newly adopted 5-yr old kitty - chronic loose stool/diarrhea

Hello,

I adopted my 5 year old kitty (4-6 years) Socks 1.5 months ago. His owner died of cancer last year and he was in foster homes/petco for about a year. He is my first pet ever.

I saw many threads about chronic diarrhea on this forum, so I have been following some advice on it.. I decided to post Sock's own situation here as well to get more insight.

When I first adopted Socks, I was told that he eats Hill's science dry during the day, and some Hill's science wet food at night, and that Fancy Feast should be fine. I got some dry food to go that Socks had been eating.  

When he first arrived, even before I fed him his first food (Fancy Feast), he had diarrhea. Then he ate half a can of his Fancy Feast, came to bed to sleep with me. 

The next morning, I gave him the dry food from the foster mom. In the evening I fed him the second half of Fancy Feast. He had an explosive diarrhea and also threw up Fancy Feast, not digested at all. 

I decided to put him on the dry food only that he was eating before. I thought combined with the stress of moving and a sudden introduction of Fancy Feast may have caused this. I asked the foster mom if he had this issue before and she said he did not.  However, I did note that he had diarrhea before I gave him fancy feast and that he came with matted hair in the rear end with what seemed to be poo crust (When he had diarrhea, the poo ran down his fur, and I could see that if that was not cleaned properly, the hair would get matted). Also, would it be possible that she did not notice, because the nice lady is fostering many cats who share litter boxes? (I am not intending to blame anybody here!!). His loose stools and foul gas (twice a day?) continued. 

Anyhow, I took Socks to see a vet within a week, and he was prescribed Metronidazole. When I came back from the vet, Socks generated mostly solid poo (tootie rolls with some loose around it). This was before giving him the first dose. I thought, maybe it really was the stress. I still followed instructions and  religiously gave him the medicine for 5 days while keeping him on his old food from the foster mom. His stool got better for 2 days, then it was back to loose. 

I called up the vet and said after Metronidazole, his loose stools persisted, and another diarrhea. But I was not seeing the tootsie rolls. The vet suggested Hill's science w/d and FortiFlora. I put him on the diet and FortiFlora, he had loose stool for 3 days into these new things, then mostly solid for 2 days, loose again, then one day he had a completely solid stool, which I had to take a photo of and send to my boyfriend because I was so excited. Unfortunately, ever since then, he has been producing only loose stools.

When I saw mucusy blood on his loose stools several times, I had to call up the vet again. After reading several forums, I asked for a fecal panel to test for T. foetus and other organisms. The test came back negative. They took his blood, the blood test came back negative. The vet said the platelet count was low, but nothing to worry about. They gave me more metronidazole to give him at a lower dose. If he does not get better, doc says bring him in for x-ray or ultrasound. He said if Socks does not respond to metronidazole, which is the best med for diarrhea, it is something not overcome by the drug, possibly cancer (I cant believe this) or autoimmune disease. He does not think pancreatitis is likely. My cat is happy, active and so cute and sweet (aka no other signs of illness but could he be hiding well??!)

I am a graduate student and I am way beyond my budgets with the vet visits at this point. I have a pet insurance, but I am not sure if everything will be covered since no diagnosis was made (24petwatch), I will bring him in again when I sort out my current bills. Mentally it's been tough to, trying to catch him going into the box so that I can wipe the dribbling poo on the fur and the butt. Last weekend was particularly tough with him stepping on his watery poo and not wanting his paw cleaned.  

In the meantime, after reading different forums, I ordered Nature balance duck and green peas, grain free limited ingredients to try changing food. I am not eager to jump into wet food (I know he likes it! He comes running when I open cans), because I am afraid of explosive diarrhea and want to get this poo situation under control- I also ordered Naturvets digestive enzymes with pre and probiotics (has anybody used this?) because FortiFlora has animal digest in it, and not sure if that can cause problems too. And I ordered more cat wipes for his rear end. 

