Chronic Diarrhea, Loose Stools. Help! :(

My 12-year-old cat, Aspen, has been suffering from chronic loose, drippy stools and diarrhea since Thanksgiving. $800 in bloodwork and treatment, an overnight trip during a snowstorm on Christmas Eve, and multiple trips to the vet seem not to be addressing the issue. He appeared to have an infection which he took a full two weeks of antibiotics for, and it didn't seem to clear it up or it's recurring. He's lost weight. I can guarantee he'll throw up at least once a week if not more, and his fecal drippings are constantly a problem on our carpet. His liver enzymes were elevated at last check and we were trying to bring them down. I can't keep affording to take him in for a blood panel every two or three weeks -- it's $150/pop. His kidneys aren't failing, but the issue seems to be either between kidney or liver. 

He is currently on a no-grain dry food with intermittent wet foods. He is allergic to grain foods, so the one he's on seems to be helping with that. Raw food isn't really an option (our two other cats will go after it; he's a grazer, and they'll chow down as fast as possible), nor is constantly giving him wet food. We try to feed him separately in the bathroom, but he sees this as punishment. He drinks a lot of water, but then he has since he was a kitten.

SQ fluids have helped as a short-term procedure in the past, but he absolutely hates receiving them. I've done them at home, and it is always a fight. Our vets (emergency and regular) checked my technique to be sure I wasn't causing him harm and I practiced on oranges to try to have a clean injection technique, but he hisses, growls, and slinks away after he is done. Getting him to eat medicine even with pill pockets is extremely difficult; he chews around the covers, spits out the medicine. No use trying to hide it in wet food, dry food, pumpkin; he's far too smart for his own good.

This problem has been chronic for several months now and shows no signs of getting better. He goes up and down, some days good, other days bad. 

I am honestly at my wits' end on what to do. He seems miserable a lot of the time and I constantly have to check him before letting him jump up onto me. My husband and I are expecting in October, so I can't get in contact with his stool (due to being pregnant) and he isn't thrilled with constantly wiping up after the cat. With the baby on the way, we'd like to get him healthier but I don't know that we can afford a vet visit every three weeks for yet more SQ fluids, medicines, or blood paneling, all of which haven't appeared to fix what his problems are. 

Any ideas?  

Yes. For starters, just to be clear, he's an indoor only cat? And you mention blood work, but have any - or several - fecals been done? And not just the in-house-check-for-roundworm stuff, but where it's sent out to look for giardia, coccidia, T. Foetus, etc? I know it's unlikely, but these reside in the gut of most cats, they're just not out of control, and sometimes stress or a bout of ill health can cause them to flair. I know you don't want to spend more money on it right now, but it's something to consider if it's not been done yet. Honestly, though, it sounds at this point like it's a food related problem.

Is there a holistic vet in your area? One also trained as a D.V.M. (most are). You can search here to see (if you're in the US): http://www.ahvma.org In my experience, they're much better at resolving issues like this if it's not a bacterial or parasite problem. Western Medicine just doesn't manage "whole health" problems, or immune-system issues very well.

Also, he's been on antibiotics, which wipe out most of the gut flora, so he has no healthy gut flora either. He will definitely benefit from a probiotic. When our Chumley had chronic diarrhea that our normal vets couldn't resolve for 6 months, she had us put him on a soothing mixture of probiotics and sippery elm bark powder ( http://www.littlebigcat.com/health/slippery-elm/ ) mixed into aloe vera juice (not organic, it's too bitter. In fact, specifically the brand called George's - it's the non-organic brand that has no preservatives in it. The health food store here carried it and loose powder slippery elm bark, though others use capsules and just empty them).

Use 1/4 teaspoon slippery elm bark powder, add one teaspoon of George's aloe vera juice. It'll gel up in a minute or two (stir it up). Add a little bit of water, and stir in some chicken baby food (if you can find Beechnut, it's the best as the Gerber's now has corn starch in it. ). Sprinkle a capsule of probiotic on top.

In the meantime, poach some chicken breast and cook some white rice. Stop feeding him whatever food he eats now, and make sure he has no access to any of the other cat's food. Feed him the poached chicken with rice (mix 50/50) with some of the water from the poached chicken (shred the chicken).

You can feed this for two weeks, though if it's going to help, you should see start to see some improvement inside of a few days.

For the probiotic, you want a human acidophilus supplement, with 10 billion CFU (colony forming units). Pet probiotics are often lower dose, and are made of fermentation product, which isn't live cultures. I use Natural Factors acidophilus+bifidus with goat milk, double strength. I order it from amazon, or the local health food store carries it.

IF this helps him, then you know the problem is something in the food (which it most likely is).

