Alergias alimentares em gatos com Dr. Jean Hofve

Publicado pela primeira vez:15 de novembro de 2012 Obrigado ao Dr. Jean por tomar o tempo para conversar com Floppycats sobre Alergias Alimentares em Gatos.Dr. O livro de Jean, The Complete Guide to Holistic Cat Care:An Illustrated Handbook, ensinará mais sobre a abordagem holística para a saúde e o cuidado do gato. Jean também aborda Alergias Alimentares em Gatos com a Dra. Jean Hofve em seu site, bem como em um artigo que ela escreveu no Only Natural Pet - "Visão geral das alergias - Parte 1 de uma série de 3 partes". Já fizemos várias entrevistas com o Dr. Jean, fique à vontade para conferir qualquer um deles:

• Alergias a gatos com Dr. Jean
• Obesidade em gatos com Dr. Jean Hofve, DVM
• Doença renal em gatos com Dr. Jean Hofve, DVM
• Conjuntivite de gato e herpes de gato com Dr. Jean Hofve
• Constipação em gatos – Causas, sintomas e tratamento da constipação com o Dr. Jean Hofve
• Alergias alimentares em gatos com Dr. Jean Hofve
• Vacinas para gatos:uma entrevista com o Dr. Jean Hofve

Alergias alimentares em gatos com Dr. Jean Hofve

Gravação de áudio:entrevista com o Dr. Jean Hofve sobre alergias alimentares em gatos (clique aqui) ou você pode ouvi-lo reproduzindo o vídeo do YouTube abaixo:Aqui está uma transcrição da nossa conversa:Jenny :Hoje é 29 de outubro de 2012 e hoje vamos conversar com o Dr. Jean Hofve sobre alergias alimentares. Dr. Jean, muito obrigado novamente por falar comigo.Dr. Hofve: Prazer.Jenny :  No que diz respeito às alergias alimentares, qual é o problema de alergia mais comum em gatos? É comida ou é outra coisa?Dr. Hofve: Bem, se você ouvir os dermatologistas veterinários e gastroenterologistas, na verdade as alergias inalantes são mais comuns. Mas o mais comum é alergia a picada de pulga, depois pólen e ácaros e esse tipo de coisa, e depois alergias alimentares. Mas uma coisa que é um pouco diferente é que alguns dermatologistas pensam que, para infecções de ouvido, quando ficam com coceira nos ouvidos, até 50% são alergias alimentares. gato. Eles podem aparecer no trato GI, que pode evoluir para doença inflamatória intestinal ou até linfoma, então é algo que você definitivamente quer lidar – mas geralmente é diarreia ou vômito – ou eles aparecem na pele como erupções cutâneas e particularmente em gatos ao redor do rosto, a cabeça, as orelhas. Sabe aquele tipo de careca na frente das orelhas?Jenny :  Sim.Dr. Hofve: Esse é o lugar número um que eles ficam com coceira, e eles podem rasgar isso. Não há proteção, e eles colocam seus pés traseiros nisso e simplesmente o rasgam em pedaços. Então é obviamente muito, muito desconfortável para eles. E, claro, como eles estão usando as patas traseiras para coçá-lo, isso está carregando as bactérias fecais da caixa do gato e você tem infecções bacterianas secundárias e você tem uma grande bagunça.Jenny forte> :Sim. Eu vi isso.Dr. Hofve: sim. Aposto que sim.Jenny :  Ok, você listou os três mais comuns. Você disse inalantes, e então pareceu que você disse dormir?Dr. Hofve: Picadas de pulgas. Pulgas.Jenny :  Pulgas. Obrigada. Então isso faz sentido.Dr. Hofve: Lidar com pulgas é difícil. Sem dúvida.Jenny:  sim. Motivo suficiente para me mudar para o Novo México ou Colorado.Dr. Hofve: Colorado é bom. sim. Não há muitas pulgas aqui. Certa vez cometi o erro de me mudar para uma casa onde morava alguém de Connecticut e seu gato trouxe pulgas, e aquela casa inteira estava uma bagunça. Mas não temos muitas pulgas nativas. A vida selvagem os tem, por isso, se o seu gato está caçando, seu gato pode pegar pulgas. Mas é bem incomum.Jenny :OK. Então isso é um pouco fora do tópico, mas o que você fez para se livrar das pulgas naquela casa de Connecticut?Dr. Hofve: Eu bombardeei, fiz bombas contra pulgas. Eu não faria isso agora. Esse foi o meu primeiro ano na escola veterinária. Agora eu mandaria um exterminador entrar porque eles garantem o trabalho deles. Mas você tem que tirar os gatos por um dia enquanto isso está acontecendo. Portanto, é uma verdadeira dor nas partes traseiras e é muito mais fácil mantê-los do lado de fora do que lidar com eles quando estão lá.Jenny :OK. Sim, eu concordo. É bom saber que é um dia porque sempre me preocupo que não estou fazendo isso por tempo suficiente.Dr. Hofve:  Os exterminadores usam bórax não tóxico no tapete e esse tipo de coisa, então