Cat pics - cat food allergy!

:wave: After a couple of years of really struggling with Milly over grooming, we have finally cracked it! First we thought it was stress, then we thought it was pain, then finally we worked out that it was something dietary. Cue a very long period of trial and error (it takes several weeks for a previous irritant/allergen to stop causing effects) and we have finally had a breakthrough. It would appear that the sensitive little soul is intolerant to cat food :roll: Yes, even hypoallergenic cat food :roll: And foods which don't have any common ingredients. Eventually swapped her onto a raw food diet (I'm using natural instinct rather than making it myself) and voila - one fully furred cat, for the first time in about 3 years!

In theory, you're supposed to re-challenge with the suspected problem food after about 8 weeks, as this can confirm the diagnosis, but as my vet says, by that point, most people are happy that things have settled and don't want to. She was right, I didn't want to - but I went away overnight a while back and my darling OH inadvertently fed her some biscuits instead of her normal food, and when I came back, she had pulled the fur off her hip again. So it's definitely the food that is doing it!

From this:


to this:


In 3 months, just by swapping to a raw food diet!

That's brilliant.

Scary what food intolerances can do.

Milly is a true beauty! I am glad you have found the cause of her over grooming :thumb:

My lots' favourite are the duck and chicken - they are also rather fond of the freeze dried snacks!

The difference is amazing!

Is there a link to the food you are feeding, as my cat Misty has to take steroids every day to stop her food allergy causing problems. it is all over her face that is the problem.

I am just coming to realise how tricky it can be to identify specific dietary allergens :shock:

You have a Cat allergic to all Cat Food. I seem to have a Rabbit allergic to all Rabbit Food :roll:

fantastic well done for cracking it! she looks so healthy (and beautiful!) now

fluffiebunnie said:

Is there a link to the food you are feeding, as my cat Misty has to take steroids every day to stop her food allergy causing problems. it is all over her face that is the problem.

Click to expand...

http://www.naturalinstinct.com/categories/Cat-Food/

Mine will only eat the lamb and chicken :roll: Apparently the venison one is good for allergies because it's a novel protein they won't have had before, but one of mine won't eat it and the other is very unenthusiastic about it so I've given up on all but the lamb and chicken now - although someone else I know gets the venison for their cat (mixed with a little water as it's quite chewy) and loves it! The hardest thing is finding a stockist, you can order it directly but the P&P is expensive; I found somewhere about 20 minutes away and now they order it in bulk for me when I ring them. Amazingly, it actually works out cheaper than 'normal' cat food too, but it is more faff because you have to have enough freezer room to store it and you have to remember to take one out to defrost before the previous one is empty.

Yes Jane it's a complete nightmare - one mouthful can set them going for weeks, so it is extremely difficult to judge whether something is causing a problem or not!

Santa said:

http://www.naturalinstinct.com/categories/Cat-Food/

Mine will only eat the lamb and chicken :roll: Apparently the venison one is good for allergies because it's a novel protein they won't have had before, but one of mine won't eat it and the other is very unenthusiastic about it so I've given up on all but the lamb and chicken now - although someone else I know gets the venison for their cat (mixed with a little water as it's quite chewy) and loves it! The hardest thing is finding a stockist, you can order it directly but the P&P is expensive; I found somewhere about 20 minutes away and now they order it in bulk for me when I ring them. Amazingly, it actually works out cheaper than 'normal' cat food too, but it is more faff because you have to have enough freezer room to store it and you have to remember to take one out to defrost before the previous one is empty.

Yes Jane it's a complete nightmare - one mouthful can set them going for weeks, so it is extremely difficult to judge whether something is causing a problem or not!

Click to expand...

I know !!, it's crazy as you'd think that once the offending food is out of their body all should be OK. But oh no, it's not like that at all !!

I am just thankful he's not allergic to hay !!

That's amazing, so glad you found the cause. She looks like a different cat, and she probably feels it to, bless her little paws

Wow, what a huge difference!