I tried to change litter types too to see if that helps. Put away all the plants. I clean the house to make sure no food is left behind. 

I cannot afford X-ray and ultrasound quite yet, what can I do to ease his problems? 

Does anybody have any advice? I desperately need it. Sorry I wrote a very long post, I really appreciate you taking time to read this and giving me advice. 

I pray this goes away soon. On a good side, Socks has been very cooperative with butt cleaning, and he never misses the box. That is blessing. 

Thank you - 

Dee

I think trying grain free wet in a novel protein would be a good thing to try.  IBD is an autoimmune disease and it sounds like the classic symptoms.  Unfortunately there isn't a test for it, it's a diagnoses of elimination.  The metro usually works well but not always.  When you switch him to a different protein try feeding just that protein for a while to see if it helps.  There isn't a one size fits all to control it but often it is triggered by a protein that they have been fed for a long period of time or by a grain.

Some people have had luck with a raw diet and others like myself have a cat on a permanent low dose of a steroid.

Congratulations on your new kitty!!  Transitions can be tough on cats and humans, but I applaud you for seeking help for your guy.  You are probably right that all the food switching isn't helping matters.  Canned food is actually much, much better for kitties than dry food, so I would actually encourage you to try wet food.  Many kitties have difficulty with the grains in dry food.  There are other concerns with a strictly dry food diet as well, but that's another topic for another time.  A couple of things you can try, but you'll need wet food, try to get grain free like Wellness grain free, are plain canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie spice) and/or plain vanilla yogurt.  Mix into wet food.  You can also add acidophilus to wet food to help boost intestinal flora.  Lastly, you can try Slippery Elm Bark, an herb,  to help sooth the intestinal tract and help with the diarrhea.  Here are a couple of threads and information about dosing.

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/257544/slippery-elm-bark-and-grass-eating

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/262185/slippery-elm-bark-is-helping-mazy-so-much

http://umm.edu/health/medical/altmed/herb/slippery-elm

I used to have a cat who had fecal incontinence.  Whenever she'd get overly stressed, she'd poop inappropriately and it would sometimes be diarrhea-like in consistency.  For that, I started using Feliway diffusers 24/7 to help decrease her stress level.  That might be a good option for you as well.

Ok, I agree with the above, BUT, before you do anything, you might want to try to stop the current bout of diarrhea. You may be able to do that with just boiled chicken and rice.  Here's a thread that talks about that:

http://www.thecatsite.com/t/253036/help-explosive-poop#post_3291827

Now, as to the Naturvet product, I'm generally not a fan of probiotics made specifically for animals.  First off, you usually have to give them a pretty huge dose, and normally they have a scent to them that cats don't always like.  Second, I don't feel they have as much of "the good stuff" as the human probiotics.  So I just give my cats the same probiotics that we take.  We take two per day, the cats each get one per day.  But I do give them digestive enzymes.  Just  separate one.  Prozyme is what I give them. 

Did you receive the Natural Balance Duck and Pea Limited Ingredient food yet?  I know they make that same food in canned, and as Stephanie said, adding some pumpkin to his canned food would be a good way to keep his stools firm.  (it works both ways, to help with either diarrhea OR constipation .)

I too would try a plain boiled chicken (with or without rice) diet temporarily. It really does help you figure out if the problem is diet related.

Thank you so much - I really appreciate all of your input - 

The duck green pea food is arriving today - I will try out the wet food as planned below. 

He had an explosive loose stool at 5AM, as usual -  I am going to stop FortiFlora because clearly it is not helping. 

The course of action I will take now is, 

1, Give him boiled chicken and white rice 3 days to see how this works - (Should I stop if he has an explosive diarrhea? I am terrified of new food and explosive watery diarrhea, or does it take some time to sit as well). 

2. Try out duck food (Can I give this to him abruptly right after boiled chicken diet, since he will have been off W/D for several days?).

