I'm rehoming the Kittens my cat had.. but possibly my cat?

          Back in February, a coworker of mine found a stray kitten on a blistering cold night (below zero with windchill). He and his girlfriend could not take care of her, as they already had 2 cats at home. I searched for an entire week, and could not find anyone willing to take the cat in. So, I ended up taking her so that she would not have to be sent to a shelter, even though I was still allergic to cats at that time. I expected to give her to a friend of mine, but after having her for a weekend, I fell completely in love with her! She is extremely smart, and curious but not annoyingly intrusive. She listens very well, and I've even taught her to sit and stand. Unbeknownst to me, she had severe diarrhea for the entire week that my coworker had her. A fact that he did not let me in on, until I picked her up. I took her to the vet 3 days after taking her in to get her first round of shots and for a checkup. The veterinarian also fell inlove with the kitten. She appeared in totally fine physical health, except for her diarrhea. She gave us some probiotic packets to add to her food. On another visit they gave us 2 types of medicine. After taking her to the vet 3 times in 4 consecutive weeks, we found out she was pregnant. My cat is an indoor-only cat. I was going to have her spayed, but while she was sick, no vet would operate on her. I took her to another vet, and he gave her diagel. After a couple of days, he symptoms cleared up, at that point, she was just about due, so I decided to let her go through with the pregnancy. She gave birth to 4 healthy kittens in mid-April. About a week or 2 after she gave birth, her diarrhea returned, once again. 2 of the kittens were given to 2 friends of mine at weeks 8. I still have 2. They are 10 weeks old, now.

Here is the dilemma:

     I lost my job at the beginning of May. I could afford her vet bills prior to that, no problem. But now, I know that she will require extra expenses, on top of her necessary expenses(shots, spay). Is it unreasonable for me to give the cat up and keep one of the kittens? Unreasonable in the sense that: the dollar amount in trying to help my cat would differentiate greatly comparable to what I would spend on one of the kittens? I really do not want to do this, I really do love my cat. She is not in IMMEDIATE danger, she is full of energy, she is attentive to the kittens, she eats A LOT, she drinks water, she goes to the litter box regularly and on a routine. She is, for all intents and purposes, a completely normal cat. But I know that having persistent diarrhea for 4 months now, cannot be a comfortable feeling. Tips? Help? Suggestions? I have been feeding her Wellness brand kitten formula, before, during, and after pregnancy. Should I give her to someone that can afford her bills, if they will be expensive? Do you think she can stick it out until I am more financially stable? Is it wrong(morally, ethically, in any way shape or form) if I end up keeping one of the kittens instead??

 

Have you tried different canned foods?

My cats had horrible diarrhea. One of them, it didn't matter what kind of canned I fed. I switched to raw and it cleared all 3 up in a day. Might be worth looking into.

I also have to wonder if it's a food issue.  If it is, the issue will most likely manifest with the kittens eventually.  Then, even if you give the mom away, but end up with the same problem with the kitten... nothing will have really changed. 

So yeah, my first questions would be, what exactly are you feeding them?  And have you considered changing it?

My one cat was on rx diet for months.  PRICEY!!!  And he is a big boy.  I happened to find out he can eat liver and chicken pate friskies WITH NO ISSUE AT ALL! I have tried other pates(my other cat can only eat non fish pates because of urinary issues in past and being food controlled diabetic) and all the others gave him issues.

This cat was on w/d and a medicine and still was not doing as well as he is on this cheap grocery canned diet. 

Her issue may have cleared itself up from all the after birth she ate and that bound her up. 
 

As for keeping a kitten and not her.  I personally could not do that.  money is tight here too but to me that seems wrong.  and like pp said who is to say the kitten will not grow up to have same issue.

It sounds to me like the diagel worked. It's pricey.

Whenever diarrhea is a persistent issue, and the test to rule out coccidia, e. coli, giardia, T. foetus, clostridium, etc. have been done, then the issue must be diet.

Cats are obligate carnivores, and they need animal-based proteins. Here is a site written by a vet that explains it quite well: http://www.catinfo.org

She is most likely not sickly, she just needs the right diet.

