Cat food allergy medication

There is no specific medicine that can cure cat food allergy. Currently, there are two types of clinical medicines - one type is symptomatic medicine to relieve itching, swelling, diarrhea and other allergic symptoms, and the other type is auxiliary conditioning medicine to regulate immunity and reduce the frequency of attacks. None of the medicines can replace the core intervention method of "avoiding allergens".

I also received an emergency call last week. The owner tried the newly bought freeze-dried venison on his blue cat. In the middle of the night, he found that the cat’s face was swollen like a bear that had just been stung by a bee. He was squatting in a corner and scratching the tips of his ears until blood dripped, and he was wheezing. For such an acute attack, don’t think about slowly treating it with conditioning drugs. First, give symptomatic drugs to suppress it.

Second-generation antihistamines commonly used for cats, such as cetirizine and loratadine, are available. Based on body weight, they are about 0.5 mg/kg, and only once a day is enough. However, I should mention here that different veterinarians have very different preferences for antihistamines. Some colleagues around me are used to prescribing loratadine, saying that it has few side effects, while others prefer cetirizine, saying that it is more clinically effective. In fact, this is essentially because this type of drug affects individual cats differently. The difference is really big. The North American Veterinary Dermatology Association has previously made statistics. The second-generation antihistamines can only relieve itching in cats with food allergies by 25% to 40%. Some cats will stop scratching after two hours, and some will remain swollen after eating for three days. It really depends on fate. Oh, yes, never give first-generation antihistamines such as chlorpheniramine, especially to elderly cats, which are prone to drowsiness and urinary retention. There are also people who give cats compound cold medicine to relieve nasal mucus and reduce swelling. This is absolutely not okay. Most of them contain acetaminophen. If the cat eats it, it will cause acute liver and kidney failure, and it will be impossible to save it.

If antihistamines are useless, or if the allergic reaction is particularly severe, like the face swelling that affects breathing, hives all over the body, or even bloody stools, don't refuse hormones. I have met too many owners who talk about the discoloration of hormones, saying that taking them will cause femoral head necrosis, polydipsia, polyurination and hair loss. In fact, these are side effects that only occur when long-term and large doses of hormones are used. During the acute allergy period, prednisolone is used at a dose of 1 mg/kg. If it is used continuously for 3 to 5 days and then stopped, these problems will not occur at all. There was a previous owner of a gold-grade cat who was allergic to the cat and had ulcers on his chin from being scratched. He still refused to take hormones and ended up having to take antibiotics instead. The cat suffered a terrible crime and it was completely unnecessary. Of course, some veterinarians will recommend using safer intracellular anti-allergic drugs such as oclacitinib. The disadvantage is that it is expensive, 30 to 40 yuan per tablet. It is much more effective against food allergies than antihistamines. Families with a sufficient budget can give priority to this drug.

If the cat is only severely scratched locally and has no systemic symptoms, it can also be combined with topical medications, such as fluocinolone acetonide cream applied on the unbroken rash, which will relieve the itching quickly. However, the cat must wear an Elizabethan ring to prevent it from licking into the belly. There are also many veterinarians who recommend taking an anti-itch medicated bath containing oatmeal ingredients once a week. There are also some people who believe that the root cause of food allergies is in the intestines and bathing is useless. My own experience is that as long as the cat does not resist bathing, bathing will indeed lead to less scratching and reduce the probability of secondary infection. There is no harm.

After talking about emergency medicine, some people must want to ask, is there anything that can be taken long-term to reduce allergic attacks? It does exist, but it's really not a miracle drug. For example, there are currently many studies on pet-specific probiotics containing Saccharomyces boulardii or Lactobacillus reuteri. Taking them continuously for more than 3 months can help repair the intestinal mucosal barrier and reduce the severity of allergic reactions. However, there are also clinical data showing that only about 30% of cats can feel the obvious effect. Don’t believe those who say that eating probiotics can cure allergies. They are purely IQ tax. There is also high-purity Omega3 fish oil. Choose one with an EPA content of more than 60% and give it at a dose of 100mg/kg of EPA every day. It can reduce the body's inflammation level and heal faster when allergies occur. I eat it all year round for my own allergic puppet, and I can feel that it scratches a lot less frequently. However, be careful not to buy the kind of pet fish oil that costs more than ten yuan for a large bottle. Most of them are made of low-quality scraps and have excessive heavy metals, which will cause stomach upset.

Many owners come to me and ask me, is there any medicine that can help cats eat whatever they want without being allergic? Really not. A puppet owner spent more than 2,000 yuan on a so-called imported desensitizing medicine. I took it and saw that the ingredients were multivitamins plus corn starch. It was a complete lie. Currently, food allergy desensitization injections for cats are still in the clinical trial stage, and there are no qualified products on the market. Don’t waste your money.

In fact, I have come across so many cats with food allergies. As long as I take the time to do a food elimination test to find out what they are allergic to and strictly avoid food, some cats will not need allergy medicine for a year or two. Instead, I was thinking about what magic medicine to give the cat every day, but I was too lazy to avoid taboos. The cat often suffered from swollen face, scratching, and bleeding. To be honest, there is no shortcut to raising an allergic cat. Less fussing is better than anything else.