Any help would be appreciated - sick cat

I'd like to begin with the fact that we did take our 11 year old house cat to the vet; and have now spent thousands of dollars on tests, but to no avail. I have sugar gliders and I post problems on their site, so my mother suggested I find a cat forum to see if anyone has any ideas.

The only symptoms my cat has is diarrhea, her stomach lining is inflamed, and she seems to have a b12 deficiency (we keep bringing her to the vet for shots). We have done blood tests that all came back normal. Her liver, gall bladder, etc, is all normal. She does not have pancreatitis. This has now been going on for about a month. We have tried changing her diet, but she still has loose stool that my mother describes as "a puddle." Our vet thinks it might be a bacterial infection, but that doesn't make much sense since she has never been outside and that would have shown up in her bloodwork. We also have two other cats that have not been infected and are as healthy as can be.

If anyone has any information that can help at all it would be greatly appreciated. Shes wasting away (she has lot a considerable amount of weight) and we cannot find a thing wrong with her!

Has she been tested for coccidia or giardia?? I know she's not an outside cat, but you would be surprised by what can be tracked inside on your shoes.
Does the feces smell different? I assume a fecal test was done, did that show anything abnormal??
Food allergies can cause inflammed stomach and intestines, but usually result in runny stool, liquid stool from a food allergy is not as common.

The most important thing right now is to keep her hydrated. With diarrhea, they can become dyhydrated very quickly, which can be life-treatening. Is she drinking/ eating normally?

Has any x-rays or ultrasound been done?
How is her appetite (despite wasting away)?
Has her thyroid been tested?

A few things come to mind, one I have dealt with personally.

IBD/IBS
Hyperthyroidism
Intestinal Lymphoma

Discuss these possibilities with your vet.

Yes, both an xray and ultrasound where done, thats how they found her stomach lining was inflamed (sorry if I wasn't specific on that). Her thyroid is also fine. Shes drinking a lot, but we have been brining her to the vet every 2 or 3 days so they can pump her with fluids by iv. She used to have a fish allergy which went away over the years and that was the first this we suspected, so we changed her diet, but still nothing.

The first thing that jumps out at me is the possibility of giardia, coccidia, and tritrichomonis foetus. All of them can be tough to find, since they aren't in every bowel movement. All of them are treatable, but they can all do a cat a lot of damage in the meantime.

Another possibility is some poison in the house, perhaps something as simple as a new houseplant.

This may be a long-shot, but my 12-yr-old cat developed a raging case of chronic diarrhea about 3 years ago, and it turned out to be an allergy to grains in his food. And he had previously had no problems with them. I switched to a grain-free diet and he improved almost immediately. I was amazed because I had spent a lot of money having a vet guess that he had either a pancreas problem or IBS and put him on some expensive drugs to no avail. He doesn't need them now. Hope your kitty improves!

I hope you find the answer soon.

The vet put her on a babyfood diet for now. So if it is diet related at all it should clear up.

Exact same thing happened with my baby! All the vets could do was spend my money with no answers! I even put him on baby food too, even the diarrhea medication gave him the squirts!

What worked for him was I put him on Dick Van Patten's Natural Balance Limited INgredients diets dry food. They will give you free samples if you ask them in an email too! The only one of the samples that worked for him was the pea and duck one, so good luck if you have not tried this food yet maybe it's worth a shot if all else fails!

Thank you, I have sent everything to my mother and she said she will speak to the vet. Mommysugar, I copied and sent my mother everything you said and she said she would give it a shot. She apparently actually heard of using an alternate protein source, so she said it made sense that duck would work. Hopefully all will go well!

But some cats that can't have chicken also can't have duck. I have one that can't have chicken or turkey, but is luckily fine with duck. iirc there's another member who just had to eliminate all poultry.

The fish allergy is likely still around.

I think Arlyn is actually on the right track. Rule out protozoal infection (since accidentally spreading that to the sugar gliders would be disastrous), but talk to the vet about IBD.
I know in humans that a B12 deficiency takes years to happen, so I doubt it happens overnight in a cat. So IMO this may have been going on longer than the diarrhea. Untreated IBD, for example, can lead to intestinal lymphoma (something I myself have a risk of from inflammation) and say… if she's been having fish regulaly it might have set her up for IBD.

And yes, intestinal inflammation can cause gastritis. It can also cause severe issues with intestial bacteria, so it may be worth asking them to culture some stool samples for anything particularly nasty, and look for toxins.

thanx will let my mother know, and I don't live with my parents so my gliders are in no way in the line of fire here. The 3 cats are with both my parents and I own the sugar gliders.

Not much else to add than what every single person above me wrote!

What a great crowd of helpers tonight!!

With all this information you should get an answer.

I especially agree with the interim care of Hydration (Sub-Q fluids) if your cat is dehydrated, which you can do from home - just have the Vet Tech show you how it's done. It's just a simple need under pulled up skin (in different spots each time) near the neck and down the back - just NOT in muscle).

To check, pull up some skin on your cat's back (not neck - is not accurate for fluid levels; use back) and let drop. IF it takes over one second to drop down, the cat needs fluids ASAP. If it stays up or takes a long time to go down to normal, your cat needs fluids NOW, as in- EMERGENCY, no waiting. Dehydration kills very rapidly.

So along with everyone else's suggestions and my little check-up for severe dehydration, that about does it, I think!

Let us know how it turns out!!

Warmly,

Julie O'

Ah yes we call that the "tent test" with gliders. As I said I don't live with the cats and I dont know if my parents want to give my poor kitty shots =(, I think they leave that up to the vet for good reason. That cat can hold a grudge let me tell you, so I think they are not willing to do that so she will stay sweet to them.

Originally Posted by cdsmoongal

thanx will let my mother know, and I don't live with my parents so my gliders are in no way in the line of fire here. The 3 cats are with both my parents and I own the sugar gliders.

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