Storm's & Starr's Holistic Vet Visit:Update Starr's 2nd Holistic Visit 8-23-07

**Emeraldgreen** · 08-13-2007, 10:15 PM

Hi, you mentioned in your first posting something called 'pill pockets'. Do you mind my asking what those are? It sounds like something you stuff a pill into that a cat will eat but I've never heard of it before.

**Emeraldgreen** · 08-13-2007, 10:30 PM

Does Starr have IBD or IBS? I missed the original post as to why he is seeing a holistic vet. My cat Jimmy does and he is on prednisilone and has been for years. He has very, very soft stools and though he is mostly comfortable, I'd like to get him off the pred if I could. He also has asthma though but I do have a pump for that so he could get pred for his asthma that way rather than in a pill that goes into his bloodstream and throughout his body. Anyway, I thought I'd ask just in case it was IBD because it sounds like you are having great success with the holistic approach.

**Catty1** · 08-13-2007, 11:24 PM

These are Pill Pockets. You can get them from your vet, or some pet stores have them. Next time you're on the mainland....

**Emeraldgreen** · 08-13-2007, 11:49 PM

WOW!!! I can't believe I haven't seen those before! Brilliant. I'll see if I can find some and try them out. Tiger is fairly suspicious of new things though so he might not go for the bait. lol It's worth a try though. Thanks!

**krazyaboutkatz** · 08-14-2007, 12:00 AM

Originally Posted by Emeraldgreen

Does Starr have IBD or IBS? I missed the original post as to why he is seeing a holistic vet. My cat Jimmy does and he is on prednisilone and has been for years. He has very, very soft stools and though he is mostly comfortable, I'd like to get him off the pred if I could. He also has asthma though but I do have a pump for that so he could get pred for his asthma that way rather than in a pill that goes into his bloodstream and throughout his body. Anyway, I thought I'd ask just in case it was IBD because it sounds like you are having great success with the holistic approach.

Hi, Starr has colitis and both of his large and small intestine are infected with eosinophlic cells. My vet said that this causes food allergies but I just looked up a link and it said that this would be Eosinophilic IBD. He's been on several different allergy diets and in the beginning they work as long as he takes his 5mg of prednisolone in the morning. Over time they stop working though and he starts having mushy poos and sometimes very runny diarrhea.

The holistic vet said that once his system becomes used to the new food that it then starts going haywire. I think she said it's due to the eosinophilic cells and the fact that his intestional system isn't functioning properly. I can't remember exactly what she said. With the 3 herbal supplements, they'll help to heal his insides and hopefully over time he'll only need to stay on a grain free diet. He's continuing to do very well.

For any one that has a cat with IBS or IBD, I'd highly recommend that you make an appointment with a holistic vet. I hope that this helps and that you'll also be able to get your cat Jimmy off of the prednisolone. It may be harder though since he's been on it for years. Starr has only been on it since about mid March of this year. He also had a surgical biopsy to confirm his diagnosis. Good luck.

**Emeraldgreen** · 08-14-2007, 12:24 AM

Thanks for the info. I'm going to look into the eosinophlic cells to learn more about it. Jimmy was brought into the SPCA after he was found wandering the streets skin and bones and the worst case of diarrhea they'd ever seen. The vet hospital that he was taken to put him in isolation for a month and they treated him with metronidazole and then put him onto prednisone. He got better and then he turned into the 'clinic cat' at the hospital and lived there for almost a year. They needed to find a home for him so I took him and that was about 5 years ago.
I have his records and a real diagnosis was never made. It was assumed that he had IBD and that if pred. helped then he should stay on it. As well, his breathing problems, a soft wheezy sound was assumed to be asthma and they told me that the pred. should help that too. Then they switched him to prednisilone because it was better for his system than prednisone. Anyway, I'll try and cut this short.... I ended up taking him to my vet a few months ago (a different vet) because he was losing weight and just didn't look good. They did some xrays and didn't find anything. I told the vet that he had asthma and she said that it was strange because the xrays didn't show asthma symptoms like narrowing of the airways. The thing is though that he does wheeze and has done so since they found him on the streets and the pred does seem to help and the asthma pump that I use on occasion does seem to help too but I think it's time that I took Jimmy to a holistic vet as you suggested. He stopped losing weight and looks healthy now but he still has wheezy sounds and still has very soft stools. His dosage of pred is 2.5mg every other day so it's not that high but if he doesn't need to be on it than I'd like to get him off it. I'm wondering if his condition of IBD and asthma are connected and are actually something else entirely.
I did switch him to the Innova Evo a few months ago and it really seemed to upset his stomach. He was racing to his box so many times a day and very urgently and his stools were like water so I switched him back to Medi-cal Preventive.

**krazyaboutkatz** · 08-14-2007, 12:37 AM

EG, If you did want to have him properly diagnosed you'd have to take him off of the pred for a while or else the test results wouldn't be accurate. This is one reason why I decided to have Starr diagnosed before I started giving him the pred. At my other vets, he was on such a small doseage of pred that it did nothing for him. I've also read that over time pred dosen't work as well as it did initially. Maybe your Jimmy has something else. I hope that you'll be able to find out what his problem is and that he'll be able to get the help that he needs to stop his diarrhea and asthma problems. Good luck and please keep me updated about him.

**CathyBogart** · 08-14-2007, 11:47 AM

Is this Dr. Cera you're seeing? She is an amazing lady!

**krazyaboutkatz** · 08-15-2007, 12:05 AM

Originally Posted by CathyBogart

Is this Dr. Cera you're seeing? She is an amazing lady!

Yes, I guess this is the same lady that you're thinking of. Everyone seems to call her Dr. Sara instead of using her last name which is Skiwski. She's the holistic vet that's at Adobe on Tues. and Wed. evenings. I saw her at her location in Cupertino. She's so nice and such a compassionate doctor. She looks so young but sure has a lot experience and really knows her stuff.