3. Add the enyzme stuff if duck food alone does not help and see what happens.

4. Start wet food trial if the food sits well or does not sit well, add pumpkin stuff. 

5. If all fails, try different brands, or different protein sources. 

Does this sound reasonable? 

Also, what does it mean if boiled chicken does not work? He is intolerant of chicken? (I noticed science W/D has chicken, and the other science food he was on at the foster home probably had chicken too... seems that most science food has chicken - 

I thank you all, Socks thanks you too - 

If he has the same problems with plain boiled chicken he could have acquired an intolerance to chicken or he has some kind of parasite.  There are parasites that require a special test to find or he has one of the common ones and they were not cleared up when he was last dewormed.  Three or four days on just the chicken should be enough to see if there is any improvement.

After reading some cooking chicken threads,

I will give him chicken only first, then add rice. In terms of cooking chicken, do I just boil chicken thighs? Is it OK to give the water that the chicken was boiled in? 

How much of chicken do I give him? He already had half of his meal. 

From my research, his daily calorie requirement is ~320. It says one thigh (55g) is 107 calories with skin and bones removed. So do I give him 3 thighs a day? Does this sound about right? 

Is the chicken water OK? Do I remove everything on top and give him the juice? How much broth per day? 

Can I save this food? Or should I cook it fresh every meal time? 

Please let me know -

Thank you,

Dee

Thank you Denice. I will try chicken only first. 

I did a PCR panel for those elusive parasites, and it came back negative, but I am always scared of false negatives! I will keep you posted on how he fares on chicken Thanks!

Dee Johng said:

 
The course of action I will take now is, 

1, Give him boiled chicken and white rice 3 days to see how this works - (Should I stop if he has an explosive diarrhea? I am terrified of new food and explosive watery diarrhea, or does it take some time to sit as well). 

2. Try out duck food (Can I give this to him abruptly right after boiled chicken diet, since he will have been off W/D for several days?).

3. Add the enyzme stuff if duck food alone does not help and see what happens.

4. Start wet food trial if the food sits well or does not sit well, add pumpkin stuff. 

5. If all fails, try different brands, or different protein sources. 

Click to expand...

Sounds like 3 chicken thighs per day will be almost perfect, IF you are not including some rice.  You'll need to adjust for rice calories if you add in rice.  And, yes, it's fine to give him the broth, as long as you haven't added anything to it, like onion, garlic or even SALT.

As far as your above questions, these are my unprofessional answers:

1)  I would NOT stop the chicken even if he presents with explosive diarrhea (which I don't expect), but I would then add in the rice

2)  Yes, ok to start him on the duck and pea limited ingredient food immediately after ending the chicken and rice (hopefully with solid stools already in place)

3)  I would add the enzyme stuff no matter what, but as stated above, I would use something different.  HUMAN probiotics are much better (and better accepted by cats).  However, if this is what you've got and he'll eat it mixed in with his food, then it's better than nothing...although you may need to start out with a smaller dose until he gets used to the taste.  I tried that with Mercola's combination pet probiotics/enzymes, but my 3 never could learn to tolerate them, so we went back to the human ones.

4) If the food sits well, I'd probably just stick with it for awhile to give his little body a break, then depending on what happens, proceed from there.  Did you say he likes pumpkin?  Can't remember.  But if he does, you can always just add about 1 teas into his food anyway, just because (once you make sure he can tolerate the food)

5)  Yes,if all else fails, try a different single source protein.  There is Venison and Pea, Salmon and Pea, then there are the 95% meats like Daves, Evo, and probably some others.

Keep us posted on how he does

You said this is your first cat ever.  Something to consider is that cats don't do well being switched around to different foods.  Feed him whatever he came into the house eating, then very gradually switch over to new foods.  If I am bringing in a new cat into the house, I feed them exactly what they were eating before they came and then for at least a few weeks the exact same.  Then to transition to new diet, gradually make the change.  Very bad imho to jump all over the place with different brands or if was used to dry, then suddenly wet, especially if there is digestive upset.

