Pedialyte Question - 6 week old kitten

I'm fostering for a local shelter and have a kitten that has diarrhea. It's been treated, and is being followed, and watched like a hawk   In the meantime, I want to give it some Pedialyte to keep on top of hydration.

Instead of buying the huge containers of Pedialyte, I bought powdered Pedialyte because you can make up 8 ounces at a time. I'm only giving it 2 ml at a time every couple of hours, so I'm not going through the whole 8 ounces. It says to discard after 24 hours. Is that an absolute? It's been in the refrigerator all the time and I made it with Brita-filtered water.

If it does need to be discarded, can I measure out the powder and make up just a few ounces at a time? Anyone ever tried that? Do you know how much powder per how much water?

Meowy

mm01772 said:

 
I'm fostering for a local shelter and have a kitten that has diarrhea. It's been treated, and is being followed, and watched like a hawk   In the meantime, I want to give it some Pedialyte to keep on top of hydration.

Instead of buying the huge containers of Pedialyte, I bought powdered Pedialyte because you can make up 8 ounces at a time. I'm only giving it 2 ml at a time every couple of hours, so I'm not going through the whole 8 ounces. It says to discard after 24 hours. Is that an absolute? It's been in the refrigerator all the time and I made it with Brita-filtered water.

If it does need to be discarded, can I measure out the powder and make up just a few ounces at a time? Anyone ever tried that? Do you know how much powder per how much water?

Meowy

Click to expand...

I myself have not experience with that form of pedialyte.  I do make my own homemade.  There are several different receipts... Works nicely, and no problems with flavoring, as is common with some of the bought types.

But Im sure you can measure the powder.  Say, if you have a package to make 8 ounces of water, open the package,  make 4 smaller portions - it doesnt need to be totally exactly - 3 of them you wrap in small plastic bags, and freeze in.   - freeze in, as the product is now opened, so you dont want it to get contaminated or bacteria growing...

Altrnatively, you make the 8 oz pedialyte, and separate them in 4 - or 8 small plastic bags, and freeze these you dont use today.

Next time, you micro up one of the small bags, and give in body temp.

And make the pedialyte from the one quarter you have.   You use of course one fourth of the  amount  you use for 8 ounces portion...

Thank you for the suggestions. Freezing the liquid or the opened powder would probably work for me.

Regarding homemade, I had a vet once tell me that the home recipes were incomplete because they were lacking all the minerals (for example, potassium), but that it will be okay in an emergency.

I just did a search for recipes and a lot of sites give this formula, saying that it's from the World Health Organization.

* 1 cup water (boiled then cooled)

* 2 tsp sugar

* 1/8 tsp salt

* 1/8 tsp baking soda

So, I searched the WHO site and it has a different recipe, one that has potassium and citrate (and is more involved):

http://www.who.int/maternal_child_adolescent/documents/fch_cah_06_1/en/

So I think I'll try breaking up the powder first and see how that goes. Hopefully I won't need this for more than a day or two!

mm01772 said:

 
Thank you for the suggestions. Freezing the liquid or the opened powder would probably work for me.

Regarding homemade, I had a vet once tell me that the home recipes were incomplete because they were lacking all the minerals (for example, potassium), but that it will be okay in an emergency.

I just did a search for recipes and a lot of sites give this formula, saying that it's from the World Health Organization.

* 1 cup water (boiled then cooled)

* 2 tsp sugar

* 1/8 tsp salt

* 1/8 tsp baking soda

So, I searched the WHO site and it has a different recipe, one that has potassium and citrate (and is more involved):

http://www.who.int/maternal_child_adolescent/documents/fch_cah_06_1/en/

So I think I'll try breaking up the powder first and see how that goes. Hopefully I won't need this for more than a day or two!

Click to expand...

Now, as the sugar source, I use always glucose sugar (dextrose).  Its easy to get in Sweden, most well equipped food shops do carry the powder.    There are also flavored sweeties, heavily used by students and  wanna be sportsmen,  made of glucose sugar.   

So for me its no big deal to use the proper ingredient, instead of using emergency replacements.

For american forumites whom have difficulties to find glucose sugar proper, there is always white caro syrup, or even honey - honey does contain some glucose, and white caro syrup contains much glucose sugar.  In some brands its perhaps even essentially liquid glucose sugar.

Common sugar works too, but much slower, as it must be digested..  While glucose doesnt need to be digested, goes into blood directly from the stomach, yes, even from the mouth.

These whom tried both, are astonished how quickly glucose works, practically instantly.

As salt source, I use  minerale salt.  Also common in shops here in Sweden.  This salt contains  several different minerales, not just the NaCl in the usual kitchen salt. Including this potassium K salt.

A nice base for salt sources is simple a bottle of good minerale water.   These do typically contain a lotsa of different salts, in suitable concentration.

Let the gas out, add the glucose sugar source, and voilá!  you got a terrific home made pedialyte...

Common kitchen salt is OK if you dont have anything else, but its too "poverty"  if you use the pedialyte more than occasionally.

A third recipe is,  you use water from well cooked rice.   In practice its over cooked.

And add  salt to it, preferably  such a minerale salt mentioned above...

This rice water contains lotsa of glucose sugar.   This variation of  pedialyte probably extra useful in some types of diarrhea, as water from overcooked rice is in itself  one of the tools against diarrhea.  At least, the emergency doc gave us the recipe when I was a child and sick in diarrhea...  

I have used the World Health Organization's recipe for years, and it is just great.

I have also mixed it half and half with water when mixing up KMR powder for bottle babies.

It is a miracle recipe and has helped so much.

I stand by it 100%

A couple of remarks.

A nice combination should be,  a  homemade pedialyte on such an overboilded rice, in water of mineral water.

Here we get both natural glucose sugar, lotsa of good mineral salts, and the rests from rice whom are good when having a diarrhea.  After all, such rice water is a classical home remedy for humans with diarrhea...

There is of course bought pedialyte, which can be used too.  Some of the brands have too much funny ingredients, though.  But if desperate, can be used.

My recommendation is, flavorless pedialyte for babies.   This is OK for cats.