não é tão ruim. As bombas, eu me senti péssimo em usá-las. Eu tinha feito isso na Califórnia por anos, é claro, porque morávamos a uma quadra da praia e você podia sentar do lado de fora e ver as pulgas pularem pela porta. Essa era uma situação ruim. Mas no Colorado temos muita sorte de não ter que lidar com isso.Jenny :Sim. Isso é muito legal. Eu morei no Novo México por um curto período enquanto eu estava na escola e meu namorado na época, seu gato pegou pulgas. E ele jurou a Deus que eu os trouxe comigo do avião de Kansas City. Eu estava tipo, não sei se uma pulga poderia sobreviver a uma viagem de avião, mas talvez.Dr. Hofve: Provavelmente não, mas você nunca sabe, eu acho.Jenny :  Então você listou os problemas comuns de alergia. Você pode tocar mais em alguns dos sinais de alergias alimentares? Você mencionou logo abaixo das orelhas, acima da área dos olhos.Dr. Hofve: sim. A coisa mais complicada sobre alergias alimentares é que é difícil diferenciá-las de outras alergias, e nenhum dos testes para alergias funciona particularmente bem em gatos. Em cães, você pode fazer um exame de sangue e testar coisas como alergias a pulgas e ácaros, pólen de árvores, grama, mofo, tudo isso. Esses testes são inúteis em gatos. Em cães, você também pode fazer o teste cutâneo intradérmico, que é bastante preciso em cães. Novamente, completamente inútil em gatos. Então, quando você está lidando com algo que parece uma alergia, é muito difícil dizer qual é. Mas são coisas universais. Eu quero ir para o lado por apenas um minuto. Muita gente, se o gato está colhendo ou está com diarreia, eles dizem ah, ele é alérgico à comida. Provavelmente não. Provavelmente é o que chamamos de intolerância alimentar. Não é uma alergia verdadeira. Uma alergia realmente envolve o sistema imunológico e envolve o alérgeno, por exemplo, o frango é o alérgeno mais comum em cães e gatos porque é o alimento ao qual eles estão mais expostos. E falaremos um pouco sobre como você tem alergias. Essa proteína realmente precisa ser puxada para a corrente sanguínea, o sistema imunológico precisa reagir a ela e começar a criar anticorpos. Em seguida, as células que produzem os anticorpos, as células B, todas descem para o trato GI e se reúnem ao longo do revestimento do trato GI para que tenham uma boa linha de defesa exatamente onde os alérgenos estão entrando pela corrente sanguínea.; eles tentam impedi-lo de fazer isso. Bem, se você tem um trato intestinal inflamado, então essa é uma situação em que você vai ter vômitos ou diarréia. Mas a intolerância alimentar pode causar exatamente os mesmos sintomas e você nunca saberá porque a única maneira de saber é uma biópsia, quais os tratamentos são semelhantes, então por que colocar seu gato em um procedimento de oitocentos ou novecentos dólares. É muito difícil distinguir uma alergia alimentar de outras coisas que causam esses sintomas, então o que eu aviso às pessoas é não tirar conclusões precipitadas de que é uma alergia alimentar, porque pode não ser tão ruim. Pode ser algo mais fácil de corrigir.Jenny :Então, quais seriam algumas das opções comuns de tratamento para intolerância alimentar ou alergia alimentar se você estivesse tentando descobrir qual era?Dr. Hofve: Descobrir qual é também é mais difícil porque o tratamento para ambos é mudar a dieta. Agora, para alergia alimentar, você gostaria de mudar para algo que o gato não tenha sido exposto. As alergias são quase sempre a proteínas e quase sempre a coisas às quais o gato foi exposto ao longo do tempo. Então você sabe, lembre-se daquele comercial idiota de Purina onde a mulher coloca a tigela no chão e o cachorro a empurra para debaixo do tapete porque é um alimento novo, então eles entoam Purina todos os dias. Não. Essa é uma ótima maneira de causar alergias alimentares. Alimente a mesma coisa todos os dias durante anos – isso causará uma alergia alimentar. Portanto, é mais fácil prevenir, mas o tratamento será tirá-los dessa comida. Agora, para intolerância alimentar, apenas mudar de marca ou sabor e não de uma forma organizada em particular, apenas mudar com frequência resolverá o problema. Mas uma alergia alimentar, você terá que mudar para uma fonte de proteína completamente diferente. Os principais alérgenos em gatos são frango, carne bovina, peixe, trigo, milho e laticínios, então leite e queijo e tudo