I know that this is an old post, but sometimes those are very good. I also am dealing with a cat with IBS. He is 10 yrs and was doing ok on Blue Buffalo chicken and brown rice. We had all the bloodwork and tests the vet could think of and tried the very expensive vet limited ingredient Venison. (Can't believe I bought venison, when my husband is a hunter and I have a freezer of venison.) I just started trying any and all cat food until I got on Blue Buffalo chicken and brown rice. That worked for about 6 months. Then he started throwing up again and his stools got looser and looser, until it was diarrhea. I found this thread and bought the Nature's Variety dry Rabbit and 3 or 4 cans of wet (which he doesn't like). I got the new food on June 30th and he stopped throwing up right away, but still had diarrhea. Finally, July 4th he seemed a little better, and today he had a real stool! It was soft, but formed! That was at 10:15 AM and he hasn't gone since. He is eating and drinking well and the kidneys are working fine! Thanks Jonereb and Kittens!

Hmmm from what I can see on the Hills website the i/d looks like a good product but it doesn't look like it has probiotics in it - which is a fancy word for the good, "friendly" bacteria that live in an animal's digestive tract (humans too). Sometimes the antibiotics and/or parasite meds kill everything off - and then the wrong bacteria take up residence and cause problems. In that case it really helps to take supplements that restore the good bacteria. Otherwise, if you just take more antibioltics you just kill everything off again, and you may or may not ever get back to normal. I had some cats from the shelter who left the worst kinds of messes in the litterbox - this stuff I sprinkle on their food helped right away, within a few days. Things are now MUCH better. In fact I'm wondering if one of my guys may have been going outside his box because he didn't like the smell...? Anyway thanks for your efforts & I hope you find the answer (or answers plural).

I have IBS. Diet restrictions vary from person to person. There really is no prescribed IBS diet. Everyone has to experiment on their own. I am fine with sugar and I can do some nuts but not others. Seedy things I have to be very careful with especially with fruit like berries. I can eat seeded rolls if I am eating lots of other bulk at the time. Eat them along and I will pay the price. Fruit skins also sem to affect my digestive track negatively. Tomatoes,grapes and plums are bad. Apple and pear skins are ok in small amounts. I eat gluten and wheat products without any ill effects. Of course they need to run tests and see that he doesn't have celiac or crones. But lacking thiose conditions the wheat/gluten thing is sort of a fad right now. He doesn't need to cut it out for IBS unless he needs to. Even with crones they are no longer stressing special diet. My DSIL's brother was just diagnosed.

Frugal, I've been suggesting this for some time as well; there are soooo many people, especially young people, who have suddenly developed an aversion to gluten for there not to be some connection. My daughter has had a bad stomach for quite some time and had a REALLY bad time this past year. She's had all the tests, and as has been mentioned above, is labeled with ibs as the default diagnosis; I had to remind her this is maybe a good thing considering all the nasty possibilities, but she badly wanted something that could be cured. :) She went on the FODMAP diet (you might want to research that,) with the help of a dietician and is very, very careful about what she eats. She's vegetarian so quinoa is a staple for her, and she's found out the hard way that some prepared foods, even healthy ones, often have gluten in some form in them. For the last month or so she's been following a diet written by a woman who advocates fewer carbs (even healthy ones,) as they are turned to sugar and as has been said above, sugar is a definite irritant. The author advocates the consumption of good fats: olive oil, avacado, butter, (yes!) raw whole milk (yes! even though she hasn't had milk all year,) etc. as she says they serve a purpose in keeping the sugar level even in the blood. (I hope I got that right.) This author is not a doctor, but dd has done a ton of research on the subject and is very careful--she decided to give this theory a try. Her gastro doctor told her that once the gut is messed up, it will never be the same. That isn't to say she won't improve, but it will always be touchy.