Try the Friskies canned Poultry Platter pate food. The Friskies canned pate style foods can be purchased in 13 ounce cans for savings, or they can be purchased on sale and thus aren't overly expensive to feed, yet they have no veggies or corn. Some have some rice flour, but it's down there on the list. Fancy Feast classics can also be purchased on sale; these have no veggies or any grains or stuff that cats just don't need.

In place of diagel, you can try purchasing slippery elm bark powder. I buy it at the health food store - just loose, half an ounce at a time. It costs me like $0.70. Just put 1/4 teaspoon in a small dish, add one teaspoon of water to it. Let it gel up, mix it up. When it's goopy, add some canned food to it, mix it in well, and give it to your kitty with the diarrhea. You can do this twice a day. It is a safe fiber that is soothing with anti-inflammatory properties. She may need it a few days; could be a few weeks.

You can also use human probiotics instead of pet probiotics. Human probiotics are made from live cultures, not dead ones ("fermentation product,"), and have fewer additives. If you go to a health food store to look for slippery elm bark powder, just ask them for their best acidophilus supplement. Best if it has some bifido bacterium in it too. She can have 10 billion CFU daily ("colony forming units").

I have tried a variety of things, including taking out chicken-containing foods from her diet, as my veterinarian suggested that some cats have trouble digesting poultry proteins. She seemed to have gotten slightly better this past week! I went from feeding her Wellness-brand kitten food to Purina Cat Chow Complete. After a couple of days of continuing diarrhea, her stool firmed up completely! it looked totally normal! But reverted back after 4 days or so. Ugh. Thanks for your help and suggestions! I have decided not to keep the kitten instead! If you have any brands, or specific foods, please let me know. I think I will try a raw diet, next? any suggestions??

Momma has the diarrhea? And you're keeping her, and giving the rest of her litter away? Just making sure I understand.

Has a complete PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test been done on her stool? This is the test that checks her stool for bad bacteria/parasites - clostridium, coccidia, T. foetus, etc. These really must be ruled out first, as overgrowth can cause long term intestinal damage. This is not done in-house at the vet, it is sent to a lab. And if the only stool samples tested have been from diarrhea, it often needs to be done several times (TCS members have had experiences where it took up to four tests), because some of the parasites are only found via oocysts shed in the stools - which, when watery - doesn't always happen.

If the problem is a food sensitivity, then switching to a raw diet may help, certainly. :nod: Please feel free to visit the raw forum and post any questions (http://www.thecatsite.com/f/65/raw-feeding-for-cats), and check out the resources thread ( http://www.thecatsite.com/t/240809/raw-feeding-resource-thread ). :nod:

There is a probiotic that will help if the problem is clostridium and may help if the problem is coccidia, but it must be used correctly, and for the proper length of time. Here is a thread discussing it: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/259985/trouble-in-raw-paradise-clostridium-perfringens-and-my-cats Of course, if you can just pill her, then hiding it in some kind of food won't be a problem.

Of course, you can try transitioning her to a raw diet to see if that resolves the problem. And/or you can try the probiotic, Saccharomices Boulardii as outlined in Carolina's thread (link above) to see if that resolves the problem.

Either way, please don't let the diarrhea go on too long without a PCR test, because any of those nasties can cause long term damage.

Hi there, NewCatParent,

First, I'm very sorry to hear about the job. Good for you for saving what seems like a very special cat, and giving her a happy life. It seems like you're already experiencing the rewards of a loving animal bond, and it only gets better! (even when they get sick, as I can attest).

From the info you've provided, it sounds like your little gal is potentially within reach of good health, in no small part because of your careful observation and dedication to finding a solution for her. If it's just bowel stuff (as in, not caused by something worse), it can often be permanently healed, particularly if the cat is young and you practice good nutrition as soon as possible.

