[Chris]

Hi Eve,

Breaking down your kitty’s illness signs, the yeast growth in the ears, if it is found to be a recurrent problem, certainly could be a food protein allergy. However, even indoor cats can develop environmental allergies. Even in the most closed-off-to-the-outdoors home environment dust and storage mites that live in everyone’s home are a significant source of environmental allergy for pets.

The recurrent anal sac issues are unusual for cats, we do see this a lot in dogs though. In general, we can see anal gland disease associated with chronic environmental or food allergies. If they were actually infected for a long time before adoption, the tissue in the glands may not be normal from chronic inflammation, tissue thickening, etc., and that may contribute to recurrence all on its own. They may require regular expression.

The eye discharge can have many other causes and I would not consider food allergy to be part of that. Viral infections (cats can be chronic carriers and can show signs during times of stress, like a new adoption) are more common causes in cats vs. allergies. If allergies are responsible, I consider this more like what people experience with seasonal environmental allergies (but viral causes I think are still more common in cats).

Any diet trial is just that, a trial. My own cat has IBD and she did not like the first two foods I attempted to transition her to. And then one that she liked and did well with caused diarrhea in a colleague’s cat who also had IBD. Any new diet can unfortunately cause diarrhea because it’s a change in nutrient digestion. Some cats handle that more readily than others. If you have not, You can consider trying to retransition to the prescription diet over a longer period of 2-3 weeks. Or, transition to a different hypoallergenic diet. Addition of fiber may be helpful and you could talk to your vet about that. Diet trials can take 8 weeks to be able to gauge efficacy. Unfortunately for the anal sacs, the diarrhea is not helping them to express normally. Addition of fiber, again, may be helpful.

It is very important, if you have not, to make sure to provide your vet with feedback about the diet concerns you’re seeing.

• This reply was modified 6 months, 4 weeks ago by  Chris.