Diarrhea

[taxcatkim]

Just trying to see an opinion out there about Roscoe's diarrhea.

History: Roscoe has a hole in his heart and a mitral valve defect and is about 14 months old now. When we neutered him (back in January) the cardiologist put him on Cephalexin in case any bacteria landed on that mitral valve. The Cephalexin caused him to have diarrhea for a couple of weeks. I had a fecal done just to make sure things were ok and my vet recommended pumpkin to help him out.

Then....back at the end of July, my husband let him drink the rest of the milk from his cereal bowl (BAD idea). Poor Roscoe puked everything he'd eaten the whole day, it seemed. The milk was a bad idea and now hubby's not allowed to give him any!

He's had slightly loose stools ever since and has been vomiting once about every two weeks. The vomiting wasn't enough to worry me because it's not frequent and he eats right afterwards. I noticed when cleaning out the cat boxes last week (we have four cats and four boxes) that someone had some runny poop in there. I finally found the culprit. I followed Roscoe to the box this morning (I'm sure he thinks I'm nuts for watching him poop), and caught him in the act. It's definitely him with the runny poop.

We're going to the vet Monday morning to get him checked out, but I thought I would ask anyone else out there if it makes sense that loose stools could persist for 6 weeks just from having an overdose of milk? Hubby thinks I'm nuts, but I'm beginning to wonder if there's a correlation here.

He's eating ok and playing ok. I guess I just worry more about him because of his heart.

Thanks.

Kim

 

[malynn]

My daughters kitten had really bad diarrhea for the first month that she had her, she had been to the vet numerous times and put on albon, it didnt work. We thought it may be the food she was on and we tried different food (science diet ID) and everything. She came to live with me in July and my vet put her on Flagyl and a gram of Probiocin for 2 days and it worked. I couldnt believe how fast it worked, we had tried everything before and had every test you could think of done. She showed no parasites in her stool samples 3 times. It could be a number of things with your kitty I guess, glad you are taking him to the vet. I hope your vet visit goes well and you can get the diarrhea cleared up.
I know I was so happy when we got my kittens cleared up.

 

[taxcatkim]

Our vet did some blood work and we'll get that back tomorrow. Stool sample was negative - a few extra bacteria that shouldn't be there. No worms, etc. He had a 104.7 fever, although he was playing and eating while at home. He stressed out so much at the vet, though. Our vet thought the high fever could be in part due to stress, but not that high. We were sent home some Flagyl. Any thoughts on why Flagyl would be the medicine of choice instead of Amoxi Liquid or Clavamox?

 

[sandie]

Flagyl seems to be the drug of choice when dealing with digestive or intestinal problems. It fights anaerobic infections very well. An anaerobic infection is caused by bacteria that can't grow with the presence of oxygen. Which is usually skin, mouth, intestines, etc.
It's also a good antibiotic for Enteric infections (intestinal).
It's also the treatment for giardia.

 

[taxcatkim]

Tomorrow, our vet is faxing me the results of the blood work and fecal. For now, the only thing abnormal on the blood work was his ALT was 177 (norm 10-100). She said all other values were within normal range. I've done a bit of internet research about elevated ALT and I don't get much back other than it's a liver enzyme and it should be used in conjunction with AST, ALPH, and BIL to measure liver function (unless I read wrong). So, what's with an elevated ALT? Any thoughts as to what types of things can elevate it besides liver problems?

 

[sandie]

ALT is made in the liver so the values will reflect something going on with the liver. A low ALT is fine, and a high ALT reflects some sort of trauma to liver. In order for a problem to be diagnosed, it has to be in conjunction with other values. I wouldn't worry about the ALT since everything else is fine