Thank you again for all the advice. Socks was on the food he was on at the foster place for a couple of weeks but he still had diarrhea - Possibly because of that one can of fancy feast + stress  I gradually switched to W/D as the vet recommended that diet... he did well on W/D for several days, then went back to loose and more loose. 

I started chicken only diet Tuesday night, so it's been 1.5 days. He had loose stool on Wednesday afternoon (the volume was smaller, and a bit darker). I was glad he didn't have to go twice a day though. Now it is Thurs evening, and he just made a trip to the litter box, he was there for the longest, and he came out kinda whining, he produced nothing. Perhaps constipated. I just gave him a tablespoon of pumpkin puree. I hope pumpkin puree helps?  Should I give more than a tablespoon? He does not seem particularly hungry now probably because he hasnt emptied his bowl, usually he is quite hungry around this time

Any advice?

Is he still peeing ok?  Are you adding in plenty of the broth along with the chicken?  How about the probiotics/enzymes?  Are you giving him those as well?  HUMAN, or the stuff you ordered?  I wouldn't think he'd be constipated if he just had diarrhea Wesnesday. 

One Tablespoon of pumpkin seems like a lot in one sitting, but if he ate it all guess it's ok.  But that would explain why he wasn't hungry

since you last posted several hours ago, how's he doing now? 

Hello,

Yes, he is peeing alright. I am inclined to say the volume of pee increased (+ he does not wait for me in front of the tub looking for running water, which he likes to drink from). I am adding broth when I give him chicken (covers the chicken and the bowl).

He ate 1 Tablespoon of pumpkin not in one sitting, but over the evening. I have not added enzyme/probiotics yet - only chicken and broth... now pumpkin added. I havent purchased human acidophilus yet, but I will certainly look for it.

He just took a trip to the litter box and pooed a bit. There were a couple of pieces of shapeless stools, but definitely more firm than before (it was brown not yellowish brown). Upon examination by hand (gasp! I have lab gloves ), indeed the stools hold better than before. Also no runny poo on the fur (well there was a very teeny bit, but much much much better than before). I am worried about the volume of the stools though. It's too small compared to the amount he has been eating. Definitely he is not releasing all of it. But maybe needs time? Hopefully pumpkin helps.

I will give him 1 tablespoon of pumpkin today again along with his regular chicken meal to see what happens.

Socks is playing by himself now since it is that time of the day.

I can try the enzyme that I have now first (I will eventually try what you suggested!), but I am also thinking maybe see how pumpkin helps...

?? Opinions? Thanks!

Well, since the first thing I always suggest for diarrhea is a good probiotic, which is also mentioned in that thread I referenced about explosive diarrhea above, I would give him the enzyme stuff, since that has probiotics in it too    I just wonder why (when I just googled this product again) it states it is to be used intermittently.      Well, if he gets worse, I would stop using it and find a good human probiotic, not just acidophilus.  This is what I give mine:
I'm glad his stools seem to be firming up, even if it's just a tiny bit.  Baby steps, huh. 

Let me approach this from a different angle. It seems to me that this has been going on way too long.  I don't  know your vet, or how long you've known her/him, so maybe I'm way off base, but this might be a good time to reexamine your relationship.  If that's the case, it might be time to find a new vet  or maybe get a second opinion.  If you don't have anyone in mind consider getting a referral.  Good sources for that advice are people who by nature are tapped into the larger pet owner community.  I've found good sources to be folks like police dog handlers, animal behaviorist, obedience class instructors, shelter workers, ASPCA/Humane Society workers/volunteers.  Am sure there are others.  Point is, these people plugged in to the animal community at large.  In the case of Police dog handlers, they are dealing with high dollar animals and anything short of the best medical care is unacceptable.  I've had to practice that advice because, I'm retired military,  during my career  I almost always had cats, and had to move every few years.  Finding a new vet became a survival skill. 

