Worried about my cat :(

Hey everyone!

So my one year old cat Reno has been through a lot in the last month and a half. It all started when I moved into a new apartment. My roommate has a cat, and my cat gets along with it, but I don't think she takes really good care of it. It pukes hairballs once a week.

Anyway, Reno has been experience loose stool for about two months now. Not explosive diarrhea, but just loose, pile looking stool. We've tried metronidazole, and changing his food to royal canin Rabbit. This didn't work. He had a full blood panel, ultrasound, T4 test for hyperthyroidism, tested for diabetes, a full GI panel and a fecal. The results: the intestines looked find except for some inflamed lymph nodes (which they said could be due to loose stool) and he had bacterial over growth. They gave me more metronidazole and prescribed me I/d cat food...which has nothing but grain and veggies in it.

I've tried weruva cat food, and I'm
about to switch him from the dry rabbit royal canin to dry turkey limited ingredient by Natures Variety. I'm just so worried. They said the next step is a biopsy. He's got a ravenous appetite and he's lost a little weight but other wise acts mostly normal. I'm just at a complete loss on what to do. Is it IBD? Or behavioral stress? My biggest fear is cancer

I'm just so worked up and stressed about this situation I don't know what to do. Any suggestions from anyone?

I would appreciate it!

have you tried grain free or a raw diet? his tummy could be sensitive to the grain or veggies in the food you feed him. my kitten used to have diarrhea because she was on normal kitten food but when I switched her to grain free and raw, her stool is much better

I second the grain free since they can be allergens to kitties and the result may be what you are seeing. Also try some probiotics. When my cat Estelle has these issues, I mix in some probiotic powder for cats into her food and it seems to get everything back in order. The vet should have packets too called Fortiflora. When Estelle was having major issues and they wanted to do exploratory surgery this was the last ditch effort before that. It worked. After the fortiflora was gone I got a bottle of Animal Essentials Plant Enzymes and Probiotics. It lasted forever and worked great. When it was gone I just purchased a container of Organic Pet Superfood which apparently has a taste and so isn't as popular with her. I notice that despite expert mixing, she eats around it. B vitamins are in that one and those tend to have a stronger smell. She is getting more used to it though.

She has always had a sensitive digestive system and when I first adopted her she had a bad case of colitis. It was because of her that I switched foods for all of the cats and steered clear especially of wheat anything. No wheat gluten and no treats with corn in it. I had also switched away from gluten because of the 2007 pet food poisoning since 90% of the wheat gluten used in pet foods is apparently imported from China

So anyway, try the fortiflora and then long term check out the other probiotics. You probably already do this, but stay away from any products from Sargents or Hartz which is normally what you can find in a grocery store, or department stores with pet sections.  There's a high end pet food store in my town and so I get the stuff there, but if someone doesn't have access to that, maybe petfooddirect.com or Amazon.com has these things as well.

Do the kitties share a litter box?  Did the vet test for tritrichomonas foetus?

He may have lost a little weight because the Weruva is actually fairly low in calories. It's grain free, so in that aspect, it's healthy for him, but IS low in cals.  You might to increase the amount you give him.

As there any reason why you want to feed kibble at all.  It's pretty hard to find a kibble that doesn't have some type of grain in it.  Even the Nature's Variety has tapioca, and peas, and some cats are actually allergic to peas (not that they are a grain, but they are not normal cat food) 

I agree that he should be on a good probiotic.  Personally, I give my cats the same ones we take.  I tried the Mercola Pet Probiotic, and they hated it.  The human ones apparently don't have any taste like some of the pet ones do.   I just open up a capsule and mix it into their food (1/2 in the am and 1/2 in the pm).

Hey! Just an update: my vet changed his diet to Z/d, which I'm not thrilled about, but I'm hoping once we call everything down I can change it. She also prescribed prednisone...but honestly I haven't seen a change which worries me more. I don't know if he's still having loose stool from me slowly changing his food to Z/d or what. I don't know what else to do. And she hasn't checked for that triitrichomonas foetus...but all his fecals came back clear...is there a seperate test for that? He gained a little weight when I took him to the vet so it appears that he can absorb food and his nutrients...I just don't know what is wrong! I'm also wondering if it could honestly be something as simple as stress from having the other cat in the house...could that be a possibility?

