What can cause diarrhea?

My 10 year old female cat has diarrhea with blood mixed in for years now, and I have noticed her vomiting up food once in a while ( no blood )

When we first got her she was on whiskas dry cat food and a mix of 9 lives and friskies canned food. She is still on the same canned food, but because I found out most cheap dry foods aren't nutritious, and I saw her develop the diarrhea and bad gas, I switched to science diet. This seemed to make her stomach worse, but she Loved the food so much.

I switched again to blue buffalo chicken. My other cat loves it, but my sick cat won't touch it so I had to resort back to the science diet to get her to eat.

In the past she has been on amoxycillan a few times for URI, and was de wormed at least 3 times. I'm wondering if the antibiotics messed up her digestive system years ago, and mabye the food isn't even the problem?

I don't know what to do, each year at the vet I tell them her symptoms and they only de worm her which helps her stomach for a few weeks then it's upset again.

Is there allergy blood tests for food allergy testing? I don't know what to do, my parents pay for the vet visits but I know the vets if I persist this will want every test under the sun and I know my parents won't allow so many tests. If there is one test to rule out certain issues that would be great!

I would first try eliminating all grain from her diet. Try EVO Grainless dry. And check the label of the wet food you're using for grain ingredients, and ask your local pet store to reccomend a grain free canned food. If that doesn't work, try "Diatomaceous Earth" powder (~ 1/4 tsp/day mixed in her wet food). That should bind her, and help her digestion. Again, ask your local pet shop. If you know of a "holistic" pet store, talk to them - they are often more helpful then the vet for things like this. Good luck.

AW sorry to hear you kitty has had such bad diarrhea for so long . I honestly believe it is the food she is eating. The ingredients are quite poor in the diets you suggested. Your cat could be allergic to many of the ingredients in those foods. The Blue Buffalo is heading in the right direction. It is not cheap to feed cats a good quality diet, but in the long run they are much more healthy and you will have less vet bills because of the better diet. I would definitely look into changing to a higher quality cat food for this kitty.

You can also add Probiotics or look into Fortiflora (you can google it on-line). Many of the members on TCS have used Fortiflora with great results and that is how I learned about it.

I just checked the canned food and depending on the flavor I saw whey and wheat as ingredients, I never even suspected those!

Does anyone know healthy, grain free canned food as well?

If my cat liked blue buffalo dry food then all I'd have to do was find a new canned food, but she won't touch it. The healthy foods don't appeal to her taste, but the ones making her sick do, go figure.

Now I have to try and find one that is healthy and she will eat.

I looked up Evo dry, it has peas,apples,eggs,cottage cheese, and salt as ingredients, are you sure that's good for cats?

Originally Posted by jessicaromano

I looked up Evo dry, it has peas,apples,eggs,cottage cheese, and salt as ingredients, are you sure that's good for cats?

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Like I said - grainless! Nothing wrong with peas, apples - good source of fiber. There's certainly nothing wrong with eggs. I feed my kitty a raw egg once in while (check "eggs" in the Raw Feeding forum). And I don't see what's wrong with a little "cottage cheese" - high protein, low fat (very healthy for humans too). Oh, and a little salt is in everything!

Have you had her stools checked or just de-wormed her with the run of the mill dewormer 3 times? If you have never had her stool checked, then do that first.

When one of my cats has diarrhea, I usually go the route of assuming there could be some type of parasite involved. Giardia and coccidia are two that are not cured with normal de-worming and can cause bloody diarrhea and horrible gas/smell. I almost just know the smell with my cats. Juno is on Albon right now because I suspect she picked up coccidia at some time in her life and having surgery made it "flare" - or perhaps it was dormant until now since she was otherwise healthy.

So - my advice is to get her to the vet, let them check her stool for giardia and coccidia, and go from there. Ask the vet their thoughts on treating for those sight-unseen because a lot of the time, you can't see it in the stool. It has to be shedding at the time and that may or may not happen with each movement.

Good luck!

I think these tests are at least worth running.

When those have been ruled out, I'd then assume it's either colitis or IBD. Eliminating the allergans as mentioned above may help. You can also try the ALIGN probiotic. It is available at the pharmacy. You can sprinkle it on her food. It is designed specifically for IBD. A member of TCS, with the knowledge of her vet, started giving it to her cat that was diagnosed via biopsy with IBD. It has helped him immeasurably and quite quickly. I don't know the dose. Just PM Carolina (that's her user name on TCS) to ask.