mais. Essas coisas estão na maioria dos alimentos para gatos. Peixes em particular, muitas das marcas realmente boas usam peixe como aromatizante e como fonte de ácidos graxos essenciais. romance que eles não tiveram antes. A reviravolta disso é que existem muitos alimentos vendidos sem receita que são de boa qualidade que afirmam ser hipoalergênicos ou para alergias. Será como carne de veado e ervilhas ou pato ou coelho ou ema ou castor ou o que quer que seja. Mas por causa da forma como a comida é feita e a forma como a rotulagem tem que ser, o estudo encontrou todos os tipos de proteínas na comida que foi chamada de veado. Eles não encontraram carne de veado, mas encontraram frango, encontraram carne bovina, encontraram um monte de coisas. Então, as marcas de balcão, não são tão confiáveis. Mas é claro que as marcas de prescrição são todos ingredientes terríveis. No entanto, pode ser necessário começar com a marca de prescrição até que os sintomas diminuam e, em seguida, você pode começar a adicionar outras coisas e ver como o gato se comporta. Leva de 8 a 12 semanas para ser 100% perfeito. Se você for fazer um teste de dieta para determinar se é uma alergia alimentar. Se for uma intolerância alimentar, a mudança de dieta ajudará imediatamente. A sensibilidade da pele e do trato gastrointestinal antes de uma verdadeira alergia alimentar se resolverá em algumas semanas, mas os sintomas cutâneos levam meses. alimente 100% exclusivamente com uma comida que você sabe que é muito, muito pura, e você não pode ter nenhum lanche, sem guloseimas, sem trapaças, sem derramar frango no chão e o gato pega, nada disso. Então é difícil. Os sintomas da pele são realmente difíceis de esclarecer quando é uma alergia alimentar. Mas basicamente o tratamento para tudo é mudar os alimentos, e é apenas como e em que comida e até que ponto você precisa ser muito, muito perfeito.Jenny :Sim.Dr. Hofve: Porque apenas uma alergia requer esse nível de rigor.Jenny :OK. Bem, isso parece um pesadelo com o meu gato. Puxa, como ontem à noite estávamos comendo comida vietnamita e ele adora o frango dos rolinhos primavera.Dr. Hofve: sim. Então, se for uma verdadeira alergia alimentar, você não pode trapacear.Jenny :Certo, certo.Dr. Hofve: Não há lágrimas no beisebol e não há traição em gatos.Jenny :Sim. Isso seria muito difícil com base em como ele é louco por isso. Mas isso faz sentido.Dr. Hofve: Bem, você vai ter que parar de comer comida chinesa por alguns meses.Jenny :Sim. Isso definitivamente faz sentido. Então, realmente não há necessidade de se preocupar em prevenir alergias?Dr. Hofve: Ah sim, absolutamente. A melhor maneira de prevenir alergias alimentares é não alimentar a mesma comida todos os dias durante anos. Eu recomendo mudar os alimentos com frequência. E a outra coisa que eu recomendo é parar com os alimentos secos, porque existem muitos, muitos mais alérgenos nos alimentos secos porque são processados ​​termicamente, não apenas uma vez, mas duas vezes. E esse tipo de calor faz com que as proteínas se desnaturam, o que significa deformar. Eles ficam todos torcidos e maldosos, e é isso que o sistema imunológico vai pegar primeiro, e é aí que você tem muitas alergias alimentares são de alimentos processados ​​​​por calor. Alimentos enlatados são processados ​​​​por calor, mas a uma temperatura muito mais baixa. Processamento de temperatura de alimentos secos cerca de 250 graus, alimentos enlatados cerca de 160 graus, tão grande, grande diferença lá. E também o melhor, o melhor, o melhor alimento seco ainda é ruim por causa de todo o processamento, a desidratação, os aditivos, os conservantes. Você tem que ter tudo isso em um alimento seco e não precisa ter quase nada disso em um alimento úmido. É muito mais fácil obter um alimento úmido relativamente limpo se você quiser usar esse termo. Meus gatos nunca comem a mesma refeição duas vezes seguidas. Eu uso alguns enlatados e faço cru e uso uma mistura e uso todo tipo de coisa diferente. Eles nem sempre gostam disso, mas na minha casa praticamos o amor duro, e é isso que é o seu jantar. E se você não quiser comer seu jantar, vai ficar com muita fome. E adivinhem, no café da manhã eles comem. As pessoas estão sempre tão assustadas “Oh meu Deus, ele não comeu isso”. Eles não vão passar fome da noite para o dia. Eles não vão emagrecer entre a hora que você sai