Kami (civie) possibly has food allergies

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Steph & Cuddles (GA)

Steph & Cuddles (GA)

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Ok, I feel stupid, but bought this from the vet:

http://www.royalcanin.us/adx/aspx/adxge ... T%20HP.pdf

Royal Canin Hypoallergenic diet. I've just never tried to deal with food allergies before, and was stunned & not sure where to start. Thought that a hypo-allergenic diet would be a good place to start, then eventually find out WHAT she's allergic to, and keep that out of her diet..?

Figured I'd probably be yelled at on here about buying this food, but I'm not really sure what else to start with, if they're possibly allergic to something in their food? Wet food w/ no grains? No fish? no chicken? no poultry? What do you start with? The only thing I'm not willing to do is complete raw from scratch. I guess I could try the Nature's Variety raw medallions again.. but what do you limit at first? This isn't a quick process either, as it takes awhile to get out of their system to see a difference too right?

:YMSIGH: We talked about chlorpheniramine, but if we can figure out if it's a food allergy, and eliminate that food, that would be better. Anyone have ANY ideas? Sites to send me to? Right now I've been actually mixing some dry food with their wet for cost purposes. Kami eats separately anyway though, as she's such a slow eater, the rest of them push her out of the way of her own dish! So even if I have to buy a more expensive food for her, that's fine. Yes, I wish I could feed ALL my animals nothing but raw or high quality wet, but that's just not doable right now.

Here's a pic I got once we got home of her lying on my lap with her arms stretched out. One arm is missing a lot of fur all the way around, and the other one is only in the back. She's been like this for over a year though, so I know it's not from a sudden diet switch. She was like this when I was only feeding them wet Friskies too. Vet thought back then that it was behavioral, because MIssy was still a kitten, and terrorizing Kami. Now that Missy's NOT terrorizing her anymore, I figured we need to figure this out, since she's obviously very itchy! :sad: I see her licking & biting at her arms & legs often.

http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos- ... 1878_n.jpg

ETA: Vet also suggested we possibly try cyclosporine down the road. Said it has steroid properties in how it works, without the side effects steroids have. I actually have some cyclo for Bandit's stomatitis that I never used for her (Bandit's doing well on pred for now.. dont' want to rock the boat). So I have it if we decide to go that route, but I thought I remember another side effect from cyclo? Karen's Astrophe or something.. or was that just a rare situation?
 
Re: Kami ETA

steph.

best thing to do is start with a novel protein --- ( and if necessary in the food a novel grain (!) )
few ingredients as possible. try to avoid the veggies so many foods have these days.

so basically you want to avoid foods that she has previously had.
so try rabbit, or duck or venison ( those seem to be the most common novel ones to try) usually they put pea in it ( considered a legume not a reg. veggie)
a lot of cats like the rabbit. winnie did not. she liked the venison, but it didn't like her. :shock: ( I'll spare you the "explosive" details )
my vet has her cat on duck. ECID

see if allergies clear up on novel foods. try one that she will eat and only that one food for a couple months--
I need to look back at my notes. been a long time since i did this w/ winnie --- to give you the exact time frame. If one doesn't work you try another and then after that period of time that I have to look up for you , try to add one other protein back in. and see what happens.
fish was the culprit for winnie.

royal c. actually has some decent novel protein foods... that's what i used for winnie.
and the carbs weren't horrid. there are some other brands too....... going to look them up for you. I *think* it's natural balance that has some decent novel protein foods. ( w/ green pea)
after sleep I'll check more for you I-)

give Kami a real good scritch for me. poor honey.

ps. wondering if this has started up since your move ?
something in the environment ?


ETA here are the links to the RC novel protein diets. imho much better than the hydrolyzed soy your vet is advising

Duck
Rabbit
Venison

Natural Balance limited ingredient

and a link on food allergies from VIN
http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Conten ... &A=468&S=2

ok NOW i'm crashing. I have lots more links for later ;-)
-----------------------------------
I assumed canned versions of food for what I wrote above
 
Natural Balance is correct. Evo 95% venison wouldn't be a bad choice either. The NB is a medium carb food, so not appropriate for sugar cats (for those reading along!). Definitely go with novel protein and limit other ingredients as much as possible.

Cylosporine is actually a immune suppressant used in humans as an anti rejection drug for transplant recipients that works by gently suppressing the immune system. Willie is taking it because he suffers from pemphigus, an autoimmune condition in which the immune system goes wonky, interprets skin cells as the enemy, and begins attacking them, leading to "crusting" of the skin and subsequent hair loss. the meds haven't affected Willie's bg #s at all.

