Coronavirus Fcov And Fortiflora - Any Experience With That?

My Hima has coronavirus with high antibodies - she was S4 on a scale of 1-6 on that ImmunoComb test. Meaning she's likely shedding FcOV. I was told by some vets FortiFlora probiotic is recommended to reduce the shedding. It's worth to try but Hima goes outside to the yard for pee and poop. She used to be a stray and is still VERY secretive about her bowel movements. Meaning I almost never see her urine or poop that I can tell if she has diarrhea or constipation.

Would FortiFlora hurt if she got it when she had constipation or normal stools? It's marketed for diarrhea. Maybe I'm making a wrong correlation here but probiotics for diarrhea for humans had caused constipation for me once when I got them as precuation with antibiotics (and didn't get diarrhea so the probiotics were taken to normal stools.)

Also, would it cause any laziness in her digestive system if I gave her every day or every other day? I will ask these to the vet too but to be honest I'm not sure how much to trust as their response is usually looking at me confused.

Fortiflora only has one strain of bacteria and not very much of it. There are better probiotics out there. Your vet likely has Proviable which is a much better probiotic than Fortiflora.

My favorite probiotic is made by Vitality Science.
Pet Flora, Cat Probiotics Supplement | Vitality Science

I give approximately 1/4 capsule to her twice a day (most of the small half of the capsule.) Probiotics are generally safe to give regardless of stool quality as they most often even out the differences. However, the wrong probiotic or too much of it can cause loose stools. Can you keep Hima indoors for a couple of days to see how she reacts to any new probiotic? Or would she just hold out until you let her out?

I don't know how probiotics might relate to FcOV. That's a question for your vet. Or you can ask Vitality Science customer service as they are very knowledgeable and return calls or emails often within 24 hours.

MissClouseau said:

Also, would it cause any laziness in her digestive system if I gave her every day or every other day?

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I'm not sure what you mean by laziness. The pancreas produces digestive enzymes for primary digestion. Probiotics won't interfere with that. But other foodstuffs are further digested by helpful bacteria in the gut. It is the these strains that probiotics intend to promote.

My vet often recommends Fortiflora when my cats' (or dog's) gut flora is out of wack and they're experiencing diarrhea. I personally didn't find Fortiflora all that helpful the first few times it was given to one of my cats. It's also bloody expensive. I do like ProBios. It contains Enterococcus Faecium, which is also in Fortiflora (and the 'magic ingredient' that helps normalize gut flora, I believe) but I can buy an 8oz jar of ProBios powder for like $11.99 at Southern States or Tractor Supply (It's recommended for goats, sheep and horses so they stock it). That stuff is wonderful. My dog Heidi came to me as a puppy with a couple of bowel bacteria and parasites that had completely wiped out her gut flora, she was skinny (you could see her ribs) and the food came out the other end looking completely undigested. After a couple of medications prescribed by the Vet to take care of the bacteria and the ProBios (which I stumbled across googling enterococcus faecium trying to find an alternative to Fortiflor -- It's by Purina and I also don't like any of their products), her gut returned to normal.

I now keep a jar on hand to dose her when she eats something she shouldn't. I even took it when I came down with some kind of intestinal bug. It helped the gas and the cramping. It mixes easily in water and doesn't taste awful when you 'knock it back'.

Probiotics also works for constipation. When Heidi was dealing with her gut issues as a puppy, I was giving her a scoop of Probios twice a day and after it normalized her stool, she started getting very loose stool so that was my cue to stop. I would imagine Fortiflora would act the same with constipation and make the stool easier for your girl to pass.

daftcat75 said:

Fortiflora only has one strain of bacteria and not very much of it. There are better probiotics out there. Your vet likely has Proviable which is a much better probiotic than Fortiflora.

My favorite probiotic is made by Vitality Science.
Pet Flora, Cat Probiotics Supplement | Vitality Science

I give approximately 1/4 capsule to her twice a day (most of the small half of the capsule.) Probiotics are generally safe to give regardless of stool quality as they most often even out the differences. However, the wrong probiotic or too much of it can cause loose stools. Can you keep Hima indoors for a couple of days to see how she reacts to any new probiotic? Or would she just hold out until you let her out?

I don't know how probiotics might relate to FcOV. That's a question for your vet. Or you can ask Vitality Science customer service as they are very knowledgeable and return calls or emails often within 24 hours.

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I think the relation is that probiotics can help with the immune system.

daftcat75 said:

Can you keep Hima indoors for a couple of days to see how she reacts to any new probiotic? Or would she just hold out until you let her out?

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She's a holder. Every now and then she even holds it when there's nothing stopping her from going outside except for things like she got spooked over a stray and not want to see her. Or she just got lazy. She has different kinds of litter boxes at home (that has been nothing but decoration), even some house plants that I got specifically for her in case she likes to go inside. But nope.

daftcat75 said:

I'm not sure what you mean by laziness. The pancreas produces digestive enzymes for primary digestion. Probiotics won't interfere with that.

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Yeah that's exactly what I meant by laziness. I remember there was some discussions on probiotics and humans about laziness. That if it would make the body get "lazy" so to speak to produce its own flora.

Libby. said:

Probiotics also works for constipation. When Heidi was dealing with her gut issues as a puppy, I was giving her a scoop of Probios twice a day and after it normalized her stool, she started getting very loose stool so that was my cue to stop. I would imagine Fortiflora would act the same with constipation and make the stool easier for your girl to pass.

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The vet said this too. I guess I'm skeptical because they also said the same about human probiotics (the one popular in oır country called Reflor) and I found that did nothing for constipation. If anything the higher dosage caused constipation.

