Hi, First off I want to thank everyone for the information that is posted in all the forums because it has helped me with some alternatives to help my baby peanut with his continuous stomach problems. Just to give a little history, he has had continuous diarrhea for over a year and a half now. My Vet and I have treated it in stages, at first we thought maybe it was the food he was eating so we changed to a prescription wet cat food and we ran every test there is to make sure there was no parasites or if he had irritable bowel syndrome. Everything came back normal, we did an ultrasound and it showed nothing abnormal, so the agreement was because the next step would be a biopsy which I didn’t want to do because I didn’t want to cut him open when all results showed no reason for it. So our agreement was as long as he was not in pain and was continuing to act his normal self and keep eating we would keep him on the prescription ID cat food and keep giving him metronidazole which seemed to help when he would try to eat my other cats food which resulted in the diarrhea getting worse where he would lose control of his bowels. Everything was going okay in regards to him eating and acting himself but I started to notice that every time he would eat he would go straight to the litter box and he was continually licking himself.
Then things changed when a few months ago I saw blood in his stool and I took a sample to my vet but everything was normal. It was okay though because I continued to see blood every day for a week, so I made an appointment to see my vet because something was wrong and then the Saturday before my appointment with her he was breathing weird and didn’t get out of the bed all day, basically I ending up taking him to the vet at 4:30am on Sunday because I was scared. He was drooling, not eating and when he tried to go to the litter box he would strain and nothing would come out but he would be pushing so hard. The vet gave him some fluids and anti-nausea mediation to hold him till I could take him to my vet that Monday morning. It was funny because my vet told me she was planning on calling to check on him until she found out he was coming in, I told her about what happened over the past two weeks and what happened over the weekend. When she checked him he had dropped from 13lbs to 8 1/2lbs. I didn’t think it was abnormal because he was still eating and I figured because he was on the prescription food that was why. Anyway I told her the vet told me that they could do a biopsy that would not cause them to have to cut him open they would go through the rectum, which is what they do for a colonoscopy. She agreed because there is a specialist at this vet hospital that is well known and specializes in cat digestive issues.
Well to sum this up we did the biopsy and it was determined that peanut has an abnormally shaped colon, a cats colon is shaped like a question mark and peanut is missing the loop at the top, he was born that way but other than that everything showed okay he doesn’t have irritable bowel syndrome but the lining of is large and small intestine are inflammed. I was relieved to hear it but in the mean time I had to come up with something because he still has diarrhea. I found this site and a lot of the people on the forum said to try a probiotic and psyllum in his food, which I ran out and got I let him eat my other cats food which is fancy feast and I mixed in one probiotic capsule and one pysllum capsule, for the first few days I saw a change I was so excited I saw a solid stool from him for the first time in I don’t even know how long. Then it stopped he went back to having diarrhea again, I have noticed that he is not licking himself as often and he is eating and not going straight to the litter box right after and he is starting to put on weight which is great but, he still has diarrhea though, I started giving him grain free food because a lot of the forums say it’s good for them. I’m using wellness which is okay but still diarrhea and I just picked up instinct grain free because one of the forums I read said its good but I noticed now, not only does he have the diarrhea he is not always making it to the litter box.
I know this is long but I wanted everyone to know the history and what has happened and what is happening because I don’t know what to do now. I’m still using the probiotic in every meal and the psyllum but it seems like its gotten worse since I switched from giving him the fancy feast to the grain free instinct. Now that I have written a novel does anyone know what else I can do or give him to stop the diarrhea? My doctor has tried twice to give him prednisone but he has a very, very bad reaction to it so I don’t want to give him that or any meds. I can tell the probiotic is helping cause like I said he is putting on weight and not going as frequent as in the past but ever since that first few days I have not seen a solid stool, I would see some form but not complete, but this grain free wet food I'm seeing no form at all. So any suggestions would be greatly appreciated I’m grateful for what has worked but since I have seen signs of improvement I feel like I can fix this or at least make it even better but just haven’t found it yet.
Then things changed when a few months ago I saw blood in his stool and I took a sample to my vet but everything was normal. It was okay though because I continued to see blood every day for a week, so I made an appointment to see my vet because something was wrong and then the Saturday before my appointment with her he was breathing weird and didn’t get out of the bed all day, basically I ending up taking him to the vet at 4:30am on Sunday because I was scared. He was drooling, not eating and when he tried to go to the litter box he would strain and nothing would come out but he would be pushing so hard. The vet gave him some fluids and anti-nausea mediation to hold him till I could take him to my vet that Monday morning. It was funny because my vet told me she was planning on calling to check on him until she found out he was coming in, I told her about what happened over the past two weeks and what happened over the weekend. When she checked him he had dropped from 13lbs to 8 1/2lbs. I didn’t think it was abnormal because he was still eating and I figured because he was on the prescription food that was why. Anyway I told her the vet told me that they could do a biopsy that would not cause them to have to cut him open they would go through the rectum, which is what they do for a colonoscopy. She agreed because there is a specialist at this vet hospital that is well known and specializes in cat digestive issues.
Well to sum this up we did the biopsy and it was determined that peanut has an abnormally shaped colon, a cats colon is shaped like a question mark and peanut is missing the loop at the top, he was born that way but other than that everything showed okay he doesn’t have irritable bowel syndrome but the lining of is large and small intestine are inflammed. I was relieved to hear it but in the mean time I had to come up with something because he still has diarrhea. I found this site and a lot of the people on the forum said to try a probiotic and psyllum in his food, which I ran out and got I let him eat my other cats food which is fancy feast and I mixed in one probiotic capsule and one pysllum capsule, for the first few days I saw a change I was so excited I saw a solid stool from him for the first time in I don’t even know how long. Then it stopped he went back to having diarrhea again, I have noticed that he is not licking himself as often and he is eating and not going straight to the litter box right after and he is starting to put on weight which is great but, he still has diarrhea though, I started giving him grain free food because a lot of the forums say it’s good for them. I’m using wellness which is okay but still diarrhea and I just picked up instinct grain free because one of the forums I read said its good but I noticed now, not only does he have the diarrhea he is not always making it to the litter box.
I know this is long but I wanted everyone to know the history and what has happened and what is happening because I don’t know what to do now. I’m still using the probiotic in every meal and the psyllum but it seems like its gotten worse since I switched from giving him the fancy feast to the grain free instinct. Now that I have written a novel does anyone know what else I can do or give him to stop the diarrhea? My doctor has tried twice to give him prednisone but he has a very, very bad reaction to it so I don’t want to give him that or any meds. I can tell the probiotic is helping cause like I said he is putting on weight and not going as frequent as in the past but ever since that first few days I have not seen a solid stool, I would see some form but not complete, but this grain free wet food I'm seeing no form at all. So any suggestions would be greatly appreciated I’m grateful for what has worked but since I have seen signs of improvement I feel like I can fix this or at least make it even better but just haven’t found it yet.