- Joined
- Jul 17, 2022
- Messages
- 31
- Purraise
- 36
This is gonna be pretty long. I appreciate all of your patience reading through this.
Backstory - I last posted around a year ago. At the time I was not sure whether should rehome my kitty. I ended up keeping him. I still have pretty complex feelings about this but I love him to death. My cat is now 1 year and 3 months old, male, neutered. He has a history of having diarrhea and soft stool. We suspected IBD but the vet told me the only way of diagnosing is through a surgery, which we found unnecessary since he was otherwise happy and healthy. I ended up getting it under control when he was maybe 7 months or so, and his poop has been pretty good (I would rate it 8-10 out of a 10) ever since - until yesterday.
I think this is partially my fault. He has been doing quite well - he was on a single type of dry food, no wet food, and some treats (a few pieces of freeze dried chicken + a few dental treats) everyday. The reason we didn't feed wet food was because he had wet food with pumpkin puree in the past for his diarrhea, and was vomiting daily. I was terribly worried but found that once we stopped that the vomiting was completely gone, so I didn't try again for another 6 months or so - until now. I thought perhaps his vomiting was due to the pumpkin puree, so I got a limited ingredient wet food for him. He tried the first can and was very much OK (he only got 1/3 of a can a day, a pretty small amount). However, he starting having diarrhea after the first 1/3 can of the 2.5second can of wet food :'( It started off with soft-ish stool and quickly went downhill in a single day.
How he's doing now: he is going to the bathroom 7 or 8 times a day, with very small amount of very watery stool and mucus. Sometimes he can only squeeze a little bit out. He sometimes sounds gassy. He is otherwise doing OK, maybe a little more tired than usual, but still quite playful.
What I have been doing - I just gave him 2.5 billion CFU of s. boulardii. I'm debating whether I should be pilling him every other hour with a smaller amount, but I'm worried the capsule is going to further upset his tummy. I've made the mistake in the past where I tried way too many things and I think that just upset his tummy even more.
I'm going to bring him to the vet tomorrow. I need to rule out parasites. Probably also going to ask if they can test his b12 and pancreas levels etc. I want to get his butt shaved as it's terribly difficult for me to wipe his butt right now. My hope is to not put him on meds for another week or two (obviously, I will listen to the vet's suggestion and need to adjust the action based on lab results etc.) see if he stablizes. I don't want to put him on meds immediately because I don't want meds to further upset his tummy. He had a history of having diarrhea and had been on metronidazole multiple times, but it never really helped I think, and I know that's what the vet usually prescribes.
I am writing this as I want to keep a little record on my cat's condition. Hopefully it's nothing serious. Obviously things may go terribly wrong - and I'm trying to not do any of the catastrophic thinking kind of thing, as I always do. It's very much possible that I get overwhelmed/lazy/bored and stop updating this, but I'm going to try to keep a record of his current condition, both for others and for myself.
Also looking for some advice and perhaps reassurance... It's a hard time :/
Backstory - I last posted around a year ago. At the time I was not sure whether should rehome my kitty. I ended up keeping him. I still have pretty complex feelings about this but I love him to death. My cat is now 1 year and 3 months old, male, neutered. He has a history of having diarrhea and soft stool. We suspected IBD but the vet told me the only way of diagnosing is through a surgery, which we found unnecessary since he was otherwise happy and healthy. I ended up getting it under control when he was maybe 7 months or so, and his poop has been pretty good (I would rate it 8-10 out of a 10) ever since - until yesterday.
I think this is partially my fault. He has been doing quite well - he was on a single type of dry food, no wet food, and some treats (a few pieces of freeze dried chicken + a few dental treats) everyday. The reason we didn't feed wet food was because he had wet food with pumpkin puree in the past for his diarrhea, and was vomiting daily. I was terribly worried but found that once we stopped that the vomiting was completely gone, so I didn't try again for another 6 months or so - until now. I thought perhaps his vomiting was due to the pumpkin puree, so I got a limited ingredient wet food for him. He tried the first can and was very much OK (he only got 1/3 of a can a day, a pretty small amount). However, he starting having diarrhea after the first 1/3 can of the 2.5second can of wet food :'( It started off with soft-ish stool and quickly went downhill in a single day.
How he's doing now: he is going to the bathroom 7 or 8 times a day, with very small amount of very watery stool and mucus. Sometimes he can only squeeze a little bit out. He sometimes sounds gassy. He is otherwise doing OK, maybe a little more tired than usual, but still quite playful.
What I have been doing - I just gave him 2.5 billion CFU of s. boulardii. I'm debating whether I should be pilling him every other hour with a smaller amount, but I'm worried the capsule is going to further upset his tummy. I've made the mistake in the past where I tried way too many things and I think that just upset his tummy even more.
I'm going to bring him to the vet tomorrow. I need to rule out parasites. Probably also going to ask if they can test his b12 and pancreas levels etc. I want to get his butt shaved as it's terribly difficult for me to wipe his butt right now. My hope is to not put him on meds for another week or two (obviously, I will listen to the vet's suggestion and need to adjust the action based on lab results etc.) see if he stablizes. I don't want to put him on meds immediately because I don't want meds to further upset his tummy. He had a history of having diarrhea and had been on metronidazole multiple times, but it never really helped I think, and I know that's what the vet usually prescribes.
I am writing this as I want to keep a little record on my cat's condition. Hopefully it's nothing serious. Obviously things may go terribly wrong - and I'm trying to not do any of the catastrophic thinking kind of thing, as I always do. It's very much possible that I get overwhelmed/lazy/bored and stop updating this, but I'm going to try to keep a record of his current condition, both for others and for myself.
Also looking for some advice and perhaps reassurance... It's a hard time :/