MissClouseau said:

The vet said this too. I guess I'm skeptical because they also said the same about human probiotics (the one popular in oır country called Reflor) and I found that did nothing for constipation. If anything the higher dosage caused constipation.

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I'll bet the reason is that Reflor causes constipation is that it doesn't contain Enterococcus Faecium. Reflor only contains Saccharomyces Boulardii which is very helpful for diarrhea. Different strains of probiotics help with different things, I think.

Libby. said:

I'll bet the reason is that Reflor causes constipation is that it doesn't contain Enterococcus Faecium. Reflor only contains Saccharomyces Boulardii which is very helpful for diarrhea. Different strains of probiotics help with different things, I think.

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Might very well be! I don’t know much about probiotics. :-/

MissClouseau said:

Yeah that's exactly what I meant by laziness. I remember there was some discussions on probiotics and humans about laziness. That if it would make the body get "lazy" so to speak to produce its own flora.

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The body doesn’t produce its own flora. It’s a symbiotic (mutually beneficial) relationship but bacteria (flora or microflora) and the body are separate entities. Sometimes not so mutually beneficial strains take hold and you get issues like diarrhea or “leaky gut” like in IBD process. Or antibiotics use which wipe out the good with the bad. Probiotics are used to reestablish good flora in sufficient quantities to starve out the bad flora.

MissClouseau said:

Yeah that's exactly what I meant by laziness. I remember there was some discussions on probiotics and humans about laziness. That if it would make the body get "lazy" so to speak to produce its own flora.

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That is right, except it's digestive enzymes and not probiotics (there's too many things living in our guts, it's easy to get them mixed up ). From what I understand, enzymes can help when a pancreatic disease is making digesting food hard on the body, and some things like pancreatitis or pancreatic insufficiency can be downright painful. Enzymes especially for EPI are the only thing that will help. It's like telling your pancreas to stop huffing and puffing and working so hard, and take a load off. I think of it as pre digesting the food for them so they can eat without experience pain, and give the pancreas a chance to rest and take a break. But I've read what you mentioned, too, given to a healthy animal for a long period of time can create a lazy pancreas that doesn't remember how to produce enzymes.

1 bruce 1 said:

That is right, except it's digestive enzymes and not probiotics (there's too many things living in our guts, it's easy to get them mixed up ). From what I understand, enzymes can help when a pancreatic disease is making digesting food hard on the body, and some things like pancreatitis or pancreatic insufficiency can be downright painful. Enzymes especially for EPI are the only thing that will help. It's like telling your pancreas to stop huffing and puffing and working so hard, and take a load off. I think of it as pre digesting the food for them so they can eat without experience pain, and give the pancreas a chance to rest and take a break. But I've read what you mentioned, too, given to a healthy animal for a long period of time can create a lazy pancreas that doesn't remember how to produce enzymes.

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Thanks for the correction! She's still a young cat, the vet guesses her to be younger than 6 years old, so I'm extra concerned about her body getting lazy to produce something it's supposed to, you know. But obviously the priority right now is her antibodies level for FcOV to go down and I'm ready to try probiotics for that. There's no info on how often probiotics should be given for it to be helpful though. I wonder if it's still helpful if I give it like once or twice a week.

In my opinion that vet is milking you for profit There is no proven direct link that any probiotic is going to have any affect on FCOV. FCOV is a virus and not even a bacteria. It has been said that a probiotic can theoretically(never extensively proven) reduce antibodies in shedding but Fortiflora is unlikely to be the type that does that and in addition what are you trying to accomplish?
If you have a FCOV cat which a great majority of shelter adopted cats have, he likely has spread it to all cats in your house hold. Nothing can be done about that. As for coming down with FIP, that tends to be rare anyway but reducing the amount that shedding is moot since the cat still has it UNTIL he doesn't. A probiotic that works in the large intestine isn't going to do a damn thing about that since the virus presents it self before the large intestine. But as far as you know he is a carrier which means he will always have it and potentially pass it to others.
This is my opinion.

kittyhonored said:

In my opinion that vet is milking you for profit

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Two different vets suggested probiotics and neither is the vet of my cat. One is local, I commented on her clinic's Instagram and asked, the other is from the UK she shared her opinion free of charge. No profit at all.

kittyhonored said:

There is no proven direct link that any probiotic is going to have any affect on FCOV. FCOV is a virus and not even a bacteria.

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Maybe not direct link but my understanding is probiotics help to support the immune system starting with it helps healthy stools (no constipation, no diarrhea.) Some other things are questioned like they might help shedding FcOV but there might indeed not enough data to say. Worth to try IMO, what is the risk if they have no harm?

You're right a lot of cats have FcOV but not all have high antibodies. Hima's was S4 on that 1-6 scale of ImmunoComb, that's equal to 1,400something. The vets don't even want to vaccinate her to not risk FIP. If there is anything that might help her without doing any harm, like probiotics, I will try.

Anything is worth a try. There is more we don't know about probiotics in cats than we do know unfortunately. But then try proviable or a human one with good strains. Most vet researchers use human ones(Visbiome). The problem is you need one that has strains that work in the small intestine.

kittyhonored said:

Anything is worth a try. There is more we don't know about probiotics in cats than we do know unfortunately. But then try proviable or a human one with good strains. Most vet researchers use human ones(Visbiome). The problem is you need one that has strains that work in the small intestine.

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Two of these vets named FortiFlora. I think because it also has some vitamins in it. But I can and will absolutely ask "Would X be better?" if you have another name.

The only use I’ve found for fortiflora is as an appetite stimulant. It’s composed primarily of animal digest so cats go crazy for it.

....It’s basically overpriced animal digest.