Endless diarrhoea is driving me crazy....

I have a male cat, about 8 months old now. He has had diarrhoea for the past few months, and it just won't seem to get better.

I took him to the vet several times and spent over 200€ and nothing helped, it is driving me crazy. His litter box gets messed up and full of poop so quickly it's just disgusting and I'm the one who always has to clean this, and it's just really unhygeinic on top of it.

I took him to the vet for the the first time around 2 months ago - the vet checked his poop, she found worms, and they were treated.

After that, the stool didn't stop, so she sent his poop to a lab to be analysed, they found no parasites and nothing bad. So what is wrong?

She gave him numerous shots and so on but I'm not exactly sure what for. She also gave me some special food to try, which is supposed to help diarrhoea but his poop didn't get better. 

What a waste of money and time... Can anyone help?

Thank you

-R

You need to ask what he has been treated for, and with what medication.  Not being sure isn't helpful to him, you or us.

Has he been checked for Tritrichomonas foetus?

http://www.fabcats.org/breeders/infosheets/tritrichomonas.html

I would also try feeding single source proteins, and eliminate corn and other common allergens.  Could be a food allergy.

I would also recommend the stool be tested for t. foetus as a previous poster suggested.  Also, he may need to be dewormed again.  Lastly, have you tried feeding him some plain yogurt or plain canned pumpkin (do they have canned pumpkin where you live??) in some wet food.  My kitties will eat plain yogurt off a plate, so I give it as a "treat" when they are having poop problems. 

Additionally, have you considered his diet is too rich or he is unable to process what you're feeding him??  My boy kitty can't tolerate totally grain-free dry food.  He does great with grain-free canned, but when he ate all grain-free dry kibbles, they caused diarrhea.  The vet put him on a prescription diet (Royal Canin Gastro HE) for his dry food.  He gets mainly canned, but does get some dry throughout the day.

I know how frustrating this is, and it's not poor kitty's fault, something is off, not right.

The first things to be checked is worms, ghiardia, tritrichomonas and coccidia.

Unfortunately some things do not show up with just 1 fecal panel. They tend to shed in spurts (no pun intended and can hide.

I have an excellent example case-In my rescue I am the place for transition, newly acquired cat/kittens, sick or injured, recovery, quarrantining, etc.

We pulled some cats from a hoarder last year, and one particular teenaged cat had had diarrhea for months, this hoarder said.

Took her to have a fecal panel done and found nothing, nada...put her on a high quality food, after 3 months and doses with pyrantel, ponazuril, antibiotics, etc. still had the runs.

Soo she came to me Nov. 17th.

This cat was now barely a year old, and her diarrhea problem was causing internal damage, her fur spoke volumes, it was thin, dull, not soft like it should be at her age, almost balding look to it.

Now caged in my cat room, a very unhappy kitty to say the least. She stunk like poop too, she would squirt it out randomly.

Back to a vet, another fecal panel...but wait! THIS one shows she has Ghiardia and Tritrich...great! At least I know now what I'm dealing with.

Put on horrible tasting meds, what a huge ordeal 2x a day for weeks.

STILL has diarrhea!! You gotta be kidding me!

Took her up to UC Davis Veterinary school/hospital and had the works run on her poop.

Ghiardia and Tritrich were gone.

She has been on Hill's prescription for intestinal health, and is just now, FINALLY getting close to normal poops. Nearly 4 months later.

Her fur is now shiny and thick, soft as it should be, but will be some time before her system is fully recovered.

As sick as I was of cleaning her poopy stinky cage, I knew there has to be a normal little kitty in there somewhere.

Don't get discouraged, there is something going on with your cat.

Sometimes it takes persistence with finding out the problem, it may be something as simple as an allergy or sensitive system.

Also, until it's found, your cat can be put on Albon, for temporary stool firming. The same vet that saw your cat before will likely give you a prescription for it over the phone so it won't cost anymore there.

Actually when a revisit is necessary, a vet should not charge for another office visit, only the testing/meds given each time.

Thank you all for your replies - I really appreciate it.

First of all - I am sorry I couldn't tell you what shots he got - I have looked everywhere and can't find his little orange book with all the info in it.. I'll have to check at my gf's house maybe it's there.

In any case, during the past few months I was feeding him a variety of things. Whiska's junior wet food (the stuff that comes in packets) was the first thing. My gf thought that maybe because it was in the fridge, it was causing the stool, so I stored it outside, but nothing changed. I switched him over to normaly dry crunchy food for kittens, that also didn't help... For the past few months I've been feeding him normal croquettes for cats but it's always just the same. I even tried rice a few times, but to no avail. 

I went to the vet yesterday and bought some anti-stool croquettes, hoping that maybe they might work this time round. They're "Hill’s Prescription Diet Feline I/D"  for gastronomical problems and I THINK it's helping. His poop is still kind of deformed - no "sausage" form. But it's mostly in one piece now, which makes it easier to clean at least (thank God). However, I also got some charcoal pills from the pharmacy for diarrhoea. The normal dose for a human is 4 pills a day, I gave him half a pill. I heard from a friend's friend that this helped their cat but I'm not sure if the combination of this Diet Feline I/D is helping or it's just one of the two but in any case it SEEMS that it's getting better - but why can't he eat anything else? This is really weird. 

I wish I could find out what the real problem is but like I said I already had his poop sent to a lab, and I had collected several samples of poop, throughout several days, knowing that sometimes the germs might not show up. I know the vet was just doing her job but I feel like I was robbed :\   I'm just a college student, and I have no money at all to spend on the vet again... Not right now at least.

Thank you for your help everyone,

-R

Well, if you can't afford more tests right now, and things seem to be getting a little better with the new food, then you might want to consider taking the next step in the food category. Many cats are allergic to or have sensitivities to ingredients in the food. It may also be Irritable Bowel Syndrome, or Irritable Bowel Disease. Cats are carnivores, and have no natural dietary requirement for anything other than what would be... a mouse, or rabbit, or bird... meaning meat, bones, and organs. So all the stuff they add to a lot of foods - corn, wheat, rice, oats, etc. - can sometimes cause problems.

The next logical step is to try a grain-free food. You can also try using single-source protein foods, and see if one of the proteins is the problem.

http://www.ibdkitties.net may have helpful information.

Hi.....
My cat Bugsy had tummy problems all his life due to IBD; things took a turn to the worst after a course of antibiotics for an UTI - from that day on, he developed explosive diarrhea, and that went on for 14 months. I can say I tried it all - you can name it, I tried - every single test, sooooooo many medications, different supplements, different diets - both on the grain free, single proteins, prescription diets.......
His case got so bad that he could no longer stand medications (affected his liver); his only option was exploratory surgery.... and even then, depending of what they found, I might not be able to treat him anyways.....
I decided to give the raw diet a chance, to see what happened..... And on the very first day he ate 100% raw meat, he had 100% solid stools; and never again had a flair.

I am not saying for sure this is the answer for you...... But IMHO wholeheartedly, well worthy a try. A raw diet will remove everything your kitty can't digest - any and everything that can possibly be a problem, and leave him with only meat to digest - which is what he was made to digest.

On my Bugsy's case, his vet an I got to the conclusion that his problem was probably the additives in the commercial foods, since we had already tried all other diets on the book. There would not be another alternative for him, unless we went raw (no additives).
Good luck with your boy