Kitty with GI issues?

Came home from work today and my youngest furbaby, Liza (6 years), was acting.... WRONG.. She's normally very clingy; wouldn't hardly come to me at all. Kept acting like she was straining to poo. Some vomiting of just liquid, loose stool around her anus. She was absolutely fine when I left for work this morning.

Called a vet, took her for an exam, vet diagnosed it as "cat crud" after running a rudimentary blood panel.Checked her abdomen, no sign of pain/hardness. Gave her fluids under the skin, a shot of some anti-nausea meds, and sent me home with probiotics and four 1ML syringes of Metronidazole... 

A few minutes ago, Liza started straining like she had to poo, and passed a small (chickpea sized?) ball of stiff stool. Still leaking a bit around her anus. 

She's acting a little better, being slightly more affectionate, but still OFF from her normal self...

Now, I admit to being one of those annoying, overly-anxious fur-parents who fret over every little thing and look up every horrid diagnoses on the internet... 

Could it be constipation instead of diarrhea? Was she misdiagnosed? Should I take her to another vet?

Should I just cool my jets and trust a medical professional?

It does sound like constipation to me. If a cat is blocked up with hard stool sometimes soft stool will leak around it and it will look like diarrhea. The vomiting, straining, and small hard stool are all classic signs of constipation. I'm assuming the vet manually felt her intestines from the outside to see if things felt normal, but sometimes vets have done that with my cat, said it felt fine, and then an X-ray showed it wasn't. (She is overweight, though, so it's probably more difficult to tell.) I will say that with my cat's experience with constipation, we went through 3 different offices (4 vets total) before we found one that made a lot of sense to me concerning the diagnosis and treatment.

An x-ray could tell you for sure if she's constipated, but it's very expensive. See if they can get the info they need with an ultrasound. I recommend trusting your gut about switching vets. If you feel like the things this one is saying isn't making sense and/or they're not listening to you, try someone else. She might be blocked up enough that she needs an enema to clear out the hard stool before any other treatment is going to work, and a vet needs to do this. Her appetite is key. If it's less than normal at any point she needs to go to the vet as soon as is feasible for you. If it's fine, you can try a couple home remedies first.

Wet food is going to be best for constipation. It could just be that she's a little dehydrated. A tablespoon of canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling) added to meals will add fiber that will retain moisture in the stool making it easier to pass. Miralax, a human laxative that's perfectly safe for cats, will also soften the stool. (You can start with 1/8 tsp once a day and increase as needed). However, if she's too blocked up, which I'm afraid she might be because of the leakage, these remedies will only soften up new stool not the stool causing the blockage, so it may not be of any help. Psyllium fiber (metamucil) is also used sometimes for constipation. This works by adding bulk to the stool and speeding it through the digestive tract because it has a different kind of fiber than pumpkin, and I have used it before and it worked for my cat, although I do not think it was comfortable for her. But my current vet really advises against it and after I learned more about it I agree because adding bulk can sometimes make the constipation worse and contribute to megacolon.

I'm sorry you and Liza are going through this! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this is a quick-fix kind of constipation. If not I have lots more ideas, though, because I've tried everything myself!

Oh, and the anti-nausea meds probably won't do anything, because the vomiting in constipation cases is from straining too hard not nausea, but the probiotics might help. And the metronidazol is generally good for soothing the intestine if there's any inflammation, so keep administering that as well until a vet tells you differently because that might help her feel a bit better even if it doesn't fix everything.