Hello:

I've posted about my cat's eye lid inflammation before. I took her to the allergist and went through his program for a month. I bought his non allergenic food and kept her inside. He also gave her steroids so that the infection would go away, and we could see if the new regimen was working IF it DIDN'T come back...

This is the THIRD round of steroids she's been given - twice by her regular vet, and once by the specialist... The bill at the allergist was $355, and I spent over $100 for two bags of this food. He told me that if this tactic didn't work, the next one will be even more expensive and more painful for my kitty...

Well, it came back. I let her get real bad again, and then I got her another prescription of steroids. A month's supply costs $12... The steroids give her relief in the SHORT run, but what am I doing to her in the LONG run??

excon

Steroids really aren't the best thing to be playing with. However, I don't personally have an answer on that one, but I do know some people who do. So, if someone else doesn't come up with a brilliant idea first, you might try over at holisticat.com. Given that they specialize in trying to find alternate treatments, they may have some good ideas. (And they probably hate steroids. I've seen one shot of steroids cause diabetes in a cat.)

Now, what I can tell you about is that food... you don't need to be spending that kind of money to get a prescription food. That's ridiculous! It's what the vets have had ground into their heads though. First try to imagine the very concept of needing a prescription to get a food! (If you're allergic to chocolate, do you need a prescription from your doctor to not buy chocolate? Because that's what you're doing.) I suspect all it is, is a food that contains an alternate protein and hopefully has no grains. But there's stuff you can get at a pet shop that doesn't require a prescription and isn't as expensive.

If there's an "allergy" it most likely would be grains, possibly seafood... so what you want is a food with ZERO grains in it (that means canned - I know of no dry food without grains), preferably no seafood, and the best idea is going with an alternative protein, such as duck, venison, rabbit, etc. or at the very least sticking with all poultry. Look at the ingredients and make sure of what's in it.

I don't know where you are though. If you're in the U.S. sometimes these can be found at regular bigger pet stores (as opposed to grocery stores), and sometimes at human health food stores. If you're outside the U.S. I honestly don't know - you'll probably have a tougher time of it. So you'll have to just look at ingredients, and make the priority the order I gave it in the last paragraph. Then you can stop putting money in the vet's pocket for no good reason, not to mention that most prescription foods are garbage ingredients so I don't much see the point. (An exception might be IVD, and they do have a "limited ingredient" line of canned foods, if you can't find something outside the vet's.)