Cat Poop Problem

[MarjoryStewartBaxter]

Sorry, this is long and also contains descriptions of cat poop so please don’t read if you’re not in the mood for reading about my cat’s dodgy guts.

One of our cats has had the squits for over a year now. When it first started the vet could feel a lump in her intestine and diagnosed Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Since then she’s been on varying doses of steroids, Famotidine (reduces stomach acid), had a few courses of antibiotics and tried a course of an immune supressing drug called Atopica.

We tried her on a prescribed diet (can’t remember the name unfortunately) by slowly mixing it with her normal food, but she threw it up everywhere and seemed very unwell

She was painfully skinny when it started but has now put on weight. The lump has all but disappeared, but sadly the squits have not. She does a poo at least 4 times a day and this varies from cow pat consistency to liquid. It stinks to high heaven and we are going through a bag of cat litter per day. The vet has once again taken poo samples and we’re waiting for the results to see if a different type of antibiotic might help. They’ve also taken blood again to make sure the long term steroid use isn’t doing any harm. She seems generally happy in herself, the vet is unconcerned about her general health apart from the poo issue.

Has anyone experienced anything similar? Do you have any recommendations for diet or any other supplement that might help?

Poor girl. Poor you.

Obviously you'll have to wait for the test results - again - but have you considered whether she might be intolerant to one of the foods you're giving her? What food is she normally on?

Oh - and a bag of litter a day seems excessive, even with her problems. What kind of litter do you use and over how many trays?

Thanks cozie

She currently eats Felix (the As Good as it Looks kind). It's not helping the poop issue but everything else we tried made her vomit

When she poops it goes absolutely everywhere so it's impossible to scoop, so we tend to sling the whole tray contents for ease. We're using catsan and the local supermarket only does little bags for some reason.

I don't want to be alarmist but have they biopsied the lump?

Wolfie I missed off the history of the lump biopsy so not alarmist at all

They biopsied through her skin and said the results were inconclusive. We were then booked in for her to have an operation to remove the lump and have it analysed, but on the day the vet talked us out of it and said we should try steroids first. They said if it was cancer the steroids would stop the lump getting bigger, but wouldn't shrink it.

The lump shrank after she started the steroids so they diagnosed Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Her white blood cell count was a little high last time they took blood, but this can be caused by a flare-up of IBD.

I'm a bit about all of the above to be honest, but having no experience of a poorly cat before I don't know if the diagnosis method is normal or they're being a bit crap?

\link{http://www.icatcare.org/advice/cat-health/diarrhoea-cat\Here's} something to read - if you haven't already.

I'm wondering about the AGAIL diet. Have you by any chance tried her on - say - plain chicken or white fish for a short period to see if that will stay down?

I've (luckily) not had a cat with significant food intolerance or IBD problems but I know that other posters have so keep an eye on the thread in case they comment.

PS - until you get the poo under control, have you thought about buying litter (or food) online? It's much cheaper and if you can have someone to receive it during the week, it should be pretty painless.

At the very least, I'd simply talk to the supermarket manager and ask him to stock larger sizes. They usually will if they think they'll sell it - and small sizes in most things are usually pretty expensive.

Would you consider a raw food diet? It requires research to get it right but I've seen pets at home selling ready mixed frozen raw for dogs so I like to think it will catch on for cats too.

There's also high meat content foods like amionda carney (sp?) available fom pet supermarkets online.

There's a lot of people on bengal cat forum who would love to recruit a raw feeder and tell you all about it they scare me.

\link{http://www.zooplus.co.uk/shop/cats/canned_cat_food_pouches/rafine?gclid=CITNq-Hwwb4CFa3LtAod2jMAtg\amionda carny}

I've never tried it though - is it appealing to them?

animonda*

Sheez - I need more coffee.

Heehee cozie, I know that feeling. Thank you for all of the above, that's very helpful

I think revisiting her diet is the way to go, the animoda carny looks like a good option to start with. If I'm feeling brave I will venture over to the Bengal Cat forum!

She did ok on plain cooked chicken, in that she didn't bring it back up but the poop situation didn't change much.

She is such a lovely little cat, my main worry is that she's in pain but the vet keeps saying she is generally healthy apart from the poop.

So she kept the chicken down? She can't live on that alone of course because it's not nutritionally balanced - but how long did you try her on it? If it was only a meal or two, then her system probably wouldn't have had a chance to clear itself if her current diet is a problem.

My instinct would be to go for a high meat diet without grain and it's possible to buy cat foods which are nutritionally balanced but meet those criteria. Have a think about it anyway. It's an easy trial which would be fairly inexpensive and do no harm to her.

My old cat has a sensitive stomach, I've tried her on the Bozita high protein content tetrapak stuff - that goes down pretty well (and stays down), You can also get Porta 21 grain free hard food - haven't tried it but might help if grain is inflaming her IBS?