Please Help: Both Cats Suddenly Sick

Have you tried giving them fiber and probiotics? The fiber (a spoon of canned pumpkin, or some powdered slippery elm/marshmallow root/psyllium husk, etc) should help with the diarrhea and the probiotics will help with restoring good gut bacteria. During times of inflammation, good gut bacteria start to be overtaken by bacteria that you don't really want growing in there. On that same note, when they have diarrhea, is there any mucous or blood? This could mean that their GI tract is getting irritated from all the diarrhea and you probably would want antibiotics at that point. You said her blood looked good. Did they look at B cell and neutrophil counts? Those are early responders to infections.

Some bacteria and viruses are very easily transmitted from one animal to another. Depending on the type, its possible that one of your cats got sick from food or something else and passed it onto the other via licking, hanging around with, using the same litter box as the other cat. Have you called their food companies to find out if any other incidents have been reported?

Also, has your vet ruled out one of them having and obstruction that could be causing the diarrhea (though two cats having an obstruction at the same time is probably really far fetched).

Regarding your question about antibiotic vs steriod, their aims are different. Antibiotics would be prescribed to target bacteria that may be causing the diarrhea and vomiting. Steroids would act as anti-inflammatory meds.

Our situation was the same. Louie got sick first then Newman got sick. The kitties don’t go out of the house, the dogs only go in the backyard and the only possible exposure is their food or treats. The reason I zeroed in on Instinct was that there have been past recalls for salmonella in the canned food.

I gave both Louie and Newman pumpkin this morning. I will give them some again in the morning.

So did you feed yours Instinct rabbit in the couple of days before they got sick?

Thanks for the responses, as an update both of my cats were positive for an overgrowth of clostridium Perifigens in their gut with unsure cause. Vet doesn’t think it’s the food since there’s no diet change and they both eat different things.

She gave me metronidazole and a probiotic and prednisolone to treat, but I’ve heard clostridium is a b*tch to treat, it can regrow even with antibiotics.

Anyone have experience with metronidazole? Vet said that’s the best start to get rid of this, hoping it goes away but not sure what caused all this. They are eating and acting fine, but still diarreha. Meds are to be given for ten days now

Hi!
stephanietx and @swaters or @dan32 and @lavishsqualor may be able to provide thoughts on metronidazole

If there is bacteria in the diarrhea, I suppose the other cats could've gotten it on their furr and then licked it off to clean themselves, no?

Don't panic, diarrhea can happen to cats sometimes, as long as you have a vet aware of the situation, they should get better soon.

I have just finished using Metro with one of my kitties. It really helped him in just about 4 days. We also added Proviable DC 2x a day and another probiotic, Saccharomyces boullardi which is really good for the gut. Try adding some plain canned pumpkin or plain squash baby food to wet food to help firm stools up as well.

There might be a few things of interest in this older thread-
clostrium overgrowth