I agree that you should move to a correctly prepared raw diet, but not until you know what the baseline medical problem is--otherwise you won't be able assure a vet that raw food is not implicated in the problem (hate to say it, but there are some vets out there that are irrationally biased against raw food, and their bias limits what they're willing to consider in the diagnostic process). For now I'd keep the kitty on decent canned food (no dry food for any reason), you don't want too many variables in the diagnostic mix!*

      
Diagnostics at this point are key.  As LDG said, your kitty needs to have a stool sample cultured asap. PCR testing is advanced (usually a second level of diagnostic of testing--they isolate the dna structure of particular viruses, bacteria and parasites), and I didn't read in your post that your vet had done the level-1 microscopic/flotation tests which, when done correctly,  under ideal conditions, are 80% accurate, which is adequate for most patients. Not sure where you live, or the quality & range of vet services available in your area, but many vet practices do basic fecal analysis on-site. Important: the quicker you can get a fresh stool sample to the lab, the more accurate the analysis. 

BUT: Given your cat's history with diarrhea, PCR may be well worth it (my vet charges around $150 and uses Idexx Labs). It would give me peace of mind to be able to rule out human and test error.

The sooner you can eliminate parasites/bacteria/viruses as a cause of your cat's diarrhea, the sooner you can move to ensuring your cat's digestive tract health, which is easy enough to do through species-appropriate, complete, balanced nutrition!

Again, LDG gave you the best starting point:  Lisa Pierson's www.catinfo.org.  She's been a feline vet for over 30 years. Please read the whole site. You'll be glad you did.  (Especially the part about vaccines, convenia, metacam, and dental health).

*Here I need to inject (haha, sorry) my personal opinion, learned partly the hard way, about vaccination:  It is NOT a "given" that all "recommended" vaccines are necessary, or even healthy. Many have been shown, over and over, to be harmful, and fatal.  Acquiring your cat as you did, you might just be in the very fortunate position of being able to decide for your cat at the beginning of her life  (and not after she's had a toxic vaccine reaction, or after years of unnecessary vaccines have compromised her immune system or organ function) on the following:  1) which vaccines you allow your cat to have, 2) when she has them, or 3) if she might be better off with a vaccine waiver.  Please do not be in a hurry to vaccinate your cat, since she is strictly indoor, and especially while she is sick / has digestive tract malfunction. 

I am not saying "no vaccinations" [I personally would vaccinate a healthy  indoor cat: one time for pan-leukopenia (modified-live injection, lower extremity); one time for herpes/calici (intra-nasal vaccine); and once for rabies (a canarypox-derived vaccine only; there are now 2 companies that make them). I would make sure these vaccines were given separately over the course of several months, I would NEVER get "boosters," and I would in future evaluate whether or how frequently to repeat the rabies vaccine. And by the time that the 3-year (for canarypox) rabies shot expires, you will have had time to make a more informed decision about what you want to do.]

Back to NUTRITION and RAW diet.  Lisa Pierson's site will give you the perfect start.  At some point when you digest (again, sorry, what is wrong  with me?!) all this info and are ready to make your own food, feel free to pm me if you'd like some more detailed, specific advice. I'd be happy to help.

One thing Dr. Pierson's site doesn't fully explain is the difference between types of fiber and why those differences are important. For this, and especially in light of what you are dealing with, you will need this website:

http://www.felineconstipation.org/   (It also covers diarrhea)

Also: probiotics.  Probiotics are healthy intestinal flora, the good bacteria that live in our guts and do the work of extracting nutrients and fending off toxins.  For cats, fiber is what feeds those healthy bacteria, so to get your cat healthy, she will need her good bacteria (which are likely next to nothing right now) replaced/boosted with correctly-administered probiotics, and fed with the right kind and amount of fiber.  

Overall cautionary note: less is usually more when you are learning the delicate balances involved in cat  biology.  Go slow. As you are making new discoveries, try to avoid the temptation to give your cat all kinds of supplements (even when you know it's good in many cases), out of eagerness to get your sweetie healthy as fast as possible!

I hope this doesn't seem overwhelming. For me it was an eye-opening relief when I started learning all this stuff.  

But I am out of typing time for the moment, so please keep us all posted, and good luck with the diagnosis.  Your kitty is lucky to have you.