para o trabalho e a hora que você chega em casa, mesmo que você trabalhe até tarde. A outra maneira de prevenir alergias alimentares é não deixar comida de fora o tempo todo. O trato gastrointestinal de um gato é projetado para comer muito e depois descansar. Então, ter comida, como se a comida seca fosse deixada de fora, ou qualquer tipo de comida fosse deixada de fora e eles pudessem beliscar o dia todo, esse período de descanso natural nunca ocorre. E acho que isso é um problema real.Jenny :OK. Então, como na minha casa, eu dou a eles três latas de comida úmida por dia e eles podem comer metade pela manhã, e eu deixo para fora até que esteja pronto, e então eles pegam outra lata se terminar. Essa é uma abordagem errada?Dr. Hofve: Se você tem um gato alérgico, que é realmente alérgico, provavelmente não é uma boa abordagem. Eu deixava a comida do lado de fora por uma hora e a pegava. Tenho sorte de trabalhar em casa, então, se eles voltarem uma hora depois e estiverem me incomodando, posso colocá-lo de volta. E eu trapaceio também. Às vezes deixo de lado durante a noite. This morning it was completely finished and for some reason that was a good combination for them. But they get all kinds of combinations and not everything is a big hit. I don’t like everything on the menu of any restaurant either.But I wish people could relax about feeding their cats because most of us are on a schedule so it’s easy to put the cats on a schedule. But I find that my cats eat more at certain times a year. They eat more in certain weather. And it’s almost like they eat meat, meat, meat. Every day they eat every scrap immediately. And then after a week they won’t eat for a day. Isso é irritante. I miss my dog because I hate throwing away all that cat food.But it is a natural variation and we shouldn’t expect our cats to eat the same thing every day at the same time. That is not how a cat is designed to operate. If your cat didn’t eat real good this morning, well maybe offer him something different in the evening and try the first food tomorrow. Experiment. My cats eat much better after dark.Jenny :Sim. Well, I was going to say that because one of my cats eats very well in the morning and the other one could care less about food in the morning but likes to eat at night.Dr. Hofve: If you can you can put food out for an hour in the morning and an hour when you get home from work or school, whatever your schedule is, and then an hour before bed.  And they’ll figure that out pretty quick that they better eat the food when it’s there.  And that’s a better way to feed a cat. They normally would eat a number of small meals throughout the day, but they wouldn’t nibble, they wouldn’t graze all day. They would catch two or three mice, go sleep for a few hours, get hungry, go catch a couple of grasshoppers.They would not be on a fixed schedule every day or eating the same type of food every day or eating in the same pattern every day.  I think we put such expectations on cats, I think it stresses them, and stress is going to create more problems than you’ve got already. It’s great to have a schedule because it’s easy for you to remember. But your cat is not necessarily going to abide by that so just don’t freak out if he doesn’t eat one meal.If I ate a big lunch, maybe I’m not going to eat dinner. Or if it’s just too hot or too windy, or unbeknownst to me there was construction by me all day, their appetite is going to change. I think trying to create these artificial situations is also a contributor to allergies and intolerances, probably more to intolerances. I’m still working on that cat poop book, I’m going to say all of that in there.Jenny :Ok good. That is definitely a book that is needed, especially why cats poop outside of the litter box but pee inside of it. Man, I get that all the time.Dr. Hofve: I know it, I know it.  