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Here's a story for those of you with cats. In July one of my cats suddenly started regurgitating everything he ate and drank. I thought he had gotten into my neighbors garbage and it would pass but it went on for 1 week with me getting more and more worried as time went by. He seemed fine except that he could not eat or drink without it coming right back up. All sorts of tests were done until finally I took him to a specialist and they came back with the diagnosis of IBD. Recommended treatment was lifelong steroids. Silver lining here was that having been a patient of Matia’s for over 3 ½ years now, I knew that steroids were the last thing I wanted to do. When I briefly explained my own circumstances to the vet she surprisingly gave me a couple of recommendations. I knew that probiotics were the first thing I needed to implement the vet also recommended grain free canned food. My cats have always been on a “high quality” dry food as it was always recommended to keep their teeth clean. I’ve since done some more research and have learned that there is no such thing as “high quality” dry food when it comes to cats. They do very poorly on grains, which is the bulk of what a dry food is. So I thought I’d share this info with all of you in case you have a cat and are feeding them either dry food or a canned food with grains. Cats will suffer from many of the same diseases that humans develop from eating highly processed foods, diseases like diabetes, obesity, IC, cancer and IBD. I’ve since begun taking my cat to a holistic vet who also practices Chinese Medicine. She directed me a website developed by one of her colleagues, http://catinfo.org which I found very helpful in learning more about the specific dietary needs of cats and choosing a good food. The holistic vet also told me to avoid beef, fish, lamb, shrimp and lobster as these are often highly allergenic to cats. Chicken, Turkey, Rabbit and Duck are better choices. The good news is that it’s been 2 ½ months since my cat was first diagnosed and he has been doing great.
Carol
Cats
Very interesting story. Steroids would have suppressed the symptoms but not tackled the causes of yr cat's illness, and he would then have suffered the side-effects of the steroids as well. Glad your cat is doing well.Thanks for website rec. I have 2 cats and it has been trial and error with their food.I've finally found a free-range organic supply of chicken for them as hate chicken battery farming. I also give them ordinary fish tho so I will need to think again. Its great that you have found a holistic vet. I've been looking for one for a while but the ones I've found are too far away. When my female cat had a UTI our vet gave antibiotics and I gave them to her because I didn't know what else to do. I really feel antibiotics should be the last resort - esp after my own experience of taking them.
pet probiotic
I also didn't know what else to do just a few months ago. When you or your animal is having an urgent health issue you don't really have the luxury to search out alternative treatments. I have read that some of the holistic vets will treat long distance (like Matia!) so you could look into that. You might also want to give your cat who had the antibiotics a pet probiotic just to get her back in balance, I use petdophilus by Jarro and get it at the health food store. My cat had also had antibiotics a couple of times for infections due to fighting - this was back before I knew Matia and when I used to think that antibiotics were not a problem. Good chance that was a contributing factor in addition to eating the equivalent of junk food all the time. I've yet to find an organic grain free cat food, with the exception of the raw chicken by nature's variety that is sold frozen. I hate the factory farm thing too and like to support more humane ways of raising food. I think pet food is typically made from whatever can't be sold to people.
Carol
Thank you Carol
Carol,
My cat had been going through alot of the problems discribed in the article. I always new dry cat food was bad but I didn't know they were all bad. I thought if i mixed it up with some tuna he would be fine well my Cat was not fine. I have started doing the things sugested in the article and my Cat has stoped having anxiety and puking. I was already giving him the probiotics but it just wasn't enough thank you so much Carol.
Nicole