# Best food for a cat with IBD?



## Paigeesaurus (Nov 15, 2018)

A month or so ago our vet told us that our 8 month old ginger tabby may have IBD.
This was after a lot of loose/ bloody stools and a few tests that all came back as if he was a healthy little cat.

We currently have him on wainwright’s hypoallergenic wet food, which seems to be working. But every now and again he seems to revert back and often bloats up in the process. We use a slow feeder bowl currently which stops a lot of his bloating.

I don’t like seeing him uncomfortable and just want him to enjoy eating and pooping (as much as he can haha)

Would using probiotics in his food be a good idea? I’m not sure if he could use this constantly or not. Or is there any good foods that anyone could recommend me to try.

Thank you!


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## Guest (Feb 2, 2019)

My vet told me that probiotics can be taken all the time without harm. My cat had chronic diarrhoea for weeks, and James Wellbeloved turkey wet food stopped it. I wouldn't say it was a 'good food', but certainly not the worst, and, if a cat has IBD, a long spell on it may be a good thing. If your cat's allergen is turkey though, obviously it wouldn't work for him... There may be one ingredient in your cat's previous foods that is causing the IBD. Make an ingredient-list of every single food he eats that gives him diarrhoea. Compare them all. Note down every bowel movement (diarrhoea or normal) and you may find the culprit.

EDIT: sorry, I didn't explain that very well, there's a lot going on around me. Yes, chillminx is an expert, and has a thread up top about elimination diets.

If my cat eats anything containing rosemary extract, she has diarrhoea. If I give her anything without it, she doesn't. It was comparing ingredient lists and writing everything down that enabled me to figure it out.


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## Amanda Sturdy (Jun 16, 2018)

@chillminx is an expert in this field


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## lorilu (Sep 6, 2009)

Raw diet is the best food for a cat with IBD. They have a FB page for real time help

http://www.rawfeedingforibdcats.org/


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## Blaise in Surrey (Jun 10, 2014)

I tried loads of very expensive foods for my boy, and the prescription stuff from the vets. He was on two steroid tablets each day. Since changing to Symply Turkey complete dry he is symptom-free on only half a tablet a day. My vet says that they often see great results with Symply.


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## lorilu (Sep 6, 2009)

Except a dry diet is the worst thing you can feed a cat with IBD (or any cat). Sadly, you will find these improvements transient, if your cat does have IBD, as IBD is an inflammatory disease and a dry diet is inflammatory to a cat's system.


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

Paigeesaurus said:


> A month or so ago our vet told us that our 8 month old ginger tabby may have IBD.
> This was after a lot of loose/ bloody stools and a few tests that all came back as if he was a healthy little cat.
> 
> We currently have him on wainwright's hypoallergenic wet food, which seems to be working. But every now and again he seems to revert back and often bloats up in the process. We use a slow feeder bowl currently which stops a lot of his bloating.
> ...


Do you mean the little tins of Wainwrights hypoallergenic wet food? They are not showing it on the Pets at Home website for some reason, but I know the ones you mean, as I feed it to my cats. I will have a look at the label to see the full ingredients.

I have two cats with IBD (brothers) In both cases their condition is managed by diet, and neither of them has ever been on steroids. I had a previous cat whom I adopted as a senior aged 14 and she had not only IBD, but Diabetes Type 2 caused as a result of her long term treatment with steroids by her previous owner..

With my two boys I intended to put them on a full elimination diet, as I have always recommended and done it myself with a cat who seems to have a food intolerance. But with my two boys I couldn't find an affordable "novel protein" they liked, and could eat, without vomiting. So as a result I chose turkey as the starting point. This was because in UK cat foods turkey is not used as an ingredient as often as chicken, beef and fish and so an allergic reaction to turkey is less common (though not unknown of course).

