What to do when vet recommended cat food causes digestive issues
Veterinary-recommended cat food brands can sometimes cause severe digestive problems like vomiting, diarrhea, and bloody stools. Choosing a food your cat actually tolerates lets you avoid these constant health issues, even when it goes against your vet's brand advice.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1switching to alternative brands like Applaws that cats tolerate without health issues
- 2combining canned food in the evening with dry food in the morning and freeze-dried snacks
- 3Choosing a prey animal like a rabbit instead of a cat if a vegetarian pet is desired
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Our vet recommended to give our cats Royal Canin. They had been eating it for 2 years, and a whole ton of digestive issues came from very beginning: pooping with blood, vomiting, diarrhea with some kind of mucus, it was not good.”source ↗
“Our vet said that it’s not the best and they recommend getting back to Royal Canin as it is “the best quality out there” based on vet’s words, but I really do not want to go back to it as it’s constant digestive issues for the cats…”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 3Why is choosing dog food so confusing?
- 3How do I pick an adult cat food with clear ingredients?
- 2Cat won't eat new prescription food
- 4How to get a cat with food allergies to eat
- 2How to feed cats with different diets without expensive microchip feeders?
- 2Affordable urinary tract cat food alternatives to vet brands