Kitten with Bad Diarrhea & Now Not Eating

I adopted a cat from a litter of three that were found in a friend's shed where the mother abandoned them. I got this kitten about 1 1/2 months ago. She (Ebony) did fine for several weeks, but would not eat dry food so I changed her to wet food and she did fine. Her two other litermates are fine. About two weeks ago she started having diarhea so I took her to the vet and they did a fecal test and determined she had roundworms and no inner eyelids on the top which they said was a birth defect. The vet said to put in artificial tears twice a day which I have been doing. She also had a pot belly which they said was another sign of worms. They gave me medication in a syringe (dewormer Strongid) and I gave her the first dose and the second dose is not due for three more weeks. They said it would take time for the medication to work and could take as long as three weeks or so.

Last night I fed Ebony and she did not eat much. This morning, the same thing. Yesterday I got tired of cleaning up poop everywhere she went, so I put her in a cat cage with a litter box and a soft blanket to lie on. I feel really bad about that because she meows a lot to get out and I feel sorry for her!

I have three other cats and two are females about 3 years old, one of which is a registered Lilac Point Siamese and all three cats are very healthy. The other cat is a male. The famales always try to clean her butt as she is just not very good at cleaning herself, and I do it about 4 or 5 times a day with baby wipes. The cats are wondering why she is locked up and I miss having her around . . .

Could her lack of eating be a sign that the worms are dying and she only needs to eat less, or is something else amiss? Please give me any help that you can. My vet is expensive and things are really tight right now, financially, so I am hoping that it is not something worse than worms.

Any help you can give me for Ebony will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Elizabeth

The wormers themselves are poison, so the cat might be reacting badly to them. If she doesn't get better soon, I'd call the vet and see if you can work something out. At the very least, the vet needs to know about this reaction.

Is there anything else the cat could have gotten into?

This is not really a reaction to the dewormer. The diarrhea was why I took her to the vet in the first place. She also said it could last for another 3 or so weeks after the initial application.

Ebony seems better because I just got her out of her cage and she ate with her normal appetite and she appeared to have had no diarrhea since this morning, which is a good thing. The dewormer must be working as the diarrhea used to be black and oily and now what little there is is brown and wet looking which is as it should be.

Thank you Ondine for your advice. I really appreciate it.

Elizabeth

I just realized you said she was a kitten. She might need Bene-bac - that's a tube of gell you can get at PetSmart that has gut bacteria in it. I had three foster kittens with horrible diahrrea that it worked wonders on. They were treated with antibiotics and that didn't work. But the Bene-bac did.

"Black and oily" stools could possibly have been blood, although I'm sure the vet checked for that.