HELP! Giardia nightmare!

[underthestarrysky]

My rescue kittens have giardia (I am pretty sure that at least one of them must have been adopting already having it) and we got a positive result from the stool sample we sent away a few months ago. Prescribed a 3 day Panacur course by the vets which improved things but now the diarrhoea is worse than ever! Has anyone successfully stopped their cats from reinfecting themselves and beaten this awful parasite!?

Would be thankful for any advise!

What food are they eating? Is it grain free? We got a pro-kolin paste from the vet when one of mine had diarrhoea and it helped too

Pro kolin is good, but proplan fortiflora which you sprinkle over their food is excellent. My kitten has it everyday and it really works.

Yes they are eating grain free but the runs are caused by the parasite... any ideas on how to get rid of it and prevent re-infection? They are on round 2 of Panacur now but I don't want to subject their poor systems to endless rounds of meds. I have ordered some probiotics to help their guts recover. I am also bleaching their trays after every poo (tmi!) They are long haired and so I am worried about the cysts getting stuck to their fur and infecting but I don't want to stress them out by bathing them!

I have just beaten the giardia nightmare myself, I hope I never hear that word come out my vets mouth again!

I only have one kitten but she needed two rounds of panacur (granules for easiness sake), one 5 days and one 7 days, spaced two weeks apart.

I would try not to worry too much about the chances of reinfection, google is an absolute nightmare for reading horror stories and I got myself into such a tizz reading it. First round of panacur I steam cleaned the tray and changed the litter every day, steamed the floors, boiled her food and water bowls. Second round I gave up as I couldn’t keep up with it. She’s now cured, hurrah!

I wouldn’t bath them. It doesn’t kill the giardia and it thrives in wet places so bathing really won’t help. Probiotics do and my girl had white fish only for 4 days on the first round by recommendation of the wet. Worked a treat!

Also panacur is quite safe for extended use. We never went with the antibiotic as she was on antibiotics already for campylobacter but we didn’t need it anyway

Thank you- that is helpful! I wonder whether I should buy a steam cleaner...

I haven’t bothered to steam clean this time around, but I preferred steaming to bleaching! Maybe a second hand one for this occasion? Ours is the £50 vax one from Argos but they all do the same job