7 month old kitten has continuing diarrhea. Please help!

Hello. My youngest cat, Penny, has been having issues for a few months now. I took her to the vet probably in late October (i don't have the paperwork on me at the moment.) and they gave me high fiber food and a medicine to give her twice a day. It worked for a few weeks then the diarrhea came back mid-November-ish. The vet gave her 3 medicines, one to take daily, one to take 3x a day and one to take 2x a day. That seemed to help until yesterday. She's been having diarrhea for the past two days. Its not really runny, and she always goes in the litter box. I only notice because there's a lot of gas that goes with it. I'm not sure if I should go back to the vet, find a different vet, or try something on my own. Please Help!

A little background...

Penny was found when she was about 3 weeks old (when we were having the worst draught we've had in years)

, with another kitten, in my boyfriend's backyard, we assumed she was abandoned (her mother never came back). We took her in, and she has gotten all her kitten vaccines and has been dewormed. I brought her home when she was about 8 weeks old, and the other kitten went to another home. She was spayed around 12 weeks old. She is very friendly but very jumpy. If you touch her when she isn't looking she jumps, same when you make any type of semi-loud noise. I love her to death and just want her to be healthy and happy.

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She's the little one, along with "brother" Sheldon (1.5 years)

I have heard pumpkin is good for diarrhea (pumpkin puree, NOT pumpkin pie filling), but I would run some searches on the internet to see if it OK for kittens. Or does another forum member know?

Do you know what's causing the diarrhea? What medicines are giving her? Some antibiotics can cause diarrhea. Also consider the food you are giving to her. A lot of cats can be allergic to kibble.
 

I do not know what's causing the diarrhea. I am not currently giving her any medicines, and we are not home at the moment to reference past vet pills to see what she has taken in the past. I have been giving her fancy feast wet food and purina indoor formula since she was old enough to eat solid foods (in June) and she didn't start having problems until around October. I will have to look into the pumpkin thing.

Penny and Sheldon!  I love it. And she's adorable!   Where are Leonard, Howard and Raj? 

Well, anyway...are you giving Penny a good Probiotic every day?  That might help with keeping good bacteria up in her colon.  Here is one that many of us use    We give one capsule per day sprinkled on their food.

But I think the main thing is probably based on what she is eating.  What IS she eating?  And, just out of curiousity, what are the meds she is on?

I have never thought of giving cats a probiotic! That's probably a good idea to start for both of them. She isn't on any meds right now. The last time she went to the vet for diarrhea was on October 1, 2012 and she was given Pro-Pectaln Gel (3x a day for 5 days), Orbax Oral Suspension (2x a day for 2 weeks) , and Metronidazole (1x a day for 3 weeks). This seemed to help until recently. As far as her diet goes, she gets half a can of fancy feast in the morning, around 8 or 9, and half a can at night, around 7 or 8. She also gets half a cup of purina indoor dry food in the morning, and a half cup at night. However, I have two cats, and they both get served the same thing, but how much they eat is up to them. She has been on this routine since I brought her home in July and problems didn't arise until September; she was given high fiber canned food and Metronidazole (3x a day for 1 week), which seemed to help until october.

I'm making an appointment with the vet on Monday. Her stools have become runnier and are yellowish in color. No blood though. And Sheldon isn't showing signs of being sick.

My apartment only allows me to have 2 cats. Leonard, Howard and Raj will have to wait unfortunately.

Some cats - not all - have an issue with the Purina dry food. Can you afford to feed them just the Fancy Feast canned food? Along with a good probiotic, that might clear up the problem.

For the Fancy Feast, if you stick to the classic varieties - the pate style food - it's healthier for the kitties. Cats are obligate carnivores, and in the wild, they wouldn't eat wheat gluten, corn, etc. Any Fancy Feast with gravy in it has wheat gluten, and some cats are sensitive to that. The classic varieties are high protein with very little carbohydrate, and that's what's best for cats. Cats' bodies just aren't well designed to digest carbs. They can - but they're not meant to - and some kitties end up with issues like you're describing because of the diet that their bodies aren't built to eat. :rub:

Alright, ill try that too! Thanks! I never considered it being her diet since shes been eating it since i got her and i thought if it were a problem it would be more consostant. Will definitely keep my eye on it though!

I couldnt find probiotics at petsmart so im going to order them online, for the time being i got GNC digestive health chews for cats for her.

The probiotic mrsgreenjeens provided a link to is a human probiotic. Most pet probiotics don't have live cultures in them, whereas those for people do. (I use the same probiotic in the link - it was recommended to me by our vet, actually).

