Chronic Diarrhea :(

One of my cats has had chronic diarrhea for at least a year. She was checked out by the vet, had a bunch of tests, was given antibiotics, and put on Rx cat food for a short time. Seemed to help a bit, but she wasn't diagnosed with anything.

This summer we switched from Cat Chow to Taste of the Wild, which *I thought* had cured her, but that only lasted a few months. Now my poor sweetheart is crying and growling and oh so uncomfortable!

We simply don't have the finances to try a bunch of different expensive foods in case we end up not being to use it all, and I'd like to be able to heal her naturally. I just started giving her some plain Greek yogurt a couple days ago, but she's still in pain.

How long does is take for the yogurt to help, if it's going to?

Any affordable recommendations? I'm considering sprinkling their food with some of my probiotics....

Thank you so much for any advice!

Hi and welcome to TCS!

Greek yogurt does not have enough strains to help a cat in this situation and many people have good luck with human grade probiotics. I helped my pet with probable IBD by giving him supplements including pet flora from vitality science (http://www.vitalityscience.com). I have also found their luxolite product really stops any soft stool issue within 24 hours for both my cats and dog (http://www.vitalityscience.com/v/AllProducts/luxolite/white-bentonite.asp).

Your cat may have IBD and there is no definitive diagnoses unless you get an expensive biopsy. Chronic GI issues are often a result of IBD. Here is a great article and video on this disease (http://healthypets.mercola.com/site...012/09/24/pets-gi-inflammation-treatment.aspx)

 

Here is another good article from another vet on IBD (http://www.littlebigcat.com/health/inflammatory-bowel-disease/).

What works for a lot of people is to ditch species inappropriate dry food (see www.catinfo.org for information on cat nutrition from a vet).

What helped my cat was to switch him to the nature's variety novel protein wet foods (lamb and duck). A lot of other people have had great success with a raw diet and take a look at the raw forum where many people have treated their ibd kitties with raw. One member had her cat have his first normal stool after switching to a raw diet (http://www.thecatsite.com/t/239771/...lucky-bugsy-and-hope-to-raw-challenges-galore).

Here is another website on IBD that may also be useful (http://www.ibdkitties.net)

Good luck and keep us posted!

Wow, thanks for all the info!

I would LOVE to switch the cats to a homemade raw diet, but I'm doing good to be able to prepare my own food. The canned is a good compromise, but living in a tiny apartment, I don't think my husband would agree to not setting out dry food overnight. Otherwise, the cats will not let us sleep until they adjust to no more free feeding. 

What do you think about picking up the dry food during the day and giving the raw canned in the morning so they have the 12 hours to digest? 

Any thoughts on pumpkin? That's something I could try immediately.

Thanks again.

Cats should be fed in meals about three times a day. Once in the morning, once after work and once before bed. If you have a good play session and feed them before bed they should not wake you up.

This may go against the advice of some but I usually leave out a 5.5 ounce can of wet right before I go to bed as there last meal, my cats won't eat it all right away and snack on it. Dr. Pierson on catinfo.org says canned food cat be out for up to 12 hours but I find they usually eat it in a few hours and it fills them up overnight. I would not recommending doing this with raw though. 

If you do leave out dry make sure it is a measured amount and is not more than half of their daily caloric intake so should be a very small amount as dry has a lot of calories. Yes pick up the dry food for sure during the day but I do worry about them filling up on dry overnight and not wanting to eat much wet so do make sure to only leave out one meals worth of dry food. Nature's variety imo is a good food and they have a handy calculator on their website where you can input how much wet, raw and kibble you want to feed and they will give you the exact amount of each to feed- I would try to limit dry food to 25% (http://www.naturesvariety.com/feedguide)

Leanna Reece said:

Any thoughts on pumpkin? That's something I could try immediately.

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Canned pumpkin (not pie filling) has been known to be helpful for diarrhea. It wouldn't hurt to try it. I'm not sure how effective it will be for chronic diarrhea since it seems like there's something else going on here.

I would definitely try human grade probiotics. Nexabiotic 20 strain and Natural Factors 10 billion CFU Acidophilus & Bifidus have both been used by members here. Then I would try an elimination diet. Try a plain cooked chicken diet for a few days to see if that helps with the diarrhea. While not a complete diet and meant to be used temporarily, it will help you identify if it's an ingredient in the commercial cat food that's causing an issue.

One TCS member, Carolina, has a kitty with chronic diarrhea.  Here is one of the threads that she started about her guy.    http://www.thecatsite.com/t/227471/bugsy-day-120-purring-for-tootsie-poopie   There is a thread somewhere talking about all the various products she's tried with him, but I can't find it.  YOu might want to send Carolina a PM and see if she can help you.