After keeping my cats on a turkey only diet for a month I introduced other meat proteins one at a time. I was able to identify their IBD symptoms got worse on foods with lamb, beef, salmon and other 'oily' fish (white fish is OK), and rabbit. So I excluded all those meats from their diets permanently. They are fed turkey, chicken, duck (occasionally) and pork (occasionally) and their symptoms are well controlled.

Their diet is also grain free, egg-free and dairy free, and they have no dry food (kibble) but I do give them Thrive or Cosma pure freeze dried protein treats. They have a little raw food for one of their meals a couple of times a week, (e.g. raw turkey mince or raw pork mince) which they love. Some people do find a 100% raw diet helps to manage their cat's IBD but this was not so with my cats. They do better with some raw, and some cooked (at different meals i.e. )

I find my boys are also much better if they are fed small meals frequently. They eat about 5 or 6 times a day, including a small amount of food being left overnight for them in timed auto-feeders, timed to open around 5 am.

Small frequent meals means the tummy is not empty long enough for excess gastric acid to start forming and causing nausea. "Slow feeder" bowls are not ideal for cats (because they cause whisker bruising) and shouldn't be necessary with small frequent meals. However, one of my boys is better eating from a slightly raised dish support ( 5 cms raised)

if you are looking for a good wet food to try for your kitten I recommend Animonda Vom Feinsten for neutered cats, the Turkey Pure recipe. It has been the mainstay of my 2 boys' diet for a few years, it suits their tummies and they love it. It is available online from Zooplus. If you haven't bought from them before, they have a good policy of refunding for any unopened packets your cat would not eat.

https://www.zooplus.co.uk/shop/cats/canned_cat_food_pouches/animonda/trays/14008


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## Blaise in Surrey (Jun 10, 2014)

lorilu said:


> Except a dry diet is the worst thing you can feed a cat with IBD (or any cat). Sadly, you will find these improvements transient, if your cat does have IBD, as IBD is an inflammatory disease and a dry diet is inflammatory to a cat's system.


Not in the least transient - he's been well for a couple of years now.


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

Blaise in Surrey said:


> Not in the least transient - he's been well for a couple of years now.


Is he off the steroids now?


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## Blaise in Surrey (Jun 10, 2014)

He's on half a tablet per day as opposed to the two per day he had to take prior to changing food. I have tried him on wet food in the past but it was an unmitigated disaster!


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

Blaise in Surrey said:


> He's on half a tablet per day as opposed to the two per day he had to take prior to changing food. I have tried him on wet food in the past but it was an unmitigated disaster!


It's unusual for all wet foods not to be tolerated with IBD, because so often it's an intolerance to a specific meat protein, or grain. Which ones did you try him on?

Are you aiming to wean him off the steroids? I would be a bit concerned about long term use of steroids because of the risk of Diabetes type 2. The senior cat I adopted some years ago had IBD and also Diabetes type 2 caused by long term use of steroids (when she lived with the previous owner). She had been given 2.5 mg a day of prednisolone for several years.


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## Blaise in Surrey (Jun 10, 2014)

I tried many (expensive and cheap!) wet foods and he vomited on all of them!

Yes, I hope to wean him off steroids at some point.


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

It would probably be good to try him on a 'novel protein' elimination diet if you were to decide in the future to get him off the dry.

I am only thinking as he gets older you will want to try and protect his kidneys, and a wet food diet is better for that.


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## Paigeesaurus (Nov 15, 2018)

shingigz said:


> My vet told me that probiotics can be taken all the time without harm. My cat had chronic diarrhoea for weeks, and James Wellbeloved turkey wet food stopped it. I wouldn't say it was a 'good food', but certainly not the worst, and, if a cat has IBD, a long spell on it may be a good thing. If your cat's allergen is turkey though, obviously it wouldn't work for him... There may be one ingredient in your cat's previous foods that is causing the IBD. Make an ingredient-list of every single food he eats that gives him diarrhoea. Compare them all. Note down every bowel movement (diarrhoea or normal) and you may find the culprit.
> 
> EDIT: sorry, I didn't explain that very well, there's a lot going on around me. Yes, chillminx is an expert, and has a thread up top about elimination diets.
> 
> If my cat eats anything containing rosemary extract, she has diarrhoea. If I give her anything without it, she doesn't. It was comparing ingredient lists and writing everything down that enabled me to figure it out.