Sounds like you have lots of good advise.  The only thing I have to add is you want to add plain yogurt to your cats diet.  This is more preventive than curative.

Finally, I applaud your move to high quality wet food.  I'm not sure how much it will help your short term problem but I think it is a wise move in general.  You definitely don't want to be on dry food. Cats are not water drinkers by nature, they get most of their water from food.  If they don't get enough then your talking struvite crystals and UTIs.  No fun!!!  Grain free is great.  The problem with most commercial cat food is that it's too high in carbohydrates.  People (omnivores)  develop diabetes from a diet too high in carbs.  Imagine how much worse it is in cats (dedicated carnivores)  whose systems are not designed to process carbs.

I wish you all the luck in the world trying to get on top of this. It sounds extremely frustrating, I guess that's why I would be getting impatient by now.

Thank you everybody. I was indeed getting very frustrated last night since Socks had not pooed for several days. 

I started duck food yesterday (dry), adding to his chicken pumpkin rice diet and also added that digestive enzyme stuff. I heard his belly making kind of bubbly noise, so I got worried. I massaged his belly, warmed his waist with blanket getting all desperate and stressed out. I tossed back and forth worrying in my bed (I dreamed about him pooping solid stools all over the apartment hallway and stepping on them), smelling his butt whenever he comes back to bed (this sounds gross, but I need to clean his butt if he has loose stools). 

This morning - there it was. A tootsie roll. with some shapeless stuff around it (upon examination, it had some pumpkin in that part, also shapeless but quite firm). And a piece of shapeless, but firm ish poo.  His butt had no sign of pooping, and didn't stink! - But he did scoot again this morning it is kinda cute and funny when he scoots but i do not allow it. 

Socks pooping really really made my day (is this sad- haha). I am so happy - I really really hope this keeps up. But maybe still early to tell. I am just glad that something came out of his body. I will keep you posted - 

I cannot wait to transition to duck green pea wet if this dry agrees with him well. 

In terms of my vets (i don't see one consistently, its always a different one when I go to the office), I agree, I sometimes wonder if the vets know what they're doing, not to be disrespectful :-(  I got a recommendation to a different one, so I am going to check it out if Socks has to go to the hospital again. 

I think I will give Socks chicken and pumpkin as treats in the future - He seems to love it so much.  Thank you so much again everybody.  

Yay for a tootsie roll poop .  I think many of us have been on poop patrol before .  I know I have...because I feed a raw diet, I STILL try to catch mine in the act to make sure everyone's plumbing is working well, since it's quite a balancing act with the calcium thing (and I have more than 1 cat, so cannot just count poops in the box and know who did it ...or didn't )

As to feeding him chicken and pumpkin as treats, there is certainly no reason why you cannot continue to give him this every day, but not too much.  It's ok to feed up to 15% of his food "unbalanced".  I, personally, think you should continue giving him pumpkin for awhile at least, may just a teaspoon in the morning and one in the evening so that he still has room to eat "real" cat food

Dee Johng said:

 
Thank you everybody. I was indeed getting very frustrated last night since Socks had not pooed for several days. 

I started duck food yesterday (dry), adding to his chicken pumpkin rice diet and also added that digestive enzyme stuff. I heard his belly making kind of bubbly noise, so I got worried. I massaged his belly, warmed his waist with blanket getting all desperate and stressed out. I tossed back and forth worrying in my bed (I dreamed about him pooping solid stools all over the apartment hallway and stepping on them), smelling his butt whenever he comes back to bed (this sounds gross, but I need to clean his butt if he has loose stools). 

This morning - there it was. A tootsie roll. with some shapeless stuff around it (upon examination, it had some pumpkin in that part, also shapeless but quite firm). And a piece of shapeless, but firm ish poo.  His butt had no sign of pooping, and didn't stink! - But he did scoot again this morning it is kinda cute and funny when he scoots but i do not allow it. 

