Giardia and staph - causation or coincidence?

No, that's not the name of my new book. My 1-yr old was just diagnosed with a staph infection on Friday, complete with raised, infected spots on his hind leg.  Doc suspected a possible food allergy and prescribed an antibiotic, an antihistamine, and 2x daily medicated pad cleaning.

We got the fecal results today, and Max has Giardia.  He's indoor only, single cat.  We suspect he picked it up from shoes or playing in the hallway - we have several neighbor dogs.

So, could the Giardia have caused the staph, or is this just a horrible coincidence (that we're lucky to have found)?

History:

Altered 1yr old male smoke Tuxedo.  Previous illness: a foot infection that took 6 wks to resolve, eventually with steroids.

Hi there, 

From my understanding  many kittens have Giardia and it is left untreated because general wormers do not treat it and it is often not detected because apparently 30 percent of fecal tests have false-negative results. Here is an interesting video on Giardia:



It would make sense that if your cat had this his immune system might be compromised. 

One thing to watch out for is that apparently cats who have giardia are more likely to get IBD: