Cat with diarrhoea (sorry)

[WinterCarlisle]

Hi everyone

We’ve been adopted by a lovely little cat who’s clearly been living rough for a long time. She rocked up in our garden in October: no chip, no collar, emaciated and despite lots of enquires with lost cat websites etc there’s been no sign of any owner. So clearly she’s now ours .

She (we’ve named her Penny) has had diarrhoea since she arrived. She’s had several trips to the vet where she’s had an industrial dewormer, 3 lots of probiotics, antibiotics and steroids. A full blood screen shows nothing abnormal except for slightly raised inflammatory markers. Physical examination is also unremarkable with no abdominal tenderness and decent teeth. The vet estimates her to be about 11.

I initially figured that Penny’s diarrhoea was probably linked to having had to scavenge food for God knows how long and possibly as a result of her gut getting used to decent food. But it’s still persisting and she goes about 4 - 5 times everyday. And not always in the litter which with small children is really challenging…….

I’ve been conscious about not fiddling around too much with what she eats but it does seem that the “better” the food, the worse she is. Plain fish, chicken, Lily’s Kitchen type food definitely seem to make it worse so at the mo she’s just on Felix. Although the vet said her teeth are ok she definitely seems to find biscuits hard work.

She’s putting on weight and looks million times better than she did. In all honesty I think if she hadn’t come here she’d probably be dead by now . She’s clearly been loved as she’s very sweet and affectionate.

Any suggestions pleeeeease!!!

Thanks loads

Does she still go out? Could a neighbour be feeding her saucers of milk?

We had a neighbour that did that to ours with awful effects!

Have they tested for giardia with a poo sample?

@Boomboomackalackalackaboom - no she doesn’t go out. I don’t want her to waste calories on keeping warm, if that makes sense! When she first arrived I thought she’d die. She was like a breathing skeleton .

@thecatneuterer no! The vet didn’t mention this. I always see you on the cat threads. Is this something we should do? I don’t know anything about giardia

Thank you both so much

Yes, that's generally the first thing to do in this situation (well, maybe worming is first, but this is a close second). It's a simple test done in house and, (not particularly fun fact), exactly like a lateral flow test except the vet is using a shit solution rather than a saliva solution:)

And if it is giardia then a course of tablets sorts it out in a matter of days.

Excellent! I shall never look at an LFT in quite the same way…..thank you so much. I’ve just read up on giardia and it really fits. I’m going to speak to the vet first thing. I really hope this will sort poor Penny out as it can’t be much fun for her

If it isn't giardia then it's worth paying to have a sample analysed by a specialist lab (I think it's in Glasgow) as there are other things that can't be tested for in house. Your vet would send a sample off and the result takes around 10 days. The lab charges around £80 and I don't know what the vet's mark up would be, but it's certainly worth considering.

Fab thank you. I’ll def organise the giardia sample tomorrow - if they do it in-house then hopefully we’ll know ASAP and Penny’s butt will be a whole lot more pleasant

Any update?

My ndn has just swapped their bum - exploding dcat from dry to wet food after he has suffered his whole life... Cured him!! As simple as that! Even the vet didn't suggest that!

@Santahasjoinedww

My ndn has just swapped their bum - exploding dcat from dry to wet food after he has suffered his whole life... Cured him!! As simple as that! Even the vet didn't suggest that!

Well that's a good point. I ruled out a dry food problem in this case as the OP says she's tried a boiled chicken and fish only diet for a while (which is usually recommended in these cases) and it had made no difference.

Generally though dry food does seem to be the culprit in a lot of sensitive gut cases - even the grain free, expensive and sensitivity ones. If I have a cat with a squitty bum the first thing I do is stop the dry food. In fact I find that feeding exclusively Butchers Classic tins sorts out the problem in around 75 per cent of cases.

My little cat was very 'loose' - she's now on Royal Canin gastrointestinal food, which sorted her in a day! Am wondering now, after reading the PP, if I should have just switched her from dry (Iams, which she was having with her fosterer) to wet food! Don't want to tinker too much now though.

