Diarrhea problem

My 10 year old female cat has this issue. Originally she was eating 9 lives dry food and friskies while she was a stray, her stools were fine, you think back then she would have been infected with something living life on the streets. We adopted her and she got fixed,vaccinated, and de-wormed. We also continued feeding her 9 lives canned food. The first time she went to the vet they found worms and de-wormed her and she was better for a few months, but recently she was tested and everything came back fine.

After 2 years of having her (and another cat addition) she has diarrhea with blood sometimes, on her butt she gets blood and mucus and she wipes it all over the floor and sometimes its so bad we have to wipe her rear it's covered in loose stools. Before the episodes, we notice she gets severe foul smelling gas bad enough to clear a room. Once in a while she has gotten amoxicillan for her URI, and i'm wondering if the antibiotics took a toll on her digestive system? (i've had that problem with chronic diarrhea and had to go on strong medication for months to fix it from too many antibiotics messing my system up, and now take probiotic pills if I have to go on antibiotic to prevent it again) But thanks to probiotics i'm fine now as long as I take them when i'm on antibiotic.

mabye once or twice a week she gets it. Sometimes she doesnt have it for a week or two, and others multiple times a week. We switched to science diet for senior cats as she is 10 years old now. She also eats friskies canned food and she loves crunchy treats she is the chow hound out of our two cats. But what she eats seem to not change the diarrhea.

Our house is very stressfull we have my 1 year old Nephew over at least twice a week and he is so active and chases the cats and throws things that the cats get scared but he is too young to know what he is doing scares them and we cant keep him restrained he needs to play you nkow. Then we have baby gates all over and it prevents the cats from getting to the litterbox or food unless we move the gate for them. And if your wondering why we dont lock them in a room with food and litterbox, they fight if confined and cant have their "own space" and my female cat will panic and literally breathe so heavy and will get so nervous we cannot confine them to a room without severe agression. she has been stressed out since the new cat years ago but she adjusted to him as long as they have space, and she is not very social when company is around, which is very often so i'm wondering if this is severe nerves causing it?


Our vets havent helped, and I dont know what it is and without a vets help i'm clueless as to what is could be. Is there probiotics for cats to restore good bacteria in digestive system? What about something if this is all nerves causing diarrhea? it's so crazy on the house that I cannot focus on the cats health as so many factors affect everyday life. My cat needs a place to chill out and relax and not be bothered and a monitered diet people always feed the cats food without me knowing, and my house is never calm.

My cat is the type if she goes outside she is happy and she stays in our yard and sleeps in the shrubs. I let her out when company is over because she gets so upset and scared heavy breathing and hiding, at least outside she can remain calm until company leaves then she can come in and relax.

this kind of thing can be so frustrating! it's almost worse that she doesn't have it all the time, so much harder to pin down. this sounds like it could be giardia or coccidia, parasites that many vets don't test for in a normal fecal test. You might inquire with the vet to see if they are testing for these.

It's also possible she might have developed a sensitivity to elements in her food, i've had this happen with cats that seemed to be totally fine for years before. One of our cats was a stray and tough as nails out on the sidewalk. Now living inside she developed a food allergy we are still trying to sort out.

So I say try to get a comprehensive worm/parasite test, but it wouldn't hurt to give her some probiotics like iFlora, as well as trying foods with no grain or by-products. Good luck!

Feliway plug in diffusers can help with stress.

You need to put litter boxes where they can get to them. Cats should never be blocked from their litter boxes, serious problems, illness can result.

1 year old is not too young to teach a child that a cat is a living breathing feeling creature and should be treated with respect. I am not saying the child should be made to sit still and be quiet. I AM saying that he should not be allowed to throw things at the cats or shout at them, and that should be stopped, now.

Often vets will prescribe a long term course of an antibiotic called Flagyl (metronidazole) for persistent diarrhea. You might want to think about getting a second opinion with another vet.

She may have a food sensitivity or IBD. This will require special limited ingredient foods. Try her on a high quality food containing none of the things she's been eating in the cheaper foods.

Yes cats can be given probiotics. I use pro bios, it comes in a big tube labeled for large animals, you give a pea sized drop once a day. Other options are benebac, which also is a gel, labeled for small animals, or forti flora which is a powder made by Purina. Forti flora is excellent, but more expensive than the others.

However I do think you need to get to the bottom of what is causing this problem.

Should I start with the pro-biotics and a better fecal sample at the vet first, to eliminate those first as to a possible issue. I could sprinkle pro biotics in her canned food or if it comes in a gel I could put it on a crunchy cat treat.

What dry food is good quality? There are so many brands I am not sure which is best, she and my other cat are both Senior cats (10 (female) and 8 (male) years old)

I have been on Flagyl and I dont know if animals deal with medication different than people, but I almost ended up in the hospital when taking that. It causes severe nausea, loss of sweat, constant urination, shakes, drowsiness, headaches, severe stomach upset, severe loss of appetite, and possibly more side effects, it's VERY potent and to compare pill forms of chemo cause similar side effects, nasty stuff! and I am not sure how I could deal if my cat had to take that and had these severe side effects, I dont know how she would deal with that and with it being crazy here she might not fair well on that. If my cat refused to eat and became dehydrated I cannot afford the vet bill to treat that, my parents help out with paying for the cats but I am not sure if they would be helpful with this.