Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Diet

[emily_the_spoiled]

I would like to ask for everyone's help on this. One of my guys (Tanner) was recently diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease (by biopsy so it is true). The vet has prescribed a special diet for him. The wet food will be relatively straight forward to change over, but I was actually thinking of going with a home made diet. Has anyone tried this and are there any recipes that are recommended? (Yes, I know that I will have to add vitamin supplements to it.)

[catmandu]

When I Make Food For The Found Cats, Its Usually A Little Piece Of Steak.
I Dont Know If Taht Would Be Good For You Cat.
We Are Praying That Your Cat Will Be Well Soon, And A Happy Healthy Cat Agagin.

[Russian Blue]

I would highly recommend you find a holistic vet in your area. They will have the most experience and can monitor your cats progress and answer any questions you may have regarding raw feeding. You can do a search for one here at this site:Holistic Vet Search (http://www.holisticvetlist.com/)

There are also Yahoo message groups dedicated to people you feed raw diets to their pets. You can pick from this list: Yahoo Raw Groups (http://groups.yahoo.com/search?query=cats+raw)


Here are some website resources to get you started:

Holisticat (http://www.holisticat.com) (huge archive on this site, will leave you reading for hours) ;)

CatInfo (http://www.catinfo.org)

CatNutrition (http://www.catnutrition.org)

About.com (http://cats.about.com/cs/catfood/a/bybrawdiets.htm)

At the bookstore, Dr. Pitcairn, Pat McKay and Anitra Frasier seem to be the leaders on the raw food topic. Here are some books for you to consider:

Anitra Frazier - The New Natural Cat

Pat McKay - Reigning Cats and Dogs

Richard H. Pitcairn, DVM and Susan Hubble Pitcairn
Dr. Pitcairn's Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs & Cats

[Tubby & Peanut's Mom]

Looks like Kass has offered some great links. I think Kelly (Noah's Mommy) tried the raw diet with Micah, but I also know she's not on much these days so you might try PMing her.

Good luck with Tanner. I hope you find something that works for him. :)

[tomkatzid]

Our Kelcee has IBD also. But she won't eat anything but dry food, no human food unless its like cookies or cakes, which she can't have. So she is on IVD duck and green peas. It may be informative to look at the links posted to see if there is more that I can do for her. Thanks for the info.
Katz

[emily_the_spoiled]

Thanks for all the information. I spent last night doing some reading on the websites Kass provided. I decided to try a raw diet and see if it helps. Instead of doing it from "scratch" I ordered one of the products where you add water, meat, and veggies.

So I will let everyone know how it goes. I suspect this is just going to be a matter of trial and error to find something that works and he eats...