Emaciated Foster Mama Cat with Severe Diarrhea

   I was given a kitty from the shelter to foster. She looks a bit older and has 3 kittens. She came to me with a pretty bad URI when the kittens were about 3 weeks old and they were all slightly sick as well. She was painfully thin, basically skin stretched over bones and she weighed less than 4lbs and she isn't a small kitty. She was wormed multiple times before I got her, but not with tapeworm medication.

   Worse than the URI though was her diarrhea, oh my gosh. Basically just straight up liquid. The first few days I assumed, okay, she's stressed, a new mom, I get it. But it didn't go away and progressively got worse. While sifting through the box for a fecal sample to take to the shelter (which I couldn't get a good one because it basically dissolves into the litter) I realized she was passing 4 inch tapeworm segments. Haul her down to the shelter, they give her tapeworm medicine and within thirty minutes she passed three large tapeworms, one of which was 2 ft long. The vet also suspected coccidia, so she was put on a 7 day course of albon.

   Yesterday was her last dose, and if anything it's made her even sicker. She's currently eating a LID dry food (I thought maybe grain sensitivity) and within an hour of eating it all comes back out in a brown slurry. She has diarrhea about 10 times a day and 'leaks' often. Wet food exacerbates it horrifically (as normally I feed lactating mothers wet food to help with milk production) she drinks a  TON of water which is the only good sign at the moment. She has yet to really gain any weight as nothing is staying in her system long enough. She is horrifyingly thin, and is tired a lot of the time. But she's so sweet and loves to cuddle in bed with me. 

  At this point I have no idea. Is it possible all this diarrhea is caused from extreme damage to her gut from the tapeworms and then the good bacteria being killed off from the antibiotic? I'm very very worried that if this isn't brought under control soon she won't survive. The shelter also has very limited resources, so there isn't a whole lot they can really do, and if this can't be fixed I know she won't be adoptable. 

At this point I'm giving her powdered probiotics with dry food that I'm feeding at mealtimes instead of free feed to help control the outbursts. 

Any ideas? :/ 

Poor Mama! I'm not sure what to suggest. Bumping this thread in the hopes that others will chime in with ideas for you.

Jentrala,

I know you read my post regarding the same type of thing with our foster momma. My vet first treated for coccida then giardia. Grace was put on probiotics, home food, Tylan and Cerenia. Perhaps you would suggest this to the shelter vet; we didn't have any luck with our shelter vet and ended up taking our foster to our personal vet. If you would like any further information, please feel free to message me. My boyfriend has perfected his home food recipe and all of our cats, fosters and personal, are now on the food. My 9 year old had perked up so much!

We had one with severe diarrhea like that and they gave her metronidazole (Flagyl) it's an antibiotic too but it helps with the gut inflammation. Also the probiotic s. Boulardi is excellent at restoring balance when disrupted by coccidia. During severe diarrhea you can give 1/4 of a capsules contents every two hours and it restores flora in the gut and helps diarrhea to resolve. One other thing is to add some plain canned pumpkin to her food. Most like the taste and the fiber in it will help bulk up her stool.

Just checking in to see how momma kitty is doing. Keep us posted!

Thanks for the advice!

Good news is the babies are doing very well and growing like healthy little weeds!

Now, on to momma kitty....

Momma kitty had a fecal and no signs of giardia came up. She had another round of tapeworm medication and regular wormer. After this and lots of probiotics her stool firmed up to not really normal but much much better than it was. She still had to be fed meals, as she will overeat and cause diarrhea. But she was doing great and slowly putting on weight. Stools weren't ideal but I figured she would probably have soft stools long term. Occasionally she had a normal movement but very rarely. As the kittens get older though, I know she has to go back to the shelter. So I began transitioning her onto the standard shelter food.

O. M. G.

Within a few days her stool rapidly devolved back into extreme uncontrollable dripping everywhere diarrhea. It's been a nightmare. I stopped the shelter food and am packing her with probiotics and pumpkin to hopefully firm her back up and get her back to somewhat normal. I don't even want to open my bedroom door anymore, it's such an absolute disgusting mess. 

She is also showing worrying signs of what is either arthritis, bone deformity, or the effects of extreme longterm malnutrition. Her back legs are held very tight together, and occasionally after jumping she develops a horrible limp for a few days.

This, on top of her age, is not boding well for her. The shelter I work for is awesome. They're great and the staff is hard working and loves the animals there. However, it is a county facility. With lots and lots of animals, they are always over capacity. And....well, she's an older cat, with obvious food sensitivities that they don't really have the ability to cater to, and possibly some other medical condition. She's a sweet cat, yes, but...it is looking more and more like she may be euthanized. I haven't really talked to shelter staff in depth about it but...she doesn't have much of a chance from my experience. Even if I buy food for her during her stay, it's hard to ensure that's all she gets fed. And she will need a disclosure on her cage letting the owners know her needs (I couldn't not disclose that information, and just lie to get her adopted. I know she could easily be thrown back outside if her new owners didn't have patience with her gut) and....what real chance does she have in a shelter full of healthy cute kittens and healthy gorgeous adults? Even adult cats can easily sit for months there, because most of the cats adopted there are kittens or 'rare' looking cats, simple because of the large volume/turnover that they have.

I just....don't know at this point. I can't keep her. And I feel awful about this, so, so awful. But at the same time its just...not really getting better. And I know they're tiring of her and me bringing her in all the time. I don't have funds (I don't even think it would be legal either) to take her to my vet, I'm already owing hundreds on my credit card for my own cat with his cancer. 

I'm going to talk to the staff about giving her a trial run at the shelter and HOPING they only use the food I give them but it's just so iffy. I've had adult cats that I've fostered sit there for MONTHS and they're perfectly healthy, sweet, younger cats. I just feel very dejected that anyone would find interest in an older short haired tortie with a very bland personality, with strict dietary needs and a lifetime of a less than ideal litterbox.

I cry thinking about if she would have to be put down. But at this point it's a very real possibility. 

If possible, ask them to test her for tritrichomonas and/or run the diarrhea PCR test on her to see what's causing the diarrhea.  You may find she needs to stay on the LID food.

I would really recommend the Tylan. It can take awhile but it has really helped Grace and it's not expensive. I also don't think that a potential adopter would balk at giving your foster this twice a day. We mix it in with a yummy vitamin gel and Grace doesn't even finch at the horrible taste of the Tylan.

I understand your fear about the possibility of euthanasia; I have had the same fear with Grace. Unfortunately, this may be the very thing that happens. Have you tried contacting no-kill rescue groups or shelters? Usually when they hear about this type of situation, they will end up taking the cat into their care.  Are you a member of any rescue groups on FB? If you aren't, join several so you can post the situation on their feed.