Oh that's a brilliant idea, thank you! I never thought of doing that.


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## Paigeesaurus (Nov 15, 2018)

Sorry it wouldn't let me reply so I'm having to do this on my phone?!

Thank you, I had no idea slow feeders were bad for them. I have been using a shallower bowl now. I've also been splitting up his meals more.
As my other kitty thinks every meal is his last I have to seperate them and monitor them. So I am currently in the midst of saving for the microchip feeders!

Currently I'm buying Wainwright's Kitten Mixed Supersize 32 x 85g Pouches
Do you think it could be the tuna in the packs that is the issue? I began by buying the smaller boxes with only chicken. Which was perfect for a while. I can't remember when I started getting the bigger mixed boxes and his IBD made a return. I think wet food is the best thing for him still. The vets recommended anallergenic royal canin dry food, but I'm far too sceptical to spend a lot of money on something that will only make him worse. Every hypo-allergenic or grain free dry food I've tried has only made him worse!
I will give Animonda Vom Feinsten a try!


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

Paigeesaurus said:


> Sorry it wouldn't let me reply so I'm having to do this on my phone?!
> 
> Thank you, I had no idea slow feeders were bad for them. I have been using a shallower bowl now. I've also been splitting up his meals more.
> As my other kitty thinks every meal is his last I have to seperate them and monitor them. So I am currently in the midst of saving for the microchip feeders!
> ...


 .

Tuna is best fed as an occasional treat. Tuna being a large deep sea fish which eats smaller fish, means the levels of heavy metals and run-off pesticides are quite high in tuna. I rarely feed my cats any tuna.

As his symptoms got worse again once you introduced the tuna, I would cut it out of his diet completely and see if he improves. He may also be better without any kind of fish in his diet.


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## Paigeesaurus (Nov 15, 2018)

chillminx said:


> .
> 
> Tuna is best fed as an occasional treat. Tuna being a large deep sea fish which eats smaller fish, means the levels of heavy metals and run-off pesticides are quite high in tuna. I rarelt feed my cats any tuna.
> 
> As his symptoms got worse again once you introduced the tuna, I would cut it out of his diet completely and see if he improves. He may also be better without any kind of fish in his diet.


I see, I'll start buying the single boxes with just chicken. Thank you.
It makes you wonder why a lot of brands use fish in their products. Associating cats and fish was something I always did before I owned cats of my own!

Thank you again for your advice!


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## chillminx (Nov 22, 2010)

Paigeesaurus said:


> I see, I'll start buying the single boxes with just chicken. Thank you.
> It makes you wonder why a lot of brands use fish in their products. Associating cats and fish was something I always did before I owned cats of my own!
> 
> Thank you again for your advice!


Fish byproducts from the fishing industry which caters for humans, are a cheap source of protein for manufacturers to add to cat food. Beef is another one, also chicken. 'Cost' is the reason why most cat foods contain one or more of these proteins.

But statistically they are also the 3 proteins most likely to cause feline food allergies - because cats have often been fed them every day for years, and that is how an allergy can develop (e.g. in a cat with a sensitive digestion).

In an ideal world cats would be fed a species appropriate diet e.g. small rodents, birds, flying insects, and a baby rabbit now and then. But the prey animals needed for this diet would mostly need to be bred especially for the purpose and inevitably it would make cat food more expensive than it is at present. One can actually buy frozen mice in some pet stores, they are bred for feeding to pet snakes. But to feed a cat a diet of bought in mice would be too expensive for most people.


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