I know you said raw is out, but when it comes to kitties with food sensitivities or IBD, it can be really difficult to find a food without whatever it is that's bothering them, because it can be so hard to figure out what the "it" is. I had cats that were free fed kibble for 8 years. I first transitioned them to all wet food, timed meals. This was the really hard part, because they weren't used to eating enough at one meal. A year or so later, we transitioned to raw. They now eat a morning meal before work, and evening meal after work, and a meal before bed. That's a good schedule, evening if you'll be feeding canned food.

But in the end.... kitties with digestive upsets typically do best on no kibble. It's a very highly processed food, and even the "best" kibble has stuff in it to make it... kibble... and that stuff, grain-free or not, means carbohydrates, and these and the highly processed nature of the food, are usually a source of the problem.

I highly recommend trying to find a holistic vet that can help you navigate this though....

Yes. For starters, just to be clear, he's an indoor only cat? And you mention blood work, but have any - or several - fecals been done? And not just the in-house-check-for-roundworm stuff, but where it's sent out to look for giardia, coccidia, T. Foetus, etc? I know it's unlikely, but these reside in the gut of most cats, they're just not out of control, and sometimes stress or a bout of ill health can cause them to flair. I know you don't want to spend more money on it right now, but it's something to consider if it's not been done yet. Honestly, though, it sounds at this point like it's a food related problem.

Is there a holistic vet in your area? One also trained as a D.V.M. (most are). You can search here to see (if you're in the US): http://www.ahvma.org In my experience, they're much better at resolving issues like this if it's not a bacterial or parasite problem. Western Medicine just doesn't manage "whole health" problems, or immune-system issues very well.

Also, he's been on antibiotics, which wipe out most of the gut flora, so he has no healthy gut flora either. He will definitely benefit from a probiotic. When our Chumley had chronic diarrhea that our normal vets couldn't resolve for 6 months, she had us put him on a soothing mixture of probiotics and sippery elm bark powder ( http://www.littlebigcat.com/health/slippery-elm/ ) mixed into aloe vera juice (not organic, it's too bitter. In fact, specifically the brand called George's - it's the non-organic brand that has no preservatives in it. The health food store here carried it and loose powder slippery elm bark, though others use capsules and just empty them).

Use 1/4 teaspoon slippery elm bark powder, add one teaspoon of George's aloe vera juice. It'll gel up in a minute or two (stir it up). Add a little bit of water, and stir in some chicken baby food (if you can find Beechnut, it's the best as the Gerber's now has corn starch in it. ). Sprinkle a capsule of probiotic on top.

In the meantime, poach some chicken breast and cook some white rice. Stop feeding him whatever food he eats now, and make sure he has no access to any of the other cat's food. Feed him the poached chicken with rice (mix 50/50) with some of the water from the poached chicken (shred the chicken).

You can feed this for two weeks, though if it's going to help, you should see start to see some improvement inside of a few days.

For the probiotic, you want a human acidophilus supplement, with 10 billion CFU (colony forming units). Pet probiotics are often lower dose, and are made of fermentation product, which isn't live cultures. I use Natural Factors acidophilus+bifidus with goat milk, double strength. I order it from amazon, or the local health food store carries it.

IF this helps him, then you know the problem is something in the food (which it most likely is).

I know you said raw is out, but when it comes to kitties with food sensitivities or IBD, it can be really difficult to find a food without whatever it is that's bothering them, because it can be so hard to figure out what the "it" is. I had cats that were free fed kibble for 8 years. I first transitioned them to all wet food, timed meals. This was the really hard part, because they weren't used to eating enough at one meal. A year or so later, we transitioned to raw. They now eat a morning meal before work, and evening meal after work, and a meal before bed. That's a good schedule, evening if you'll be feeding canned food.

But in the end.... kitties with digestive upsets typically do best on no kibble. It's a very highly processed food, and even the "best" kibble has stuff in it to make it... kibble... and that stuff, grain-free or not, means carbohydrates, and these and the highly processed nature of the food, are usually a source of the problem.

I highly recommend trying to find a holistic vet that can help you navigate this though....

If he's allergic to grains, wouldn't plain chicken be better?

Yes, good point. It just seems the issue is larger than grains, and the culprit grain is usually corn or the "fractured" brewer's rice. Some kitties with compromised GI systems need the bulk to help stop the diarrhea (at first). Plain chicken didn't help Chumley, but the combo did, and his sensitivity was to brewer's rice. :dk:.

On the other hand, he wasn't on the slippery elm then, as we hadn't seen the holistic vet yet. And that's fiber, so plain chicken may work just fine without the rice.

I would try the plain boiled chicken route to start.

Have you tried a probiotic? My cat got diarrhea from too much antibiotics affecting the good bacteria in her gut, people can get this too from antibiotics. I purchased Proviable probiotic for cats/dogs and you sprinkle the powder from one pill onto the food a day, unless your cat will eat the powder plain, some do. Treatment lasted about a month and by the end she had solid stools and no more gas.