Potential food allergy

Status
Not open for further replies.
R

Ruefrex

Member Since 2014
As I said to my cat the other day, "What, the diabetes isn't enough?" He did not answer.

Travis has been scratching around his shoulders for about a week. Talked to the vet, who said he may have a flea bite and to put him on flea medication (he's an indoor cat). so I did, but the scratching didn't get better. I don't notice him doing it all the time (I suspect he's going into hiding) but MAN is the hair coming off. Yesterday, I found a new spot he'd been biting, in the lower part of his back on his spine. He'd also been shaking his head a little. Took him to the vet, who ruled out mites and ear problems. We haven't done an allergy test yet. He's getting cortisone cream, and I did voice my concerns to the vet, who said that since it's topical, it's safer and that we would only have him on it twice a day for seven days. She also mentioned wanting to do a food trial if that doesn't work.

The diabetes obviously complicates matters! I've been lucky in that he was diagnosed in April and hasn't had insulin since his glucose curve ten days after diagnosis. Using the fabulous list from this site, I got him off of dry food and high carb food. He's eating primarily Fancy Feast classic chicken, turkey and beef. I have read that some cats have chicken and/or beef allergies. He's always gotten chicken and beef (although not the classic most of the time) and although he's had his moments of scratching out a tiny bit of fur, it's certainly not been to this extreme.

Has anyone experienced this? And if you've changed foods, are there any other options that aren't on the list? Non-chicken/beef/turkey foods seem to be pretty tough to come by. I'd like to be prepared pretty quickly for switching his food. Thanks for any help!!!
 
I have not had this issue with any of my cats, but I did have a dog with food allergies. It took a lot of trial and error before I found food she could eat. Even though I don't normally suggest any of the prescription foods, Hills prescription ZD usually is good with allergies. If your cat does not like it, at least you can return it back to your vet for a refund. I am not sure how the carbs are in them, but with my dog, I also was able to control her allergies with the Natural Balance brand foods. Look for something that is a single protein such as duck or rabbit.
 
I've found my Heffernan can't tolerate Beef FF classic (projectile vomit). I would try limiting the cat to one flavor of FF for 2 weeks or so to see if there's a difference. When you introduce the other flavor in to a rotation see if the problem re-occurs. I also added Wellness Chicken & Turkey into Heff's rotation since most FF have fish in them.
 
While it's very possible that some allergen is present in all 3 varieties of FF that you are feeding, it's also possible that you could get lucky enough that at least 1 of them does not have the allergen (if it's a food allergy). You could try doing your own mini food test by feeding only the Chicken for several days, then only the Turkey, then the Beef. If you notice his scratching/biting occurs less often (or maybe even not at all!) after feeding only one flavor for multiple days in a row, you may be able to continue on the FF as long as you don't feed the flavors that he's allergic to.

Could it be anything other than food? Cats and dogs can be allergic to pollen, mold, etc, just like us. (I had a dog with seasonal allergies who use to bite his paw pads until they were raw. My poor baby...) I don't know about where you live, but here in Minnesota, my allergies have been going nuts just the past few weeks. Even if nothing environmental has changed (same house, same other animals, etc), it sounds like cats can spontaneously develop new allergies as they age. Here is a link to an online question/answer site where a vet gave a bunch of information on this exact topic:

http://www.justanswer.com/pet-cat/3nbi2-does-cat-scratch-neck-shoulders-until-fur.html

Good luck! Determining what's causing an allergy through trial and error/process of elimination can be very frustrating. Just don't change more than one thing at a time, though, and you will find it. And the upside is that once the allergy is gone, then having a cat with "just diabetes" will seem like a breeze, right? ;-)
 
Jennifer and Hannah said:
Cats and dogs can be allergic to pollen, mold, etc, just like us.
Click to expand...
I have a cat that sneezes uncontrollably until I tell him to stop!!!

I also have a cat who is allergic to beef. I feed the Wellness Core Turkey and Chicken with Liver because there is no fish or byproducts.

I also have a friend whose cat chews the hair off of her legs but as far as we can tell, this is caused by anxiety (she was found as a kitten with a sibling, outside a garage in the pouring rain).
 
Thanks for the suggestions! I'm going to try feeding him only one FF variety and see if that makes a difference before I change anything else. It's weird because I don't notice him scratching that much but he's sure ripped his fur out. I was wondering if it had to do with the fact that it got really hot here a few weeks ago and I've had the air on almost all the time. I did ask the vet about fish oil and she said not to try it while doing a food trial, but what if I tried it first? And has anyone had luck with flax oil? Before his diagnosis, his skin would get a little dry and I'd been giving him skin & fur dry treats, which he is of course not getting anymore.

