# hill's feline i/d



## brite (Feb 27, 2004)

hey guys... just wanted to see if any of you out there has had experience with feeding your cats *hill's feline i/d* after your kitty's had some tummyaches. the vet put tyson on it recently to help him along with some stomachache that he had, but i'm guessing that it's kind of bland and he's not taking to eating it (he'll only eat it when i throw in a bit of other wet cat food that he loves -- read: that smells strong). any recs? just wondering outloud since the hill's website (http://www.hillspet.com/zSkin_2/pro...older_id=2534374302037389&bmUID=1126199998418) states the following:


> Supplementation with other foods is unnecessary and may decrease the effectiveness of the food.


any thoughts?[/b]


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## moggiegirl (May 15, 2005)

When my cat Spotty was first diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease he was prescribed the Hills i/d diet and he did not find the canned i/d palatable and I had to mix in a forbidden food, Wellness to make it taste better. So I started searching for an alternative since I could not believe that Spotty should be forced to eat this for the rest of his life, the message I was getting from the vets. I then tried the Eukanuba low residue diet and Spotty did not like the canned stuff from that diet either and I found it odd that for a canned food it sure had a lot of carbohydrates in the form of corn grits and it wasn't soft. So again, I searched for another alternative and I found out about the IVD Limited Ingredient diets and it's the only prescription diet that Spotty actually enjoys eating. The IVD diets come in rabbit and pea or venizon and pea and the canned food is very palatable. So you might ask your vet about the IVD diets if you cat needs to be on something bland. At least this type of bland food has lots of flavor and taste. Spotty loves the venizon and and the rabbit and my other kitty Rosie will finish the rabbit off Spotty's plate. You want something your cat will get excited about at meal time. Don't let your vet tell you that you have to feed your cat something he doesn't like as if you have no other choice. You do have choices, you just have to demand alternatives(politely of course). An alternative to the IVD diet is the Natural Balance Venizon and Pea diet. It comes in both dry and canned. The canned is a little dry, not enough juicy broth and that's why I feed the canned IVD and the dry Natural Balance. But the canned IVD has by-products while the Natural Balance doesn't. You'll just have to test them out and see what appeals to your cat the most. 

This is where I argue with vets. When they make you feel like you have to feed your cat a yucky tasteless diet for the rest of your cat's life. I really had to be persistent or Spotty would be hating meal times to this day. Now he loves meal times. The Natural Balance/ IVD Limited Ingredient Diet combination works for him. 

Good luck.


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## brite (Feb 27, 2004)

moggiegirl, thanks... i will ask them about it. yeah i've been throwing in some wellness too just to get him to eat it. i have a feeling that his stomach/intestinal inflammation may have been due to eating too much of the natural balance hard food that i bought -- for some reason, his stomach has not taken well to that food AT ALL. so no more hard food for him for now, the other kitty can have it since she has no probs with it. 

i will give the vet a call to see if they have the IVD that you mentioned. if not, do you think it would hurt him just to have a mixed diet of the i/d and whatever premium wet food? it seems that would still be more digestible than his usual diet of hard kibble.


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## moggiegirl (May 15, 2005)

I wouldn't. Your cat would be better off fed a high quality canned food that is easy on his stomach that he would also enjoy eating. You could try the canned Natural Balance Venizon and Pea just to see if he likes it. And if he won't eat that, then search for an alternative. Most cats like the IVD Rabbit and Pea. If your vet doesn't carry it you may need or order it from somewhere or buy it from another clinic.


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## siamesecat (Jul 3, 2005)

I am currently switching Jake over to the Venison and Green Pea low allergy food by Natural Balance. He was also told by the vet that he would need to eat Hills Z/D for the rest of his life. So far he likes the Venison and Green Pea and he hasn't had any adverse reactions. I do one day on one day off. If it continues to work fine, I will probably switch him over to it once my bag of Hills is gone. I also mix with Wellness just to make the food last a little longer.  I am doing it because I just don't think Hills make a quality food and it is so unjustifiably expensive for what it is.