I wouldn't start the drug right away. If it is an allergy, then you need to determine the allergen. treating with drugs may interfere with that. has your vet discussed a skin biopsy as an option?

good luck in finding an answer!
 
Was the stuff your vet sold you the canned version? If so, no yelling. ;-) There is a blood test they can do to see what she is allergic to - might be worth it to find out for sure.

Fish, beef, and wheat gluten seem to be the biggest allergens when it comes to food. So is soy, unfortunately. The novel protein is a good idea - rabbit, duck, venison, as mentioned, are good choices. Grain free wet.

Any chance it's seasonal? Flea or bug bites? Dry skin?

And, FYI, cyclosporine gave Astrophe pancreatitis ... not a common side effect in cats (it is in dogs), but it sure is NOT without side effects.

It will take a couple of weeks to discover if the new food is working, so patience is the key.
 
I went through food allergy trials with Minou for IBD. My vet recommended the novel protein diet rather than the hypoallergenic diet just because she has had bad results with cats accepting the hypoallergenic food. If you do decide to use hypoallergenic, I would recommend Hill's over RC just because Hill's uses hydrolyzed chicken liver and chicken (the hydrolyzation makes it hypoallergenic) and RC uses soy. IMHO, soy is not a good choice for a cat.

If you decide to try a novel protein diet, lamb is another choice besides the duck/venison/rabbit. Minou could not have rabbit because she had eaten that previously. She would not eat the d/d duck for more than two meals, so we ended up using a mix of d/d venison, EVO 95% venison, and Ziwipeak venison. She liked the Ziwipeak the best, but it is expensive. Neither Minou or I liked the Natural Balance cat foods because the amount of peas in them made the carb about ~20-25% (canned) and they smelled very strongly of peas. The trial period was 8 weeks, but got cut short due to other problems.
 
KarenRamboConan said:
Was the stuff your vet sold you the canned version? If so, no yelling. ;-) There is a blood test they can do to see what she is allergic to - might be worth it to find out for sure.
Click to expand...
Nope.. 7 lb bag of dry food. :-| Hmmmm forgot about the blood test too.. may ask them what that runs.

Any chance it's seasonal? Flea or bug bites? Dry skin?
Click to expand...
He asked that too, but it's been going on for over a year now. :/ He also said it doesn't look like the typical flea allergy. We also barely have fleas here. Ticks, yes.. fleas, no.

And, FYI, cyclosporine gave Astrophe pancreatitis ... not a common side effect in cats (it is in dogs), but it sure is NOT without side effects.
Click to expand...
Oh ok, thanks.. I remembered she wasn't well for awhile, but couldn't remember what it was.

Thanks everyone for all the suggestions! Kami did NOT like the RC food anyway, so it's going back! I left it in the other room where she eats, and it was gone this morning.. so who knows who finished it.. probably Misha! ;-) Looks like I'll have to go back to the specialty food place where I was buying Misha's Orijen food, and get Kami some high quality, no-grain food to try!
 
Carly has always had really bad stud tail, and shes got gunk in her ears. Someone here suggested the stud tail could be allergenic so I am trying to only feed the chicken and turkey wellness, not the beef or fish. I thought it was helping but then I had to use the beef-chicken and turkey-salmon I had left during the recall. I am trying again now.

Good luck!
 
Ok, so I ran by Petsmart to get more dog food for Misha (she's getting Blue Buffalo for now), and picked up some more cat food for everyone, including Kami. Not much for grain-free at Petsmart though, so for now I just got her some grain-free wet foods. I can just try grain free for awhile.. then if that doesn't do it, go further? Also cutting out fish. Even with Friskies, if you check out the ingredients, even the chicken flavors have fish in the ingredients. :evil: Really gotta check the ingredients list.. not just go by the flavors on the can. :-|

So here's what I bought to see which Kami likes better. Figured I'd buy a little bit of everything now, and see what she likes the most.. then use that for the first 'trial'?

(these are all wet foods.. they didn't have any grain-free dry there that didn't have some kind of fish in it)

Wellness Turkey formula (has turkey, chicken, fruits, veggies)
Wellness Chicken formula (has chicken, turkey, fruits, veggies)
Blue Wilderness Duck (from Blue Buffalo) (has duck, turkey, potatoes)
Blue Wilderness Turkey (has turkey, potatoes)
Blue Wilderness Chicken (has chicken, potatoes)

Wow.. didn't realize that's ALL I got for Kami. Have 4 other big cans, but they're Blue Buffalo wet dog food for Misha. Will have to go by the other store I used to go to, that has all healthy, higher end foods to find something for Kami. I know they carry all the ones you guys listed here, including the 95% meat EVO foods, etc..
 
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