and ran to the litter box to go, and lost a little on the floor before she made it. Poor kitty. I just want her to feel better so it is frustrating not to be able to make that happen immediately and to know that I am probably making things worse or linger on perhaps.
 
Glassgoblin said:
Test results today; I don't really think she has parasites, but I wanted to say for certain that we ruled out everything.

Now I am wondering if I am giving her too many things; fortiflora, her YA supplement (almost gone, not being replaced), a tiny bit of SEB (all three at different times of day); she is a little gassy this morning and decided to eat all of her food at one time. I think I may have to split the dry food into two servings as well, usually she leaves a bit all day and nibbles at night leaving some in the dish when it gets put up for the night but today- she left crumbs. She needs to diet but if hungry I don't want to deny food after all of the problems I had getting her to eat a few months ago- we have food issues and need therapy. I may set out half a can of FF without any additions for her during the day, and see if she eats any wet.

Her bm is getting firmer; but it starts solid and then gets soft/runny at the end. This morning she was in the dining room and ran to the litter box to go, and lost a little on the floor before she made it. Poor kitty. I just want her to feel better so it is frustrating not to be able to make that happen immediately and to know that I am probably making things worse or linger on perhaps.
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I would try stopping everything apart from wet food for 24 hours and see what happens. Then reintroduce slowly one at a time.
 
Anne Biddle said:
I would try stopping everything apart from wet food for 24 hours and see what happens. Then reintroduce slowly one at a time.
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We can try that; the canned food is new for her. She usually hates it and won't even eat a full can in 24 hrs; if there are chunks of wet food she licks off the sauce and won't touch the rest so I can only get pate for her. So picky.
 
Have you ever tried a novel protein? That means one she has never had before and only feed it for a minimum of two months. Then you can gradually add back other proteins one at a time to find the cause of the intolerance. You would need to read the labels very carefully as they sneak other proteins in. For example Dr. elsey’s salmon also contains chicken. FF turkey contains poultry giblets which could mean chicken. I’m currently giving one of my young ones duck for a skin issue.
 
tiffmaxee said:
Have you ever tried a novel protein? That means one she has never had before and only feed it for a minimum of two months. Then you can gradually add back other proteins one at a time to find the cause of the intolerance. You would need to read the labels very carefully as they sneak other proteins in. For example Dr. Elsey’s salmon also contains chicken. FF turkey contains poultry giblets which could mean chicken. I’m currently giving one of my young ones duck for a skin issue.
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I'd be willing to try if I could think of one she has not eaten; proteins I know she has eaten include: chicken, turkey, duck, goose (tried once), beef, goat, lamb, boar, rabbit, salmon, tuna, char, shrimp, cod, scallop, and pork. She has also caught and nibbled on chipmunk, squirrel, vole and chickadee. Plus a host of insects- butterflies, houseflies and spiders are her favorites. Sorry if that sounds flippant; I could limit her to one protein, it just would be hard to think of one she hasn't eaten in the last year or two. Tofu? I must be forgetting something that is available out there.
 
I fed kangaroo to Max toward the end. I was told the food was low phosphorus but it wasn’t. :banghead:. He liked it. Can’t buy it in California any more. Against the law to sell it. I bet you didn’t feed some of those proteins solo for two months did you? Maybe it’s not the protein.
 
I wonder if it could be the YAZ. It's known to cause diarrhea, and I'm not sure I'm remembering this right, but I think I read on someone else's thread that a couple people were wondering if there had been a change in recipe recently.

EDIT: ummm...it was earlier on this thread :rolleyes:
 
tiffmaxee said:
I fed kangaroo to Max toward the end. I was told the food was low phosphorus but it wasn’t. :banghead:. He liked it. Can’t buy it in California any more. Against the law to sell it. I bet you didn’t feed some of those proteins solo for two months did you? Maybe it’s not the protein.
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The only thing she was really on for a solid amount of time was a chicken based food, but since it was commercial who knows what was mixed in with it. She has been on the YAZM since March but that has a mix of pork and chicken, and fish oil is one of the top five ingredients. YAZM has changed their die cuts (for size of food) this summer, but they haven't said anything about the recipe changing.

Orijen should do an international treat; kangaroo, llama, guinea pig and armadillo.

Right now I am waiting for her to use the litterbox. She has only eaten one can of Fancy Feast in the last 24 hours; she had almost finished it off by 5am this morning and I added another 1/2 can but she hasn't eaten much yet. For calories she should be eating 3+ cans a day, but she just won't eat much wet food. I add more when her dish gets low, but she knows her routines and is begging for her usual food right now. Didn't hear back from the vet yesterday about test results, so probably not urgent news.
 
Kris & Teasel said:
Some people feed Epigen 90 dry food from Wysong for kitties with allergies/intolerances. It's also low carb. @Carol & Murphy gives it to her occasionally.
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Will look into that too perhaps. I feel like I'm changing her food too much; she is eating the LID (YA) and fancy feast with the supplementals- SEB, Fortiflora, YA supplement, and B12, and the last couple days has had solid bm. We still have half of an 8lb bag of regular YAZM that we may start mixing into the LID after another week or so, and a few tuna bisque packets that I will hang onto for now. I am giving some fish flavored FF to a co-worker since Jaxa doesn't want to eat those anyway. YA supplement is almost gone and we will wait on replacing that- for having almost the same ingredients as the fortiflora it is a lot less expensive.

She keeps wanting to eat all of her dry LID food immediately when I give it to her, so I might have to start breaking that into partial servings too because I think eating too much and too fast is giving her indigestion. She ate almost a whole can of beef Fancy Feast over night though- half was gone by 1 am, so I gave her the other half and by 6 am all that is left is crumbs. That is a first.
 
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