It’s usually, what do they say in computers, operator error.Jenny :Sim. Well that’s the hard thing too, when somebody emails you that, you’re like well can I transport myself into your basement, into your laundry room, then maybe I can tell you. But I have no idea without asking you a billion questions.Dr. Hofve: sim. My partner Jackson Galaxy makes a lot of money doing that.Jenny :Yes.Dr. Hofve: Take video of the whole house, because you have to see the situation. There’s just so many things that we’re all stressed out about and our cats are great shielders and they take on that stuff for us and their kind of species’ weak points are skin and urinary tract, and they hold stress in those places. You get a lot of physical problems from that. We’re a little far off field now.Jenny :Sim. Sorry, but you’re making me think that I want to have a cat resource site link to all this kind of stuff. So I appreciate that.Dr. Hofve: LittleBigCat has a lot of that stuff because whenever I hear the same question five times I write an article about it. So then I don’t have to remember what I said before.Jenny :Well that’s good.  I will look at that.  I never feel comfortable because I haven’t been professional trained to write those kind of articles so that’s why I’d like to have the resource links instead.Dr. Hofve: There’s plenty. Jackson Galaxy’s site is very good too. He’s got a lot of do it yourself home behaviorist tips.Jenny :Ok good.  So what’s the worst case of food allergies or food intolerance that you’ve seen in a cat?Dr. Hofve: I actually had a couple of these. They’re both tortoise shell cats as a matter of fact and they got itchy around their head and neck. And we got most of it cleared up but between their should blade, kind of the back, there was about a 4-inch square patch of skin that they had gone after so horribly that it was scarred, it was weepy, it was bloody, it was thickened, it was absolutely horrible. It was like you took a piece of charred meat and sewed it on to them. It was just awful.Because the skin was so thickened, no internal treatment was going to get to the outside and of course if you put something on it they were just going to rub and scratch and get it off. What we ended up doing for both of those kitties, Vivian was the first one. She was so cute.  But she was a stray. We had a cat clinic and of course everybody that finds a cat, “Oh, let’s take them to the cat clinic.”  Poor Vivian, but we actually did surgery and removed that entire patch of skin. Because there was nothing else to do.We just cut the whole thing out, and of course cats have a lot of loose skin in that area. Made a beautiful incision and it healed. But it was so awful that we were never going to get control of it.  There was no way to medicate it; there was no way to reach it from the blood stream effectively because it was just such a mess.  It was almost like a tumor, like somebody ironed a tumor onto the back of her neck. It was just terrible.  And I ran into another one a few years later and had to do the same thing.Jenny :Gosh, that sounds miserable.  I had a small bout of eczema and I think that’s nothing compared to that description [gasp].Dr. Hofve: You feel so awful for them. They’re just miserable. Cats will tear themselves limb from limb, and there’s not a whole lot you can do about it. I know vets have tried to put little booties on them or tape up their feet or tape baby socks onto their back feet, keep the back claws trimmed and all that, but you know what, they’ll just throw themselves upside down on a rug. It’s so itchy, it’s so itchy, and you know if you have an itch like that you are going to find a way to scratch it. You’re going to find a wall or something to rub it on. It’s really awful.So when you see the first sign of itching of any kind, get on it because it could go downhill so fast. É mau. So let me talk about the conventional treatments for food allergies which of course is steroids. Cats are relatively resistant to the side effects of steroids but you don’t want to condemn a cat to a lifetime of steroids. I’m treating one kitty now, and he’s 20 years old. He’s so arthritic he can hardly walk, but he’s so happy. He’s bright and alert and he watches what’s going on.I spend a lot of time with him and he is not ready to go. We’re now talking about maybe we should do some steroids for his discomfort because he’s 20. We’re not going to ever see the long term side effects. We’re in a hospice situation and in that case anything goes. And I don’t mind if you have a cat that’s in severe, severe discomfort and really stressed out, so itchy that they’re tearing themselves up, yes absolutely give them steroids, short course just to get them comfortable.But you’ve got to work on the underlying cause. There’s another technique called hyposensitivization, works