I suppose it could be stress, but I've never heard of cats getting diarrhea from stress...usually they overgroom when stressed...what did the Vet say about that?  The T Foetus test is definitely a separate test.  It's called a PCR Panel   Here are two different threads about T Foetus, and it turns out that both these cats HAD it:  http://www.thecatsite.com/t/264288/sick-kitten-tips-or-advice-please  and http://www.thecatsite.com/t/268053/still-coping-with-diarrhea-after-10-days.

Did the vet put him on anything to help the diarrhea other than the Prednisone?  I have seen stress cause loose stools in cats before but usually it does not go on this long.  Maybe ask your vet for a Fecal culture (they send it out to a lab) to find out if there are any bugs in it.   Dietary intolerances can take a while (up to 6 weeks) to clear up issues.

Well he was on metronidazole for a bit and it worked at first but it stopped so we just put him on 2.5mg prednisone. He's still maintaining his weight and drinking a lot of water. I'm going to call to see what to do next.

I use pumpkin to help control diarrhea in my IBD kitties.  This is from http://www.ibdkitties.net/tipsandtricks.html:

Tip #2:  For diarrhea or constipation, add a teaspoon of all natural canned pumpkin to your cat's meal. Any 
canned pumpkin will do but Farmer's Market Organic is the best one and seems to be the most tasty. Make sure 
it's the 100% pumpkin and not the pie filling. It works like magic. Canned pumpkin is good for 7 days in the 
refrigerator but usually only tastes good for about 4-5 days. Place the remainder in ice cube trays and freeze. 
Then place them in baggies or a container immediately for freshness and defrost as needed or freeze 3 days 
worth at a time.

And I give one kitty Pro-Pectalin.  That really helped her last time she had a diarrhea flare:

My cat Lucy had loose stools for MONTHS- at least 6. She was on the z/d as well for quite some time- STILL had loose stools. SO I switched her to Grain free and with in a week no problems. 

I would DEFINITELY recommend a grain free. I use blue buffalo.

Yes, stress can cause gastrointestinal problems, big time. I know this from personal experience dealing with anxiety disorders when I was younger. I don't see why it couldn't be a possibility for a cat. And your kitty's been under a terrific amount of stress with moving, new person and cat to live with, and those tests and vet trips, having to take awful medicine, diet changes, etc.

But it could be a number of things and it looks like you are covering all the bases with the vet which is very good!

I've been dealing with loose stools with my kitten for about 4 months. And he's finally having normal poops after I started him on probiotics and made a real effort to reduce his stress, since he is an only kitten. I wish I could get him a cat buddy, but I can't til I move into another apartment.

When I took him to the vet he had clean fecals and was otherwise perfectly healthy but the vet gave him metro anyway. But I had to stop giving it after a few days cause he reacted so badly to it. He stopped eating and playing and his stools got much worse on it. That's when I decided to try to opposite route with the probiotics and that has really helped.


I also spend more quality playtime with him, got him a cat tree to climb on, and I make a better effort to take care of things in one trip each day so I'm coming and going less, cause he shows some signs of separation anxiety like running around, crying and attacking me as I'm getting ready to leave.

So all of this has worked very well!

I did try pumpkin but it didn't really help, but I know it's helped other cats, so that might be worth a try!

Thank you for all of your advice! I'm going to switch him from z/d to natures variety limited grain free to see if that does anything. I'm worried about him getting dehydrated so I fed him a little canned tonight. I'm also going to give him some Proviable while I'm switching him to Natures Variety. If nothing changes, it's another vet visit for us! I'm at the point where if rather then do the scope so we can know what's going on but I'm so iffy about putting him under anesthesia. I just wish I would switch the Z/d now but I have to do it slowly so he won't get sick.

If he'll tolerate it, canned food is actually  much better for a cat than dry food.  http://catinfo.org/