IBD Cat Passing Light Brown to Clay Colored Stools

[benthomas778]

My 10 year-old cat Hote was given a tentative IBD diagnosis this summer after I brought him in for chronic diarrhea. He was prescribed a half pill of metronidazole twice daily until his stools firmed up, then a half pill once daily long term. This worked great, and he hasn’t had recurring diarrhea for a few months, just once or twice in August and September! But for the past four or five days, his stools have been mostly light brown or a very light clay color on the outside and mottled clay brown on the inside, and they smell very odd. It’s hard to describe, but yesterday he passed two normal dark brown stools that smelled like you would expect along with the others, which made the difference obvious and (to me) alarming, /-: His behavior seems normal to me, maybe a tad sleepier than usual, but when he’s awake he’s bright, playful and eating well. No vomiting now for almost two weeks after he had a flare up for several days that saw him puking in the mornings before his breakfast. He has been steadily losing weight after I switched him to wet food in July, down from 23 to 17 lbs as of last vet visit on Nov 16th, which I thought was a good sign. But now I’m worried that his liver or pancreas are inflamed/damaged and he’s not digesting his food properly. Has anyone had a similar experience? I’ll be calling the vet tomorrow, just want some insight to take with me since I sometimes feel like a hypochondriac by proxy when I bring him in for vague symptoms.
(I have pictures if they would help, not sure if stool photos violate the forum rules.)

 

[LTS3]

If he's losing weight, he could have a B12 deficiency which affects nutrient absorption. The vet can check B12 levels with a specific blood test. Low levels are treated with B12 injections which you can do at home.

Here's a cat poop chart: The Scoop on Poop

Smelly light colored stool may indicate digestion issues, which if your cat has IBD then digestion issues are expected. Besides Flagy, is your cat taking any other medicine to treat the possible IBD? Steroids are helpful. What canned food are you feeding? Novel protein limited ingredent type foods work best for most IBD cats.

Two web sites with lots of info:

IBDKitties – Helping Save Lives…One Paw at a Time

www.ibdkitties.net

Feline IBD

Address the root cause of IBD in your cat. Treat inflammation and gut dysbiosis with proper tools to restore health, not just manage symptoms.

www.rawfeedingforibdcats.org

 

[benthomas778]

Thank you for the response! He is only taking Flagyl, atm. The vet was reluctant to put him on a steroid in July because of his weight and slightly elevated liver numbers at the time. (I wish I could remember exactly what she said re: the liver stuff; it’s a busy practice and with covid restrictions, time to discuss results was limited. At his follow up she was pleased with the numbers.) I will definitely ask about B12!

He is eating Wellness Core Turkey and Duck, which he started at the beginning of the month. I had been feeding him a Purina grain-free tuna and mackerel food, but the ingredients were awful and he seems to tolerate Wellness much better. I suspect that an intolerance to the Purina set off the diarrhea to begin with as they coincided, but who knows. I’d love to feed him limited ingredient rabbit, money permitting. I’m still unemployed thanks to the pandemic, something to look into as soon as I have reliable income again.

That poop chart seems to indicate a liver issue, as I’d say pasty describes the texture better than greasy or oily. It’s hard to tell without photo references, but it for sure helps to have descriptive terms like that.

Thank you for the suggestions!