If you want to learn a little more about feline nutrition (nutrition is the foundation of health after all!), this is a good place to start: http://www.catinfo.org



Of course, it's still a good idea to get her to the vet, so I'm glad you've got the appointment. :rub:

Thanks for all the support and information! I took her to the vet this morning and he thinks she might just have a sensitive stomach. He gave her some medicine that should help until she gets used to a more natural diet. Hoping this works out for her! I hate seeing her sick

Wow, I just adopted a 7-month old kitten and she is having the EXACT SAME PROBLEM you are describing. Word for word. She is also eating Purina kitten food. I know that a dry diet is not the best and I plan on correcting both of my cats' diets. Right now, I'm just trying to introduce them... I may have to switch food. She is so poopy (runny) and horribly gassy (oh my god).

CatFella - your situation might be different if you just adopted her. My kitten has had this ongoing for a while, and what the vet has given her in the past has only temporarily treated her. The vet agreed with the posts above and said I should be giving her GNC digestive health treats (just like a probiotic), maybe that will help your kitten too! And a more natural diet is always better for cats, I've known this, but the cheap side of me struggled paying over a dollar per can. Time to work my couponing magic!

If she continues to be sick more than 2 days, I would take her to the vet, just to be safe.

Let me know how everything goes!

EHarned said:

CatFella - your situation might be different if you just adopted her. My kitten has had this ongoing for a while, and what the vet has given her in the past has only temporarily treated her. The vet agreed with the posts above and said I should be giving her GNC digestive health treats (just like a probiotic), maybe that will help your kitten too! And a more natural diet is always better for cats, I've known this, but the cheap side of me struggled paying over a dollar per can. Time to work my couponing magic!

If she continues to be sick more than 2 days, I would take her to the vet, just to be safe.

Let me know how everything goes!

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Just out of curiousity, WHAT did your Vet consider a "more natural diet"?  And I googled GNC digestive health treat and didn't find it.  What's in it?  I'm guessing this is something specific to animals?  When you say just like a probiotic, does that mean it contains the same live cultures?  Will your kitten eat them? 

The vet said to get a dry food for sensitive stomachs, so i switched to purina pro plan sensitive stomachs. For wet food he recommended a higher quity food with less filler because that would be easier for her to digest. I chose Natural Balance. Both cats love it!

I included a picture of the gnc treats i reffered to. It contains digestive enzymes and probiotics. And i am not sure it contains live cultures, it has a bunch of big words on the back that i dont understand and dont feel like typing out. Lol.

My rescue cat suffered chronic diarrhea and gas her whole life, from the day she was born (and found) until 7 months of age. She would drip diarrhea around the house all day long and leave huge puddles of it everywhere. These were the things we tried to resolve it, and NONE of them worked:

* Blue Buffalo Wilderness dry food

* Wellness Sensitive Stomach

* Hills Prescription Diet i/d

* Various canned and baby foods

* Canned pumpkin puree

* Probiotic (Fortiflora)

* Several courses of drugs for parasites

* Dewormers

* Rice

* Metamucil 

I finally got fed up one day and just cooked her a plain chicken breast about 40% of the way through and fed it to her, and we never saw diarrhea or gas again. She could probably be on raw or cooked homemade, but the key was homemade. I bought a meat grinder and make her raw food now. It's disgusting to grind the meaty bones and literally makes me nauseated for the rest of the day when I have to, but it's worth it. I make a big batch that will last for 6 weeks, so I don't have to do it too often. If you end up having to make your cat's diet as a last resort, make sure it's balanced. She gets no fiber. 

Just so you know, I'm not a raw food nut or have an agenda here; my new kitten is on a store diet for now even though he seems to love the raw, and so is my dog. So anyway, if nothing else works, just try a plain home cooked chicken breast at first and see what happens. Your cat just might be sensitive to something in processed foods.

Hopefully this change in diet and the new Digestive Support chews will help Penny.  If you have to go the way of cooked chicken breast, just remember that by itself, that is not nutritionally complete, so you cannot feed that all by itself for too long.  As Howie says, raw is probably the very best, but sometimes it can be gross .  I know 3 of us who have responded so far to this thread feed raw, and it does take some getting used to..but oddly, many people who feed their cats raw are vegetarians!

Just a note, may not be the issue, but Orbax Oral Suspension is Malt flavored.  Malt flavoring, although supposedly "attractive" to cats, is a barley derived flavor.  Celiac patients cannot eat it.  Maybe the Orbax tabs would be better.

Thank you for all the help! She has been eating wellness canned food and purina pro plan digestive support dry food. She hasn't had diarrhea since! Still waiting to make sure she's officially better though, usually it will come back a month and a half or so after the vet gives her some medicine. Fingers crossed!

Great news!             

I don't have much experience; I have a 9 months old cat and she's my first but when I adopted her she had the same problem. I was feeding her 2 different brands. The vet said I should try feeding her with just ONE brand of cat food (dry and wet). So I started with Royal Canin Babycat 34 and RC pate for kittens until she was 4 months and then RC Kitten 36 and half a pouch of RC Kitten Instinctive. She never experienced diarrhea since; and her stool odor was reduced. Hopefully it won't happen again though.