Completely missed this post sorry Scarlett.

He's 14 months old, saw one more flea after the one I mentioned here then nothing since. He only comes out if we're supervising, i.e. putting out the washing, chatting with neighbour, gardening (though rarely!). He loves being out so I try to let him come out for a good solid time maybe once or twice a week. Will be harder when the weather turns...

So, I finally spoke to the vet today. It seems Chicken's stool tests came back negative which is good, I guess, though it now implies that he has an intolerance to some foods.

He's been on the Hills d/d diet for ten solid days, with nothing but a malt treat or bit of boiled chicken here or there. He's not happy I must say, but he is eating it. The vet said I should keep him on this food for another 4 weeks, then introduce one flavour of one brand of food and keep him on that for 2 weeks, then switch to a new flavour/brand. This makes complete sense except my gut feeling is telling me it's not to do with his food.

Ali82, if you read this, I know your kitty is on a single-protein diet. How's that going? In your opinion do you think I should do what the vet is saying? I told her that I had some single protein foods in my recent food order (though if any of you saw that thread then you'll know I did not get 2 weeks of any one flavour/brand!) I think I should just bite my tongue and listen to her, if my gut is right and it's not diet related then I can get back to giving him his normal food and it's not like the Hill's is doing any irreversible damage.

Right?!

Out of interest, could it be that Chicken just had a passing bug that gave him bloody poop for a few days?

Hi thank you for asking about my cat, we thought she was making some decent improvement although still a long way from being right, she had almost stopped going for herself and her twitching had decreased significantly although she was still scratching her face and ears. However in the last couple of days she has taken a bit of a step back and started attacking herself again (woke up to a nice big lump on her tail this morning) add to that her diarrhea is back after nearly 2 months of solid poop and I think we may be due a trip back to the vets soon

As for Chicken, that's good news about the tests, the key question is are his stools back to normal now? If so and he is still eating the d/d i'd stick with it for a little while longer although 4 weeks seems like overkill to me (i'd probably wait until he's been completely symptom free for a week), food intolerances unlike allergies will usually rectify pretty soon after the ingredient they are intolerant to is stopped.

If he does have a food intolerance I agree with the vet about then slowly starting to introduce one flavour of one food to test his acceptance to it however assuming his symptoms are all cleared up it would be usual to firstly switch him back to his old diet to confirm he does indeed have an intolerance. In my opinion it seems entirely possible that he just had a bug, short term constipation etc and for that reason whilst it may then take a bit of time to rectify again I would want it confirmed. After all he's got a big order of German food he could be working his way through

Gosh I'm very surprised the vet permitted the boiled chicken ( as per older post ) if the purpose of the single-source novel food as part an elimination diet, and this sounds likely. The Hills d/d should be fed exclusively with absolutely no additional foods, even treats! The idea behind a novel diet is to prevent the allergic reaction responsible for the symptoms which are triggered by formerly fed foods foods, thus confirming ( or ruling out) the 'presumptive' diagnosis of IBD in the process! Out of interest how are stools at present? Any blood or mucus?

Hey, yep, shocked me too, even though she'd initially put him on the wrong Hills food too Well today I mentioned to her that I'd given him some boiled Chicken as she'd recommended to do to entice him to eat his food (he was so upset with it by the 4th day!) She said that as long as it was fed in between meals then it would be fine. I'm not sure about this. But anyway I did say to her that he'd been fed chicken as a topping on the Hills and she said that if he's tolerated this then it shouldn't be a problem to continue. The deal with the malt paste/treats is that she said I could continue as he needed them for his furballs. WHICH I think may also have caused the problem. His next few stools after the blood and mucus (all normal and solid, just bloody and mucus-y!) were massive and contained considerably large chunks of fur! Otherwise everything is back to normal..