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## moggiegirl (May 15, 2005)

Just in case you have to order something your vet doesn't carry. 

www.vetcentric.com


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## brite (Feb 27, 2004)

cool, thx. i will call the vet today to see if they carry ivd... if they don't have it, i may just have to kind of mix it until he's done though. it's not a permanent feeding thing, just a way to get over his stomach inflammation, and i only have about 8 days left. we'll see how it goes 

he's down to just a teeny bit of wellness and mostly i/d now though so i may be getting him to finally like it!


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## moggiegirl (May 15, 2005)

That's good, That it's only temporary. I didn't realize that. Then mixing a little Wellness for flavoring should be fine. In that case he doesn't need the allergy diet because he'll be eating regular cat food in no time. My cat, Spotty has to eat special cat food for the rest of his life because regular cat food is forbidden by the vet. I also have to give him half a prednisone pill every other day for the rest of his life. These are vet orders.


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## brite (Feb 27, 2004)

aww... how old was spotty when he was diagnosed with his inflammatory bowel disease? i've noticed that since tyson was a kitten (and he's 2 now), he's definitely had a more sensitive stomach than tyra... so i figure if i don't set him on the right track now, i may be dealing with something like that in the future. i guess i'm sticking to all wet for him from now on (i did it for about 6 months to help him shed some extra kitten lbs, and he did well on it... and once i switched back to some dry, the natural balance dry food did not agree with him at all).

give spotty a hug & a belly rub for me... what a trooper you've got there


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## moggiegirl (May 15, 2005)

Only 4 and this year. It's kind of weird that he was diagnosed with this disease because for the most part he doesn't have symptoms. His occasional vomiting is from eating dry food too fast. Feeding more wet food has helped a lot, now he doesn't vomit very often. He has no diarrhea. 

What happened was that sometime during this year he went for a few days not eating and he was vomiting everything up and even vomiting and not producing anything. That could mean he has it. So I took him to the emergency room and he was kept overnight and rehydrated with fluids. They found the cause of his not eating to be an inflamed nasopharynx which explained his refusal to eat during that time. Cats rely highly on their sense of smell to eat and if they can't smell they have no appetite. They actually have a weaker sense of taste than we do. Cats like tuna because it stinks, not because it tastes good. So they sent him home with me the next day and gave me an appetite stimulant and said to feed him whatever he likes and he started eating and I thought that was solved. Things were getting back to normal. 

The next day I got a message on my answering machine from the veterinarian at the Internal specialist place next to the ER saying, I have Spotty's intestinal biopsies here and he has significant inflammatory bowel disease and told me to give him a call to see how he's doing and then call my regular veterinarian to make an appointment. That's when he was prescribed Hill's i/d and I had to argue about, "Why do I have to feed this bland canned crap?" until I found something better for him. 

Right now he really acts very healthy and happy and active and he runs around pretty well and I find myself asking, Does he really need to be on prednisone for the rest of his life? I wish I didn't have to give it to him and he seems fine. Does he really need prescription cat food? He could probably eat any high quality cat food. But then I think about how that trip to the animal emergency and all the tests to see what was wrong led to a $2,000.00 vet bill, OUCH! And one time when he didn't get his pill for a couple of days his stomach moved to induce vomiting and it wasn't from just eating dry food too fast. So I guess it's better safe than sorry. So I follow vet orders but I'm not too strict about it. I alternate between the rabbit and venizon so he gets variety. He gets treats like cooked or freeze dried chicken or Whiskas cat milk or an occasional taste of Rosie's regular cat food. I just won't tell the vet he gets treats. He's doing fantastic now so I can spoil him.


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## brite (Feb 27, 2004)

wow, sounds like spotty has been thru the ringer for a young guy! yeah i can't imagine having to feed a steroid to my kitty so young, but i'm glad to hear that he's doing better. it's interesting what you said about how it all came about... tyson used to vomit from eating dry food too fast, so i put a golf ball in his bowl to slow him down. then he would get diarrhea periodically when i fed him too much of that new natural balance dry food. then he stopped eating it, and here we are now with the temporary hill's i/d diet. which, he sniffs (with his mouth open of course), and decides that it isn't stinky enough, so i have to add some wellness/evolve/chickensoup/nutro in a stinky non-chicken/turkey flavor. hopefully by switching him to an all-wet diet will help, and i can avoid the kitty IBS with him. 

thanks for all your help  the info on this board is invaluable as always.


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