Socks pooping really really made my day (is this sad- haha). I am so happy - I really really hope this keeps up. But maybe still early to tell. I am just glad that something came out of his body. I will keep you posted - 

I cannot wait to transition to duck green pea wet if this dry agrees with him well. 

In terms of my vets (i don't see one consistently, its always a different one when I go to the office), I agree, I sometimes wonder if the vets know what they're doing, not to be disrespectful :-(  I got a recommendation to a different one, so I am going to check it out if Socks has to go to the hospital again. 

I think I will give Socks chicken and pumpkin as treats in the future - He seems to love it so much.  Thank you so much again everybody.  

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mrsgreenjeens said:

 
Yay for a tootsie roll poop

.  I think many of us have been on poop patrol before

.  I know I have...because I feed a raw diet, I STILL try to catch mine in the act to make sure everyone's plumbing is working well, since it's quite a balancing act with the calcium thing

(and I have more than 1 cat, so cannot just count poops in the box and know who did it ...or didn't )

As to feeding him chicken and pumpkin as treats, there is certainly no reason why you cannot continue to give him this every day, but not too much.  It's ok to feed up to 15% of his food "unbalanced".  I, personally, think you should continue giving him pumpkin for awhile at least, may just a teaspoon in the morning and one in the evening so that he still has room to eat "real" cat food

Click to expand...

Never thought you'd celebrate poop, did ya. 

Raw diet are great.  Much more natural.  I've tried it before and with 7 cats and 2 large dogs it was too time consuming.  When I decided to go back to work I had to drop it.

Be careful, the nutritional needs of cats are much different than those of humans or dogs.  I'm glad I talked to my vet first, he warned me that he was afraid of malnutrition.  There are nutrients that cats need, that their bodies can't synthesize, but ours can.  A lack of some of those nutrients can lead to serious consequences such as permanent neurological damage  and even death.  I'm not trying to scare you, but you need to understand this is not as simple as going to Safeway buying meat and feeding it to them.  The American Association of Feed Control Officials(AAFCO) compiled nutritional standards for cats, unfortunately I couldn't find them on their site.  Fosters and Smith came to the rescue and published them at   http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=1+2244&aid=657.  It was a lot of work converting those standards into something I could use and I would gladly send them to you, but my hard drive crashed and they were lost.  One of the things you must consider is that in nature cats eat everything but the bone.  Much of what they need is in the blood and organs.  One that I can remember is calcium which is lost when packing houses bleed the animal.

While I made  my own, I think there are places on the web that sell balanced raw diets so if time is an issue you may find help there.  Think one site sold supplements that you could ad to meat, and that might be the way to go. These were too expensive for me with the quantity I use, so I opted for do-it-yourself. I used over the counter supplements.  One more warning about nutrition, some of these nutrients need to be balance against others or they can't be metabolized. 

When I went back to commercial food I knew to read labels.  Food manufacturers will not tell you how much of each ingredient their food contains but they are required to list them in the order of quantity highest to lowest.  Try to pick the food with the greatest number of meat ingredients before you get to the first non-meat ingredient,  Stay away from ingredients like wheat gluten and buy grain free.  Just to grind my own ax, wheat gluten has no business in cat food.  It is a cheap protein so the manufacturer can claim it as protein but your cat can't metabolize it correctly.

Look, raw feeding can be rewarding and even fun.  It is the absolute best way to feed your cat.  Just didn't want you running down to Walmart for a cheap bag of chicken quarters and think everything will be good.

Wish you the best whatever you decide

Joe

Woohoo for a tootsie roll poop!!  As a loving pet parent, it's not a bad thing to celebrate!  I know I've been there before as have many of us here.  It's like when your kids are sick. We give all our kitties a bit of pumpkin daily just to keep things moving, so to speak.  None have any problems, but it helps and it's good for them, too.