better in dogs of course. But if you know what the allergens are you make them up in little injections and give a teeny tiny amount. It’s very similar to the idea of homeopathy. So homeopathy can be very helpful. Certainly if you have a cat with food allergies we’re getting them off the dry food, right, because that’s a big problem.I remember reading a case that was fascinating. It was published in a journal by a vet that was scientifically oriented. I was so excited. They had put a food allergic cat on a hypoallergenic dry food, with a famous medical prescription kind of food. And she did not respond to that food, it didn’t do her any good at all. So some brilliant person thought why don’t we try the canned version of that. Symptoms disappeared.So dry food and canned food ingredients are very, very different and the dry foods, they don’t work for hardly anything in my opinion. They don’t work for urinary tract stuff, they don’t work for allergies, they don’t work for liver or any of that. The way to treat animals is to feed them what is healthy for them, not what some company has decided they can make a lot of money by marketing it. Personal prejudice there.Jenny :No. No. I understand. I just had a lady tell me yesterday that her cat’s in renal failure and she’s giving him prescription dry food, and I’m like oh, no. And it doesn’t matter what I say, like I would suggest you look into that because it’s going to take the kidneys longer to process that, the vet has convinced them that it’s the right thing to do.Dr. Hofve: Well, the vet would be wrong. But, the vet would have been trained to say that. That’s how it is. Now I do have a pretty extensive article on kidney failure on LittleBigCat.com and I discuss the whole protein thing.  Lisa Pierson, her new food charts, you can sort it by phosphorous content, so you can pick the lowest phosphorous commercial foods.  Kidney cats, no dry food. It’s horrible because it’s dehydrating to begin with. And dehydration is what kills these guys.Jenny :Interesting. That makes me want to go check that out. Legal. Ok, two things I’ve thought about while you were talking. Have you ever tried using aloe vera just as a topical remedy for relief or no?Dr. Hofve: I do not use aloe vera because it contains latex and personally I’m allergic to latex, I can’t use aloe vera, and that’s a prejudice that I have.  If you put something topical on an itchy cat, they are going to scratch twice as much to get it off.  Especially something as water soluble like that, when it dries out it dries the skin and makes it even more itchy.  It’s really tough to treat these things topically unless it’s a really small focal area that you can get something on that the cat can’t get it off. But topical treatments, not very rewarding for food allergies. You’ve got to get to the food. That’s got to heal from the inside.Jenny :I was just thinking more of immediate relief, like dry skin you put lotion on. My mom had a dog that had success with aloe vera but not because of food allergies. He has degenerative disc disease so he drags his heals a lot so they get sore and bloody but she puts socks on him so he can’t even lick off the aloe vera, but it really does help him. And we literally open up an aloe vera leaf and rub it on there and it’s like completely healed in a day. It’s amazing.Dr. Hofve: That’s a whole different situation because that’s a physical abrasion, and what you want to do with a wound like that is to dry it out. So aloe would be good for that.  I avoid putting topical stuff on cats.  There are not very many places on their body that they can’t ingest. They can get it on their feet and ingest it. Cats are so sensitive to so many drugs, even topical stuff. One thing that can help, and I hesitate to recommend it for cats because I know that people like their fingers and their faces attached to them, but bathing them frequently.If you’ve got an oozy kind of damp rashy thing, it can be very helpful, you can use something like Aveeno oatmeal bath, and that is moisturizing and that can help, but I don’t like to leave anything on the skin because then you’re just sealing bacteria in.  My mother was a great one for letting wounds air out, and I haven’t found very many things that my mother was wrong about.Jenny :Sim. My mom was all about that too, especially at night time when you were going to bed, you’d take off your bandages.Dr. Hofve: Exactly.  