It terrifies me, yet also makes complete sense, how much food impacts EVERYTHING! I'm intolerant to gluten and dairy and it makes me so ill, but people just don't understand it does more than give you an upset tummy. I've never really heard of animals being intolerant or allergic to things, thank you so much for sharing!

Thank you for sharing Alison, that's very interesting. Especially since we have just this week been to the Vet with one of ours who keeps scratching himself around his neck and leaving some unsightly bald patches. It looks like he may perhaps have a food allergy as there are no other obvious reasons for his scratching ie stress or mites. He's been put on a course of steroids for now, and if they don't help then we will be looking into his diet, which I'm dreading as both our cat's are so flipping fussy :roll:

Actually, I would be interested to know which biscuits your OH gave Milly while you were away - just in case we happen to be feeding the same.
.

bunniemum said:

Actually, I would be interested to know which biscuits your OH gave Milly while you were away - just in case we happen to be feeding the same.
.

Click to expand...

On that occasion, the hypoallergenic ones - although not for Milly, obviously.

Over the past couple of years I have been trying various different things, I think it depends what it is that they're intolerant to. It dawned on me (eventually) that the problem started when RC changed their range, she had been happily on Royal Canin outdoor mature for a few years, then they changed it to 7+ and 12+. I put her on the 12+ and, with hindsight, that's when it started. I looked at the ingredients and one of the main ingredients is wheat.

So then we moved onto a range of wheat and grain free foods and it did improve, but it didn't get completely better. So we tried orijens, which cost a fortune, james wellbeloved, hi-life, applaws, bozita, some of the dirt cheap supermarket ones which are grain free (one of the sheba's from memory) before moving onto the 'proper' hypoallergenic diet from Royal Canin. The hypoallergenic diets use hydrolysed protein which is supposed to stop allergy because it makes the protein unrecognisable - but it didn't work for Milly. We wonder if it's something daft like the potato/rice, seaweed or any form of cooked meat that she can't tolerate. We've never managed to isolate any specific causative ingredient because of all the things we've tried, there's not been a single common ingredient between them all, so she's obviously intolerant of more than one thing. It definitely got better when we went grain-free and it was better with wet than with dry, so I would say those are an obvious first port of call. She also reacted badly to piriton, which it turns out contains maize starch and lactose, either or both of which could have caused it! I found that you can see some initial signs of improvement within a couple of weeks of a change, but it takes weeks and weeks to work it through - especially because we had no idea what was going on and my OH was very disobedient and kept on feeding her the things he wasn't supposed to, which kept on springing it back up again and making it hard to work out what is going on.

In summary, it's a complete nightmare, good luck!!

Santa said:

On that occasion, the hypoallergenic ones - although not for Milly, obviously.

Over the past couple of years I have been trying various different things, I think it depends what it is that they're intolerant to. It dawned on me (eventually) that the problem started when RC changed their range, she had been happily on Royal Canin outdoor mature for a few years, then they changed it to 7+ and 12+. I put her on the 12+ and, with hindsight, that's when it started. I looked at the ingredients and one of the main ingredients is wheat.

So then we moved onto a range of wheat and grain free foods and it did improve, but it didn't get completely better. So we tried orijens, which cost a fortune, james wellbeloved, hi-life, applaws, some of the dirt cheap supermarket ones which are grain free (one of the sheba's from memory) before moving onto the 'proper' hypoallergenic diet from Royal Canin. The hypoallergenic diets use hydrolysed protein which is supposed to stop allergy because it makes the protein unrecognisable - but it didn't work for Milly. We wonder if it's something daft like the potato/rice, seaweed or any form of cooked meat that she can't tolerate. We've never managed to isolate any specific causative ingredient because of all the things we've tried, there's not been a single common ingredient between them all, so she's obviously intolerant of more than one thing. It definitely got better when we went grain-free and it was better with wet than with dry, so I would say those are an obvious first port of call. She also reacted badly to piriton, which it turns out contains maize starch and lactose, either or both of which could have caused it! I found that you can see some initial signs of improvement within a couple of weeks of a change, but it takes weeks and weeks to work it through - especially because we had no idea what was going on and my OH was very disobedient and kept on feeding her the things he wasn't supposed to, which kept on springing it back up again and making it hard to work out what is going on.

