Long-term diarrhea & fecal incontinence

I have a young adult female cat who has been having loose stools for too long, weeks or months now. She is a rescue & is acting normal. She eats well & drinks normal amounts of water. There is no vomiting, no peeing outside the litterbox, no constipation. Her feces are not solid & she can't help but leave spots all over the house. The smell is extremely foul (which is not usual for her). I am trying to save money to get her a vet visit. Is there anything I can do to help her stools in the meantime? Any tips from owners with similar experiences?

There are 2 rescue cats in the household, both 2-3 years of age & fixed. The male doesn't show any sort of illness. They both are on a dry food diet & eat organic pumpkin puree daily. We're hoping to try grain-free wet food instead of the dry kibble.

First of all, has she been tested for tritrichomonas foetus?  It is tested with a specific diarrhea panel that has to be sent off to a lab.  Secondly, what are you feeding her and have you tried a limited ingredient food?

The first things I always try are pumpkin (which it sounds like she's already getting) and probiotics. If you can get her a good human grade probiotic supplement it might help. If that doesn't work she really needs to be tested for parasites by a vet.

I'd give her a good quality probiotic. I like this one (lots of other people here do too). Def very important to get her to the vet ASAP as it could be something that requires medication. 

Foul smelling loose stool is most likely coccidia or a protozoa like T foetus. The treatments are different. Until you can get to a vet, I recommend a regular probiotic AND S boulardii. I personally treated coccidia in kittens with this method.

Please see this article: http://www.ibdkitties.net/Probiotics.html It has "emergency stop diarrhea" instructions.

Thank you for the replies!

stephanietx said:

First of all, has she been tested for tritrichomonas foetus?  It is tested with a specific diarrhea panel that has to be sent off to a lab.  Secondly, what are you feeding her and have you tried a limited ingredient food?

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She has not been tested lately (or ever that I know of). She hasn't had a vet visit since she was first given the ok to be adopted after her shots & spay. She was not on a limited-ingredient diet at the time. Today we bought new grain-free formula dry kibble & cans. Hopefully that will help, she ate it up.

momto3cats said:

The first things I always try are pumpkin (which it sounds like she's already getting) and probiotics. If you can get her a good human grade probiotic supplement it might help. If that doesn't work she really needs to be tested for parasites by a vet.

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Yes, she loves her pumpkin!

missmimz said:

I'd give her a good quality probiotic. I like this one (lots of other people here do too). Def very important to get her to the vet ASAP as it could be something that requires medication. 

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I am definitely going ASAP. I'm unemployed right now so I haven't a lot of funds to spend but I'm saving for her visit.

LDG said:

Foul smelling loose stool is most likely coccidia or a protozoa like T foetus. The treatments are different. Until you can get to a vet, I recommend a regular probiotic AND S boulardii. I personally treated coccidia in kittens with this method.

Please see this article: http://www.ibdkitties.net/Probiotics.html It has "emergency stop diarrhea" instructions.

Click to expand...

I didn't think to mention she was eating Herbsmith Microflora Plus Digestion probiotic along with her food for weeks now. That supplement did not seem to change or improve her stools. She also takes urinary tract supplements. I initially ruled out any sort of parasite since her adopted brother hasn't any symptoms but I guess he could still be infected as well. I will look into S boulardii products.

You really need to get her to the vet for testing of her stool. Some of these parasites can be dangerous if left untreated.  It's very, very, very common for kitties to need more than one deworming to completely rid their bodies of the parasites due to the life cycle of the parasite.  Get her to the vet today or tomorrow for fecal testing so you'll know exactly what's going on.  It could be a combination of things causing the issue.

I know this is an old post, but in case someone else is reading this for ideas.. deworm the cat. It wont hurt her if she has no worms but will help her a great deal if she has worms.

I took in a stray cat that was seen by the spay/neuter vet briefly - of course in a spay/neuter clinic there is no time nor much diagnostic equipment. But what she did was giving her Convenia (antibiotic) for the skin infection around her anus, along with Revolution and 3 doses of Pyrantel (Strongid) to deworm her once every two weeks.

I am waiting for an appoitment with a full service vet office right now, but in the last few days her diarrhea has stopped. Also that horrible smell of her feces stopped. Now it just smells like normal cat poop. She is still incontinent (feces only, urine seems to be normal). I hope and pray that the incontinence is not permanently.