We healed up real good.Jenny :Yes we did. Ok, so then the other thing that I was thinking of when you were talking was I know that you have had success before with the animal communicators. What about animal communicators helping with food allergies or food intolerances?Dr. Hofve: You can try, but the cat won’t necessarily know what he’s allergic to.Jenny :Ok.Dr. Hofve: They don’t know what the ingredients are in the cat food. I do have a couple of supplements that are helpful. Probiotics have proven helpful in kits and there’s quite a bit of research on that.  Digestive enzymes are a must because if what we are dealing with is an allergy to a protein, if we can break that protein down into its component amino acids before it gets to the blood stream, then there’s nothing for the immune system to react to.So I’m a big fan of digestive enzymes. You can try for diarrhea type situations slippery elm or marshmallow root can be helpful. You mix those with the food and they kind of coat the GI tract. Now there’s a school of thought about will it prevent nutrients from being absorbed.   And yes, it does to some extent. But you can also make a slurry with cold water, make it gooey and give it to the cat between meals, like an hour after eating, to coat the GI tract and soothe it after the food has passed through.Antioxidants and omega three fatty acids are important because they’re anti-inflammatory.  And if you’re worried about the cat is having so much diarrhea that you’re worried about nutritional support, I like blue-green algae for that.Jenny :  Ok.  Do you have, and I’d be happy to link to this in the interview when it’s on the site, but do you have a source of where you typically like to buy those ingredients or supplements?Dr. Hofve: Sim eu quero. I have links in my article on Food Allergies in Cats.Jenny :Ok.Dr. Hofve: And I’ll make sure that those are all up and running.Jenny: OK. Well then I will just link to the Food Allergies in Cats and everyone can access it there.Dr. Hofve: sim. And there are links to links to links that explain all these things, what they’re good for and all that. I would also say while we’re changing diets and stuff, raw foods, raw diets are going to be one of the best things, especially for the kitties with skin issues. Now if you have a cat with an inflamed digestive tract, that has a food allergy that’s manifesting in the GI tract, I would not go to raw first.You can get raw food or home make the food, but cook the meat because when there’s inflammation, the cells are already compromised and bacteria can get into the system much easier. So you want to get the inflammation under control before we start putting in a lot of bacteria, because raw meat is all covered with bacteria. All dry food is covered with bacteria too, so it’s tough. Sometimes I go to the store and I read the labels on every food and I walk out because nothing works. It’s very frustration.Jenny :It is beyond frustrating.Dr. Hofve: But a homemade diet where you’re controlling the ingredients and you’re controlling the amount of heat  how long it’s cooked and you’re controlling every supplement that goes in, that you’re controlling for all the variables and you can make sure that it’s as pure as the driven snow and no pet food company is going to do that like you can do it.Jenny: Right. sim. If I can just get my cats to eat what I’ve made.Dr. Hofve: Like we were talking earlier, the article on Switching Foods, every trick in the book.  I’ve had people write in and say I tried this and it worked and I add it to the list.  Lisa Pierson knew a couple of tricks I didn’t know, I added them to the list. It’s hard. Cats are hard. They’re stubborn.  If you’re getting a kitten or you’ve got a young cat, food preferences are developed in kitten hood. My cats all were given raw food, canned food, scrambled eggs, everything from the time they were young kittens so that they wouldn’t be fussy. And they really are very open to new things.Like I said, they don’t ever get the same thing twice in a row and I’ve never had any kind of problem with allergies and I don’t expect to. If you get stung by a bee, the first time you get stung by a bee is usually not a problem. It’s the second time, after your immune system has been primed, it’s the second that you get these life threatening reactions. That’s how the immune system works.  