Hi everyone,

My lovely cat Tala has suspected Imflammatory Bowel Disease and has done for a few years now. This presents itself as both vomiting after eating and diarrhea. The vet we went to for her first few years of life did various tests and decided IBD was most likely. She was on various pills and potions and Hills ZD food. She did improve but still vomited a lot.

When I moved house we went to a new vet who suggested Royal Canin sensitive food (or whatever the prescription sensitive one is called). She has been much better on this than on the ZD but still goes through phases of vomiting a lot.

Since getting my puppy and doing lots of research into food and nutrition, I know now that neither Hills nor Royal Canin are great foods. I'm wondering if another change of food might help Tala even more.

I'm wondering if anyone knows what it is about the Hills ZD or the RC sensitive that is supposed to help the dog? I remember the vet saying things about protein types years ago but in retrospect I don't really think that particuar vet knew all that much about nutrition. Alternatively, does anyone else have experience with IBD and what has helped your cat?

I should say here that my cat lives in NZ (and I will be going back to be her mummy again in 6 months - yay!) so not all foods available here are available there.

Thanks!

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Hello! Don't see you very often over here on cat.

Have you noticed that the vomiting is worse with certain meats? Often IBD is related to food allergies. You feed your dogs raw, don't you? Might be something to consider for this little mite too.

Hello Hobbs

I'm really not sure about certain meats. Just had a look at ingredients and ZD looks to be rice and chicken but the RC doesn't really specify a particular meat
RC ingredients: Rice, hydrolysed soya protein isolate, animal fats, minerals, vegetable fibres, beet pulp, soya oil, hydrolysed
poultry liver, fish oil, Fructo-Oligo-Saccharides, taurine, borage oil, marigold extract (source of lutein), DL-methionine.

Like I said she is much better on the RC than she was on the Hills.

Before I got my dog and found this forum, I really just believed what the vets told me about food (funnily enough the first vet sold Hills and the second sold RC.... ) I just assumed that they would know what was best for her, but I now know that isn't always true!

I've been wondering lately if it could even be the cereals she has a problem with.

I feed my dog a mixture of ziwipeak and 'real' raw and am more than happy to go down the same route with Tala. I was thinking the venison ZP might be a good place to start with Tala since it's not a meat she will have eaten before.

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Hills Z/D is normally prescribed more for allergy related illness ie itchiness etc than food intolerance and since both it and RC are hydrolysed proteins ( ie the body essentially will not recognize these proteins and therefore don't induce a reaction ) I think your suspicions about grains is probably correct. You would probably have better luck with Hills d/d than the others-Hills i/d has grains so am not recommending that. This is what I would switch her to. My own cat has IBD and this so far has been the best food. It would be extremely useful to pinpoint what it is that's causing the problems eg grains or indeed another protein. In our case all things point towards beef and grains. Agree with Hobbs about the raw....Apparently there have been excellent results with a complete turn around in symptoms.

Sounds very much as if this IBD has never been fully controlled and this concerns me a bit. Has she ever been on steroids ( though I'm not necessarily recommending them ) because this inflammation needs to be treated through diet or medication. Slippery elm is another one to try. Also with the vomiting, a lot of IBD cats can go on to develop pancreatitis which is something you want to avoid. Unfortunately there's also a link between uncontrolled IBD and intestinal lymphoma, though not all cats develop this!

Thanks for the reply.

She was on steroids (prednisolone) for quite a while with her first vet while she was on the z/d but to be honest while it helped, she still wasn't 'normal'. I haven't heard of d/d but she was on the i/d before the z/d.

The RC diet has definitely been the best thing for her that we've found so far, but like you say I'm not convinced she's as good as she could be. Having said that, she is otherwise well in herself and in good condition, unlike the earlier stages of the illness when she was a little underweight and her coat was dull etc. According to my parents who look after her at the moment, she's mostly fine on the RC but every so often (maybe once a month) she'll have a day or two of vomiting.

The possible side effects of IBD are certainly worrying.

I think I will look at trying her on raw/ziwipeak and see how she does, and also will have a look at the d/d you suggest.

Poor Tala has had a bit of a rough life - she was taken away from her mother too early in my opinion as she was only 5 weeks when I got her! She used to be a bit of a daredevil in her younger days and it seemed like we were at the vet every week! She spent a very unhappy 6 weeks in a crate too after breaking her leg! She's settled down a bit now she's middle-aged (thank goodness)!

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True IBD though can only be definitively diagnosed via a biopsy and even though it sounds likely owing to her response to diet etc it's wise to remember this. There are different types also.

Once a month isn't too bad ( thought it was more frequent ) could it be hairball or just regurgitation? Hills d/d is a novel protein diet though not intended as a permanent one more as an elimination one. Again the response ie where symptoms clear up as in our case does add weight to the likelihood of it being allergen based. In our case stools are fine and no vomiting at all! Looking now for single source protein and see how he is on that!

Probiotics apparently has been very successful in lots of cases!

I'd go with the raw first and see how she responds!

Agree with Ianthi (well, when don't I lol)!

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