Probiotic options for cats on antibiotics??

scarlett 001

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I have several cats on various antibiotics - they are either part way through antibiotic course or nearing end. There are some looser stools in the litter box (not sure which cats they belong to - but undoubtedly the kitties on antibiotics).

I am looking for a probiotic to give the kitties to help get their stools back to normal more quickly. Has anyone used the following probiotic?? Natural Factors - Double Strength Acidophilus & Bifidus 10-Billion. This probiotic was mentioned online and it seems like it might be a reasonable choice (the vet offices here only seem to have Fortiflora which I have heard is not the best and has lots of other stuff in it - besides, I did try it and far from encouraging my cats to eat their wet food, they hated the stuff and walked away from their wet food when I put this on it!!). I live in Canada so cannot get all of the same brands of probiotics or internet options as people in the USA.
 

ldg

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If you're able to find that one there, it's a good choice, IMO. It really helped our Chumley. I actually use it daily for my cats. The gut accounts for 65% - 70% of the immune system, and healthy gut flora is very important in that process. Well - technically I give 1/2 a capsule 2x a day to my kitties.

When using probiotics with antibiotics, they need to be given at least 2 hours before or after the antibiotics, and they're best given for at least two weeks after the course of antibiotics ends.

But really, any quality L. acidophilus supplement will do - better if it also has some bifidobacterium in them. This one happens to also have L. rhamnosus, which has had a lot of research done on it. It's already been shown that it doesn't need to be animal-specific strains of probiotics to have benefits in cats, and human probiotics are typically manufactured to a higher quality standard. And if the 5 billion CFU twice a day doesn't help, then you can bump it up to 10 billion CFU 2x a day. Actually - that was what we used for Chumley at first, and once he was stable, we scaled it back to a "maintenance" dose of 5 billion CFU 2x a day.
 
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