Not FD related - your experiences with atopica/hydrolyzed canned food

[Virginie & Chewie (GA)]

This is definitely not diabetes-related so I hope it’s still okay to post here - I figured there are so many experienced cat caregivers here that it would be worth picking your brains about this pickle I’m in.

One of my cats, Mew, has always been itchy. She is almost 16 and in otherwise good health, but has multiple allergies - definitely some food allergies although we are not sure to what exactly + some environmental allergies (pollen for sure, maybe mold or dust mites too). Her symptoms have gotten worse over the years (mostly rubbing/scratching eyes and chin and overgrooming her belly), and even prednisolone + hydrolyzed dry food aren’t enough to control it.

She used to throw up regularly, have dandruff and be itchy on raw turkey diet. Same with duck, same with venison.
I tried different proteins as canned food, no luck. As a last ditch effort my vet convinced me to try Ultamino hydrolyzed protein dry food (which is a food only in name, the ingredients are atrocious). She loved it as first since she had never eaten dry food in her life, and it did improve her symptoms a lot, but after about 6 months she did not want to eat it anymore, so we switched to another Royal Canin hydrolyzed kibble made with soy (sigh). She agreed to eat that and it again helped with her symptoms, but same thing, after 6 month she wouldn’t eat it unless I crumbled some kind of freeze dried treat on it, which completely defeats the purpose. She was mostly scratch free on those but only while taking 5mg of pred every day. If I lowered the dose she would start scratching her eyes like crazy. Obviously I worry a lot about her eating crap dry food while taking so much pred (she would drink soooo much water every day), so I figured I would switch her to a limited ingredient canned food again.

It has been a week and she is starting to get itchy again
I cannot afford immunotherapy testing and treatment, but I don’t want her to stay on pred forever if it doesn’t even control her symptoms.

So sorry this has been a novel, I would love to hear from you if:
- you have used hydrolyzed canned food (reviews online say it’s awful and their cats wouldn’t touch it)
- you have used atopica for intractable allergies (good and bad experiences alike)

Thanks in advance for all your input! Love this community.

 

[Virginie & Chewie (GA)]

PS: we have avoided feeding chicken for the past 10 years or so because my vet always said it was the top allergen for cats, but maybe I should try a limited ingredient chicken food to see if she would tolerate it? Might start there since it’s the least risky “trial”.

 

[tehg]

In addition to my diabetic-eats anything and everything regardless of whether it’s food (the cat is a garbage disposal), I have an allergic cat who is super picky. Both have IBD.

Allergies started when on royal canin rabbit. After too many allergy/Derm visits, we were never able to pin down exactly what she’s allergic to. Some environmental, hard to say on the food. She did well on the blue buffalo hydrolyzed salmon (dry) and pred but since she hates salmon the minute the pred was removed in favor of another drug she stopped eating it. I’m pretty sure we didn’t try their wet food.

I know we also tried the Hills ZD (dry and wet), and my garbage disposal ate it just fine. My picky cat hates purée wet so I gave up on the wet pretty quickly.

Atopica was a struggle and when my allergic cat gets stressed she stops eating. Atopica’s a liquid and apparently tastes very bad (some refrigeration may help)—she didn’t like it at all.

Because of her stress-induced fasting we ended up switching to off-label apoquel and to royal canin LID venison (this was just at the beginning of pet food supply chain issues. She did well on apoquel and after more than a year was eventually able to transition off apoquel. (I also moved so that may have helped with the environmental allergies.)

After talking to our Derm, I was looking at Rayne’s kangaroo diet or Blue Buffalo’s alligator as the next options had it been necessary. (May not be available depending on where you are.)

My cat is 15 and when her brother became diabetic I talked to my vet about trying to transition her to a wet only diet too. We ultimately decided it wasn’t worth the struggle as long as she was happy, consistently eating, and her allergies were under control.

 

[Virginie & Chewie (GA)]

Thanks @tehg - I put the question to my chronic pancreatitis support group, and everyone recommended steering clear from atopica.
Right now Mew is back to (very reluctantly) eating her Royal Canin hydrolyzed protein kibble, until her flare up calms down. Thinking of asking my vet for a couple of cans of the hydrolyzed wet food just to test (other people I’ve talked to said it’s a very weird consistency and hit or miss with cats, so I’d rather not have to buy a full case online, it’s so expensive).

After our move, when the cats are settled, I will test proteins by adding just a couple pieces of the same raw meat to each meal for two weeks, and watching for symptoms. Would really be helpful to find out if she’d tolerate one of the more common “novel” protein before starting on a hunt for alligator

I’m glad your kitty is doing well eating her venison kibble! In the end it comes down to quality of life… if her allergies are controlled and she likes her food, at her age it’s a great situation really. Good job getting her there

 

[Virginie & Chewie (GA)]

PS: love the “garbage disposal” cat we need more of those!