There are a few things like poison oak that the very first time you come across it you are going to react.But mostly, allergies develop to things that you have had or you have been exposed to that have been around your environment and for some reason, maybe due to vaccination hyping up the immune system, maybe due to some genetics, but it helps to know a little bit about the immune system so you can treat it good and try to avoid the types of situations where you’re going to be at higher risk for forming allergies.Jenny :Yes.Dr. Hofve: Easier said than done, I know.Jenny :Sim. If you could wave your magic wand that would be awesome.Dr. Hofve: sim. There are a few things I’d take care of.Jenny :Me too. Ok, so have you ever heard of NAET?Dr. Hofve: N-A-E-T?Jenny :Yes.Dr. Hofve: sim. The woman’s name that the “N” stands for is an Indian name, but her first name is Debbie. But it’s her allergy elimination technique. And there is a website, VetNAET.com where you can find a practitioner. And that is specifically for allergies and I have found it works really really well. It’s a fairly significant commitment in terms of time and energy and money, and there’s supplements involved.It’s a little bit woo woo, but I’ve seen incredible results with it and I’d recommend one guy in particular in California who does this and he’s added some of his own little special twists to it. His name is Dr. Bert Brooks, he’s in Woodland, California, and he will work long distance with you. He asks for a sample of hair and stuff so that he can analyze them. But it’s a really interesting technique.I’ve had it done on me by several different practitioners and it has been very very helpful. I was allergic to wheat and corn and I’m not anymore which is really convenient because being allergic to both is really inconvenient because they’re in everything. So yes, if you can find a practitioner or if Dr. Brooks can schedule you in, I sure do recommend that. That’s a great system.Jenny :Well good. We tried it on my mom’s dog because I actually did it in one of the many things I attempted to get rid of my thyroid disease, and so we gave it a shot.  I don’t know if it didn’t work because that’s not what he needed or what, but it kind of worked. But also I think as we’ve spoken about before, I’ve gone to an acupuncturist that hasn’t done anything, and then I’ve gone to one that really knows what they’re doing and done awesome, so that’s really cool that Dr. Brooks can do it from anywhere.Dr. Hofve: sim. I lived in Sacramento for a couple of years so I visited him a few times, and I remember standing in his clinic and he uses his wife Melissa as the surrogate so he can get that direct energetic connection, so he had the phone in his hand and he was connected to a guy in New York who was on the phone with a guy in Israel who had his hand on the dog. It’s really interesting stuff. And it does sound very weird but there’s some actually good science behind it and it does derive from acupuncture which of course had several thousand years of science behind it.Yes. Worth a try for these really rare cases. Because I know sometimes nothing seems to work, even hypoallergenic diet, it’s not necessarily a cure all. And it’s very difficult to do. If you can use this, like I said it’s a very significant commitment. It’s not an easy thing to do. If it’s a choice between doing that or taking your cat to the veterinary teaching hospital for every test known to man, I would choose A.Jenny :Sim. Eu também. Less invasive, less trips back and forth. So yes, absolutely.Dr. Hofve :Sim. It’s less stressful for the animal. It’s really an interesting technique. I would like to hear back from your readers if they try it. It would be really interesting to get some stories.Jenny :Sim. Well I’m pleased to hear that you know about it. I wasn’t aware of vetNAET.com, so I’m going to include a link to that as well in the article.Dr. Hofve :Good. Good, because it’s a fascinating technique. It really is.Jenny:Ok, Well I think that covers what I could come up with. Is there anything more that you’d like to add?Dr. Hofve :I think we’ve pretty much covered the basics and then some.Jenny :Ok. Well thank you very much.Dr. Hofve :You’re very welcome.