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Cat Food Allergy

 

Cat Food AllergyHave you noticed something strange with your cat? Maybe it’s sneezing more often than it normally does. Maybe it’s scratching itself excessively, damaging its beautiful coat or skin. You may be surprised to learn that your cat’s strange behavior could be caused by a cat food allergy.

Yes, cats, like people, can inexplicably develop food allergies at any point in life. After fleas and inhalants such as chemicals, molds, or pollens, food allergies are the most prevalent cause of allergies in cats.

Sometimes a cat food allergy will go away after a while, but much more often, it can be a problem for life. If your cat has developed a cat food allergy, the best way to treat it is to identify the offending substance and remove it entirely from your cat’s diet.

Why Do Cat Food Allergies Happen?

Food allergies occur when your cat’s immune system becomes extra sensitive to a particular ingredient, most likely a protein. A healthy immune system is designed to react to foreign substances in the body to remove them before they can cause any damage.

In most cases, proteins are broken down in the gastrointestinal system into amino acid chains that can be used by the cat’s body. For reasons that are not yet understood by experts, sometimes the body will start to react to the presence of certain proteins or amino acid chains as if they were foreign substances.

The cat’s immune system produces antibodies that help white blood cells remove the foreign substance and releases histamines and other chemicals that allow white blood cells and proteins to do their jobs more effectively. It’s this combination of chemicals that causes allergy symptoms.

How Do I Know If My Cat Has A Cat Food Allergy?

If your cat has a cat food allergy, you’ve probably already noticed that your cat is in a bit of discomfort. Common symptoms include:

• Excessive sneezing, coughing, or wheezing
• Runny eyes
• Ear problems such as ear infections
• Vomiting, diarrhea, or excessive flatulence
• Frequent scratching of the head and neck
• Inflamed skin or skin lesions or abrasions
• Hair loss or general coat deterioration

These symptoms are indicative of allergies in general and not necessarily an indicator that your cat has a cat food allergy. Food allergies most commonly result in scratching of the head and neck, which, over time, causes skin lesions, and loss of hair. In general, these symptoms will not appear overnight. Rather, they will slowly intensify over several weeks.

The best way to determine if your cat has a cat food allergy is to consult a veterinarian if you notice any of these symptoms. A veterinarian can eliminate other common causes of allergies and help alleviate the immediate symptoms that are causing your cat discomfort.

How To Treat A Cat Food Allergy

If your cat is in extreme discomfort, there are steroids and antihistamines that your veterinarian can prescribe that will provide some immediate relief. Once your cat has recovered, however, it is important to identify the offending ingredient in your cat’s diet so that you can remove it completely. This requires you to take your cat off any medications that will alleviate allergy symptoms.

The food elimination diet can help you identify what is causing the cat food allergy, but it will take some time and determination.

First, you must identify all the protein and carbohydrate sources in your cat’s original diet. Most commercial cat foods are made with a combination of different proteins and carbohydrates that may not specifically be identified, but the most common cat food proteins and carbohydrates are beef, pork, lamb, chicken, turkey, eggs, wheat, barley, soy, and corn.

Second, you need to put your cat on a diet with a completely new source of protein and completely new source of carbohydrates. After 8-10 weeks, if your cat’s symptoms go away, you can assume that something in the original diet was causing the food allergy.

Third, you can reintroduce elements from your cat’s previous diet one ingredient at a time every 10 days until your cat’s symptoms reappear.

Eliminating The Offending Ingredient

Congratulations! You’ve identified the offending ingredient. You can now choose a cat food that does not contain this ingredient. CatFoodInsider.com makes this easy to do by providing reviews with an in-depth analysis of the ingredients in all the major cat food brands. Using our website, you can choose a healthy and safe cat food for you cat.