I also got some herbal remedies but I'm reluctant to try anything. Has anyone had any luck with this type of thing? I got Shea Pet Hot Spot & Itch Relief, which is a spray, and Natural Pet Skin & Itch Irritations, which is a water-based fluid that goes in their food. I totally forgot to ask the vet about that yesterday. I can return them if I haven't used them.

I like to try a lot of different things but I usually want to try them all at once!
 
I posted on this thread last night - I thought - but it has vanished into the ether :sad:
My non-diabetic cat has an allergy (scratching her head and neck particularly, and nibbling herself all over, so really it's all-over and she is under treatment from a specialist.
Way back in late 2012 I took her to the vet who basically just gave her a long-acting steroid shot, which worked, and subsequently she had a couple more. I did some food eliminations myself, cutting out FF beef, then FF chicken varieties, but with no obvious results. Then we got down to more serious business, having determined it was non-seasonal, and she went on a trial with Hills ZD (hydrolized protein - supposedly the thing that should work). No luck. Then I saw an allergy specialist who said to try another food trial with a novel protein. This could be any meat a cat hasn't been exposed to, maybe rabbit, duck, venison. I got raw horsemeat and gradually transitioned her on to this, which she loved (whew!). Meanwhile she was on oral Predmil, one tablet every 2 days.
But that meat didn't help either.
Went off the Pred. for a few weeks in preparation for a blood draw to test for multiple allergies (plants, molds, insects/mites). It had to be sent to Australia, so there's been a longish wait for results. (She could have had skin patch tests but the specialist said the blood testing was better for cats). She's been back on the Pred., 1 every 3 days, which keeps her reasonably comfortable, and she doesn't wear off her fur anywhere, anyway.
The results are here - it's dust mites, quite conclusively!
I now have to consider immunotherapy, because I really can't do more to combat dustmites than I already do (having suspected this). Can't/won't rip up my fitted carpets because underneath the carpet and underlay is concrete (in my one-level house in a non-tropical climate!)
I will start another thread about immunotherapy. From what I've read, it sounds a bit hit and miss.

Good luck with your food trials! Ideally, it should be one food for about 6 weeks, but the trouble is there's a mix of proteins in many commercial foods......
 
Just ran across this on LivingSocial...it's a Pet Allergy test for $38 (regularly $87). Not sure how much your vet would charge, but $38 seems like a pretty good deal.

https://www.livingsocial.com/deals/1127953?rui=148126689

Here is the description:

If your pet's been extra itchy, has watery eyes, or is lethargic, they could have allergies or sensitivities. See what's bothering them with this test:
• $38 ($87 value) for an at-home allergy test kit for pets, including "A-Z Guide to Allergies in Pets" via e-mail
• Test 175 environmental and food allergies
• Collect hair and saliva samples and get a full-color allergy report via e-mail
"I highly recommend this. We discovered we were feeding our dog the exact things he was allergic to. Switching foods made him less congested, and he licks his paws a lot less now, too." -- LivingSocial Member
 
My bailey is allergic to chicken, he scratches and rubs at his face and ears when he gets it. I eliminated all normal sources of protein and tried him with duck and venison and it went away. Then I gradually added back in foods one at a time, one week at a time until I worked out what the issue was.
 
Thanks for that link! I'll take a look at it. I'm not sure if Travis is getting better. He doesn't seem quite as itchy. I'm still giving him the hydrocortisone cream (he'll get that until Tuesday). I also added this Natural Pet supplement to his food that's supposed to help, and there's a natural spray that I've been spraying on him, much to his terror. I went all Fancy Feast turkey, too, to just put him on one variety and see if that helps. And I'm going to give him fish oil. He's not any worse but it's just so hard to tell if he's better, since cats scratch and clean themselves all the time anyway!

The vet did say that there's an antihistamine cream I can try, which I may do if he does anything else to himself after Tuesday. I seriously follow him around all the time now.

:-)
 
Thank you for that, Larry! I'm not at the point where my kitty needs to get allergy tested but I would have my vet do it. I'd want it to be as comprehensive as possible. Hoping that he's just a little itchy right now, or that it was a flea bite. He's lost patches of fur before but he's never scratched out all the fur on his shoulders before. Just trying to get all the info I can and I really appreciate the folks on this board. You've all been so helpful!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top