Originally Posted by LDG

I think these tests are at least worth running.

When those have been ruled out, I'd then assume it's either colitis or IBD. Eliminating the allergans as mentioned above may help. You can also try the ALIGN probiotic. It is available at the pharmacy. You can sprinkle it on her food. It is designed specifically for IBD. A member of TCS, with the knowledge of her vet, started giving it to her cat that was diagnosed via biopsy with IBD. It has helped him immeasurably and quite quickly. I don't know the dose. Just PM Carolina (that's her user name on TCS) to ask.

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Thanks for the advice. I'm going to try the diet change first and see how that goes, then from there i'll have to try and find the cause if that isnt helping.

Cats can have Align, I take that for myself! If I need to go that route I will PM Carolina, thanks.

If nothing else, the food is 50-80% the problem. If she is still eating the canned Friskies, then the first step is to stop feeding her dry food entirely. She's already dehydrated enough having diarrhea, adding dry food that sucks up moisture makes it even worse.

If you tell your vet repeatedly that your cat has bloody stools and all they do is deworm her, and after the info you get today they still do nothing, well.. I think you need a new vet.

As far as I know (and someone correct me if I'm wrong), food allergies usually cause inflammation, itchy skin, loss of fur and ear infections; but not bloody stools.

You may Have to get several tests done to rule out what is causing this. Do you have any way of saving up any money? Mowing lawns? Babysitting neighbor kids?

Also, the small amount of apples, peas and such in Evo are not enough to be a worry, but once again, wet food only for this girl. It is much easier to digest and contains plenty of moisture to keep her from getting dehydrated.

Innova, Evo, Natural Balance, Wellness, Before Grain, Blue Buffalo, and even Authority (super cheap) are great choices.

Since this has been going on for years there is most likely damage that has been done that makes the problem worse. It is something that has to be dealt with though as it can continue to cause further problems on top of being very uncomfortable for your cat. The blood is due to the irritation in the intestine from having diarrhea for so long. As long as the blood is red and not black it's usually nothing to worry about, meaning that the bleeding is not caused by any kind of disease, just irritation.

Fixing the diet and adding probiotics to your cat's diet daily is where I would start. After that, or at the same time, I'd bring a fresh stool sample to the vet and have them run tests on that. I doubt that it's parasites but she should still be tested to make sure. Make sure that they do the additional testing and not just a fecal floatation (I can't remember the name of the other test but maybe someone else will know). It shouldn't be that expensive. If nothing else at least have a fecal floatation done. That's usually not more than $25 and doesn't require you to bring the cat in, just a stool sample.

Has your cat ever received any treatment for the diarrhea? If not, I'd ask the vet to try it. The usual treatment they try first is a course of metronidazole which is an antibiotic.

If your parents would be willing the cat really should have some blood work done. At age 10 it should be done anyway so that any potential problems can be caught early. A CBC and a chem should be done. It's not cheap but can save you money in the long run. I paid $150 for full blood work on one of my cats and $70 for some limited testing on another. If I recall correctly the senior panel I had done on my dog was $90. Ask your vet what the cost would be for basic blood work. It could pay off to shop around as well since the prices can vary greatly from one vet to another.
You don't have to have all the tests done at the same time. You can spread them out over several months so that you don't have to pay for it all at once. But, like I said, if you can't do all of it at least get a fecal done.

I think LDG's guess that it could be IBD is a pretty good guess. IBD is a common cause of chronic diarrhea. In fact IBD can even be caused by having diarrhea for a long time that is caused by other things. So even if the diarrhea was caused by something else in the beginning she could have IBD by now. Probably does.
The standard treatment for IBD is steroids and it often helps quite a bit really quickly. I've even heard of the problem being cleared up with steroids. If you don't want to do testing you can talk to your vet about trying different treatments anyway to see what works and try to figure out what's wrong that way. It's a pretty common way to try to diagnose and treat a problem.

If I were you I'd ask the vet about about trying a course of metronidazole first and if that doesn't work then try oral steroids and see what happens. In addition to diet and probiotics of course. Don't let the vet give your cat a steroid shot from the get-go. If your cat has a bad reaction to oral steroids you can stop them but if you've given a shot that lasts for weeks there is nothing you can do. If the oral steroids work well you can then start giving the shots. I pay $15 per shot every couple of months for my cats so it's not expensive. Metronidazole is also pretty cheap especially if you get a prescription from your vet and fill it at a pharmacy. That would make it super cheap.

Good luck!