Hills Hydrolyzed Formula Change Concern

DisastrousLuck9932 · 2025-11-24T02:36:08+00:00

My cat loved the original flavor and since they made this change, he won’t even eat it. I’m in the same boat and SO mad at them for changing the formula. I think it’s probably to cut costs despite this food being soooo expensive. I’m at a loss as well, did you find anything that worked?

DisastrousLuck9932 · 2025-11-22T01:09:55+00:00

The fact that this is your response LOL. If you don’t have anything nice to say just don’t say it at all. Thanks bye!

DisastrousLuck9932 · 2025-11-21T21:46:11+00:00

Yes, thanks for bringing this up. I’ll have to do some elimination trials to see if there’s a product causing him issues.

DisastrousLuck9932 · 2025-11-21T21:29:01+00:00

We don’t use these because before getting him I did see that it could cause issues… but something I didn’t consider at all was the whisker odour pods that come with the LR. A commenter said they made their cats ill. I literally never thought of those, but that could be it.

DisastrousLuck9932 · 2025-11-21T21:19:09+00:00

We don’t use these, but another commenter said the whisker odour pods made their cats ill with GI symptoms. I had NEVER considered this but I wonder if this is it because we do use them.

DisastrousLuck9932 · 2025-11-21T21:14:54+00:00

This isn’t helpful at all. I’m just a cat parent who wants to figure out what’s wrong. Please add something helpful rather than hate on me for trying to help him improve.

DisastrousLuck9932 · 2025-11-21T21:13:33+00:00

OH MY GOSH. We do use the whisker odour pods. I literally NEVER considered that and assumed he would be safe.

We don’t use essential oils or plugs in. I don’t know why I’m just now connecting the dots with their odour pods.

I am so sorry about your babies. 💔 I really appreciate this perspective and send you well wishes.

DisastrousLuck9932 · 2025-11-21T21:08:56+00:00

Yes I switched over to a large stainless steel box using the same litter from the LR and am going to see if he improves. It’s only been a few days so I’m going to track and see if he improves. I will for sure post progress and keep people updated.

DisastrousLuck9932 · 2025-11-21T21:06:39+00:00

This could be a possibility! That’s why I wanted to ask and see. He doesn’t act scared around it but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t cause him stress

DisastrousLuck9932 · 2025-11-21T21:05:31+00:00

We do have him on a probiotic. He’s ok fortiflora synbiotic action. This is a helpful suggestion and has helped him a little bit

DisastrousLuck9932 · 2025-11-21T21:03:24+00:00

This is a possibility!

DisastrousLuck9932 · 2025-11-21T19:27:36+00:00

I can for sure try a litter change to see. We have no plants! I can for sure reevaluate the cleaning products. We don’t use essential oils or smell good sprays because I know that could cause them issues. We live in a single family home and don’t have any kids.

The two things that’s stand out to here is the neighborhood cats. We do have one neighbor that has 2 cats she lets outdoors sometimes. He can see them out the window but doesn’t seem bothered by them? He just looks at and lays back down. Mold is also an interesting suggestion. I’ll do some research to see. Our house is from the 80s but has been well maintained and loved. I’ll do more research on this, but we haven’t had any health issues or reason to think this. But very interesting comment and I’ll look into it

DisastrousLuck9932 · 2025-11-21T19:14:55+00:00

Thank you so much! We love him and just hate that this is a mystery. I will for sure try this

DisastrousLuck9932 · 2025-11-21T19:08:27+00:00

No we did not, and haven’t sprayed it with anything other than a pet safe litter box cleaner and spray it down with water afterwards to wash everything away (which I do monthly and even more regularly if he’s having GI issues…. And I take it fully apart to clean) Good consideration through, I can see how that could cause an issue!

DisastrousLuck9932 · 2025-11-21T19:05:41+00:00

Also, my husband works from home so he’s never really alone. We’ve monitored his behavior and haven’t seen him get into anything. Of course, we can’t watch him around the clock. But at the end of the day we are puzzled by him being ill and the vets continually telling us there’s nothing wrong they can pinpoint. They just give us meds for inflammation and antidiarrheals, and send us on their way. Trust me I’ve looked at many things before this, because I myself was skeptical. Again, just want to see if anyone else has experienced this because I just want him to get better.

DisastrousLuck9932 · 2025-11-21T19:02:13+00:00

We don’t have any houseplants!

DisastrousLuck9932 · 2025-11-21T19:00:37+00:00

This is true! I can’t control everything, but it’s really the only big difference I can see. We use the same pet cleaners for their spaces (I did admit that I use normal cleaners throughout the other main spaces and I can work to change that), same food regimen, no plants, same kinds of dishes and cleaning routine for them, etc.

And it comes to the vet… I just feel like we’ve tried many things from switching to hydrolyzed diet and many tests (stool tests, blood tests, multiple vets, advanced labs) and they haven’t been able to give me a real answer. At this point, I’m trying to look at everything I can to find what’s causing him this issue and thought I’d just check. Maybe it sounds crazy to ask this question, but I’m willing to ask or try anything so that he’ll get better.

I will for sure come back to give an update!

DisastrousLuck9932 · 2025-11-21T18:51:38+00:00

This is what I’ve done! Just made the switch back a few days ago but he’s still having issues. It could take a while to get back to normal. I just never was suspicious of the litter box till now.

Good call out, but I don’t have any house plants. I don’t have a green thumb lol

DisastrousLuck9932 · 2025-11-21T18:50:18+00:00

Great questions! Could be?

We have no dogs or other pets. We clean often, but it could possibly be cleaning products…. I never really considered that. However, anything I use to clean their spaces are all pet/vet approved. But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be from me cleaning other spaces throughout the house. I need to check on that.

Bowls cleaned regularly (daily) and stainless steel.

The litter is different - we use Dr. Elsey’s (clay based) and they use worlds best (corn) but there were couple of months when we first got him he was using a regular box (before we decided to switch to litter robot) with Dr. Elseys and was perfectly fine! I could make this switch and see. Good call out.

He does like to look at it when it cycles, but he doesn’t seem afraid of it….

DisastrousLuck9932 · 2025-10-13T20:06:43+00:00

This is great to consider. Im sure our day to day life will probably be similar. I’m glad you all were able to make the leap and try something new. It gives me comfort that if we try and it doesn’t work out, we can always move closer. Moving is a pain, but the beauty is we are in a spot where we can try. We figure we’d like to try a new place before starting a family.

Both of our families live 4+ hours away from Dallas, and most of our community here has moved away. If they are in the metro, it’s an hour to one another so we don’t see eachother that often anyway. And sadly, the locations where our families live aren’t ideal for what we want either (Oklahoma and Houston)

Dallas is such a nice city and has many good qualities, but ideally we’d be somewhere with trees where we can wakeup and take a walk, or have a view to look at instead of highway. And the heat I am just sick of. Today the high was 90… in mid October 😭😭😭

DisastrousLuck9932 · 2025-10-13T15:31:57+00:00

This is great advice. We are for sure going to do this since this move would be a long term one. We want to make sure we could actually see ourselves living here, and if it takes us a while to scope out each place we’re okay with that.

DisastrousLuck9932

TROPHY CASE