Is it at all reasonable to just try treatment and skip the expensive diagnostics for IBD?
The problem with the prednisone trial involves the possibility of intestinal lymphosarcoma (also called lymphoma). This is a type of cancer that produces chronic diarrhea or vomiting just as inflammatory bowel disease can. Lymphoma is temporarily responsive to prednisone but the response is short-lived. Exposure to prednisone will make the lymphoma much more difficult to diagnose should biopsies be obtained later. Plus exposure to prednisone can lead to resistance to other medications. (This is less of a problem for cats, but in dogs even a few days of prednisone can make a lasting remission impossible to achieve.) In short, if one tries prednisone without confirming a diagnosis, harm can be caused should a lymphoma be present instead of inflammatory bowel disease. Colitis: Inflammation of the large bowel. Colon: The part of the large bowel between the end of the small intestine (the ileum, part of the small bowel) and the rectum Duodenum: The first portion of the small intestine after