In summary, it's a complete nightmare, good luck!!

Click to expand...

Oh my goodness :shock: well our Vet nurse warned us that it will be erm.. hell!!!. :lol:

Thanks for your detailed reply - Two things have immediately sprung to mind to look into. Firstly, their usual diet has always been various wet foods or fresh cooked (we have to change it often as they quickly get bored) mixed with RC for Siamese. However, over the past few months we have been mixing in RC dental as well; ever since they both went for their vaccinations and it was revealed they both have mild gingivitis. Unfortunately can't check the pack ingredients for them at the moment as we decanter the biscuits straight into a container, but will look it up. Secondly, he had a piriton the other evening, and for the next hour or so he trotted around the house foaming from the mouth & retching :roll:. Thought it was odd as our other cat has taken them without a problem in the past. Of course this could all be pure coincidence, but at least it's given me something to think about and work on.

Thanks again, and glad you finally got to the bottom of it with Milly.

RC siamese:http://about.royalcanin.co.uk/catalogue/feline-breed-nutrition/siamese23680/#demoTab3

Dental: http://about.royalcanin.co.uk/catalogue/feline-veterinary-diet/dental-dry23815/#demoTab3

Both have really high amounts of maize and wheat in them...in all honesty I think that would be a really good place to start!

The foaming at the mouth with the piriton could be because it wasn't swallowed properly - cats react like that to things that are very bitter if they get them in their mouths. With Milly, the piriton really helped for a couple of weeks and then she suddenly started getting massively itchy ears which she tore red raw. I thought it was just the problem getting worse again - until I went away for a couple of nights and she didn't get her piriton because my OH can't get them down her, and when I got home she was leaving her ears alone. So my OH has a lot to answer for in Milly's eventual diagnosis!! Now it's all better and he can see that it's better, he does as he's told now :lol:

Has he had blood tests - raised eosinophil levels might indicate some kind of allergic reaction.

Santa said:

RC siamese:http://about.royalcanin.co.uk/catalogue/feline-breed-nutrition/siamese23680/#demoTab3

Dental: http://about.royalcanin.co.uk/catalogue/feline-veterinary-diet/dental-dry23815/#demoTab3

Both have really high amounts of maize and wheat in them...in all honesty I think that would be a really good place to start!

The foaming at the mouth with the piriton could be because it wasn't swallowed properly - cats react like that to things that are very bitter if they get them in their mouths. With Milly, the piriton really helped for a couple of weeks and then she suddenly started getting massively itchy ears which she tore red raw. I thought it was just the problem getting worse again - until I went away for a couple of nights and she didn't get her piriton because my OH can't get them down her, and when I got home she was leaving her ears alone. So my OH has a lot to answer for in Milly's eventual diagnosis!! Now it's all better and he can see that it's better, he does as he's told now :lol:

Has he had blood tests - raised eosinophil levels might indicate some kind of allergic reaction.

Click to expand...

Goodness they do have a lot of wheat in them; don't know why I didn't know this...I suppose it's because I never thought it might be a problem before. Also the dental one has traces of something called 'pentasodium triphosphate' which when googled comes up as some kind of industrial cleaning sustance :shock: You'd think RC would one of the better ones, we've tried them with James Wellbeloved and another one I can't remember the name of before, but they're really not fussed and it just gets chucked eventually.

He's not had any blood tests just yet, but had an antibiotic jab and has been put on a course of steroids until next week, with a view of re assessing how things are then.. Hey ho looks like it could be fun ahead! :lol:

What a beautiful cat. So glad you soved her allergy problem.

This is a weirdly bumped up old thread!

So it is :lol: I just stumbled across it again while searching for the link to share on another thread, so I'll do that now