I always thought wet food made cat stools looser than dry food, 🤔

Hi everyone, thank you for all your comments, you’re all so helpful!

@thecatneuterer - I have the stool collection pot! However my vet wants a 3 day collection. Are you familiar with this? Are the Butcher’s classic tins a good idea to try? I guess they’re similar to Chappie which was recommended for our rescue dog when she had a dodgy tum (are you sensing a theme here?)

@sunshinesupermum - although Penny’s teeth seem to be in fairly good nick for her age and background, she does seem to struggle on biscuits: she doesn’t seem able to chew them properly, our vet gave us a sample of some GI ones but she really couldn’t manage. I think they were the same ones as @BatshitCrazyWoman uses.

@Santahasjoinedww I REALLY hope we have as effective a cure as your neighbour’s bum exploding cat!

We never bother with three days of shit - we just use the one sample, but I suppose I can see the rationale. Although our vets won't use a sample if it's over 48 hours old normally so I'm not sure really ... But he/she is a vet so must know what they're doing.

Well yes Butchers Classic does seem quite good for this problem. But if you've already done a few days on boiled chicken/fish without success then I don't think you are going to find it will help in this case.

I was a bit surprised too tbh. I did tell her that she goes about 6 times a day so quantity was never going to be an issue……They just gave me two pots.

Yes to the tests mentioned above. In the meantime, boiled and mashed pumpkin or butternut squash will help

The Royal Canin food my cat has is wet food. They do a dry version too. This was the vets suggestion, before collecting 3 days of poo 🤣 The vet gave me the pots, but said first it was best to check to see if her food wasn't agreeing with her, and it appears it wasn't.

Batshit I think my DCats problem is with her food too. Her stool became very soft after vet suggested Hills dry food to me. Will check next week to see if it should be changed.

Evening! Just had the results of Penny’s stool sample: it’s negative for all parasites including giardia. The only thing they found was e-coli. The vet has said the next steps would be another stool sample for PCR and an abdominal ultrasound scan under sedation.

She’s not keen to try empirical antibiotics at this stage.

Grrrrrrr. I was SO hoping it was giardia!!!! . I feel so sorry for poor Penny: she still has bloody / greenish diarrhoea several times a day and often all over the floor. As we have young children we’re having to keep her in one small room and she’s a sweet friendly cat who would much rather be on someone’s knee.

Any other suggestions? Thank you all so much!

Oh no. I was really hoping there would be an easy solution. I'm all out of ideas unfortunately.

@thecatneuterer - so cats get clostridium difficile? I’m a human nurse and greenish diarrhoea in one of my patients would make me think c-diff

I haven't heard of cats getting it. But I'm not a vet so not qualified to comment.

I’ve just been through the ‘what’s causing it’ squitty cat scenario 🙄 firstly, have you done Panacur? Panacur is the first line treatment for worms and giardia. Giardia doesn’t always show up in stool samples if it’s not actively shedding cysts.

After that, we had e-coli and campylobacter show up in stool samples, antibiotics sort of helped but not for long.

My eventual solution was royal canin gastrointestinal and (bear with me because this is where it gets a bit woo) colloidal silver 4 times a day. She’s right as rain and back to her bouncy self so I’ve put the silver in her water for a few more days rather than giving it directly.

Other than that I can reccomend pro-kolin paste, nutriflora and vitamin B complex (Cobaplex)

Good luck!

Thank you, @Internetio. That’s really helpful. Where did you get the colloidal silver from please? She’s had 3 lots of pro-kolin paste, panacur and steroids, all with zero effect. I’ll try anything! The vet is pretty stumped as her bloods, including inflammatory markers, are all ok. She really fitted the picture for giardia so I was surprised, and disappointed that it was negative although the vet has suggested a PCR.

I spent all last night reading vet articles on feline diarrhoea - such fun!