Blood In Stool After Changing Foods?

[alzycat]

Hi all, for those of you who have seen my other threads, you'll know that my cat Yoshi has been having diarrhea lately, got tested and poked by the vet & they found nothing wrong, and I've been struggling with finding out what has been hurting her tummy. I decided to try raw food to see if it was something dietary and to go 'back to basics' to figure out her problem.

I've been transitioning her to raw food over the past 5 days or so, and today gave her only the raw food after slowly increasing the amount each day. She loves it & gobbles it all up, and her poop actually looked better today (more like pudding instead of water- sorry for gross details), but I did notice a couple red streaks in her poop. Is it normal to get this after changing foods? Is it possibly from the diarrhea just inflaming her insides? Should I be concerned or just monitor for the next couple days? Anyone have a similar experience with switching foods?

 

[catwoman707]

Blood in poop seems like it's worse than what it is, that is as long as it's not black.

It's a sign that she has inflammation ongoing, something continues to irritate her digestive tract.

Often times a standard fecal float to check for parasites won't pick up a parasite as they do not shed their cysts all the time, causing these tests to commonly miss them.

My suggestion would be, rather than the vet doing the in-house fecal float, send it out to a lab. They will use a microscope, etc for better accuracy.

Has she been on any meds for this?
I would think vet gave metronidazole.

 

[alzycat]

Blood in poop seems like it's worse than what it is, that is as long as it's not black.

It's a sign that she has inflammation ongoing, something continues to irritate her digestive tract.

Often times a standard fecal float to check for parasites won't pick up a parasite as they do not shed their cysts all the time, causing these tests to commonly miss them.

My suggestion would be, rather than the vet doing the in-house fecal float, send it out to a lab. They will use a microscope, etc for better accuracy.

Has she been on any meds for this?
I would think vet gave metronidazole.

It's not black, it's red & definitely not dark. She hasn't had any stool tested yet, but they did a full blood panel and urinalysis and nothing turned up. She was on metronidazole, but unfortunately it affected her neurologically and she had a couple seizures while on it.

 

[catwoman707]

It's rarely black and means a much more serious issue, bleeding internally, just a mention of it as the exception of "not as bad as it seems"

Rather odd choice of tests, blood and urinalysis.
The most common reasons for diarrhea are parasites and food.
Consider whether she goes outside, has any contact with other cats, a change in food, I don't know her story or lifestyle or age.
Did this start suddenly?

If she was given metro then it's likely the vet already suspected parasites. Was there any improvement while she was on it?

She can also be given fenbendazole, my fave is ponazuril.

 

[alzycat]

It's rarely black and means a much more serious issue, bleeding internally, just a mention of it as the exception of "not as bad as it seems"

Rather odd choice of tests, blood and urinalysis.
The most common reasons for diarrhea are parasites and food.
Consider whether she goes outside, has any contact with other cats, a change in food, I don't know her story or lifestyle or age.
Did this start suddenly?

If she was given metro then it's likely the vet already suspected parasites. Was there any improvement while she was on it?

She can also be given fenbendazole, my fave is ponazuril.

I have more details on the other threads about it I've made, but essentially she had a decrease in appetite while eating the same dry food she ate all her life and she was losing weight, but she had to have a lot of her teeth removed so I suspected that she was just having trouble eating the dry food. Switched her to a wet food that she was on a few years ago with no problems and she got diarrhea. Took her off the wet food but the diarrhea persisted. Went to the vet, they did a physical exam, blood test, and urinalysis, found nothing wrong. Prescribed metronidazole, but that gave her seizures, so we stopped. Vet recommended a prescription diet for sensitive tummies, put her on that and she started eating again, gained 2 pounds, was looking good, but the diarrhea continued (it did decrease though to only a couple times a day). Told the vet and they said the next step would be an ultrasound, but I didn't want to put her through that stress if it wasn't necessary. From the help of this site I ordered S. Boulardii (hasn't come yet, should arrive later this week) and transitioned her to raw to see if it was a dietary issue. Since Friday I've been transitioning her to the raw, diarrhea persisted but she still has a healthy appetite, is very playful, etc. Today was the first day of only raw and her stool looked much better, but had red streaks/spots in it.

I do plan on bringing in a stool sample to the vet, especially if this doesn't go away after a couple days on raw, but I just haven't had the time yet (I don't have a car, and unfortunately when I do have a car available to borrow, she doesn't poop or the vet is closed).

EDIT: forgot to mention that the teeth removal was years ago and not recent, and that the metronidazole started giving her seizures after only 2 days on it so I'm not sure if I got to see the full effect of it helping for diarrhea. It was still pretty liquid like by the time we took her off it.

 

[catwoman707]

So a couple of things in reply.

Bad, decayed or broken teeth are as painful for kitties as it is for us, and we all know how awful a toothache can be, so I'd say that was likely why she lost weight before.
Cats are SO incredibly stellar handling pain, but hide it so well that sometimes it's underestimated the extent of discomfort that's actually going on

I'd give it a full week on raw only, I am no expert on raw food but heard plenty that it can fix quite a bit in their systems.

Also, stool can be saved and taken in for testing within 24 hrs but of course the fresher the better.

Lots of people have used S. Boulardi for digestive issues and/or sensitive tummies, it sort of coats the lining and gives some relief.
It's certainly worth trying on her.

If the raw diet doesn't completely fix the diarrhea issue, be sure to have her poop tested to make sure there is nothing there.
At that point, I would opt to have the ultrasound done. Been there.
Despite my girl hating the vet, they were able to successfully ultrasound her without any calming meds.
If there is question on her cooperating, the vet can send home something very mild to calm her enough to cooperate well, but not actually drug her.
Alot can be seen in an ultrasound. Mostly looking for inflammation and where, and can identify IBD/inflammatory bowel disease. IBD is very common these days and has greatly grown in the past decade.
The sooner this is discovered and changes are made to control it, by far the better off you both will be as far as progression in case that is what is going on with her.

 

[alzycat]

So a couple of things in reply.

Bad, decayed or broken teeth are as painful for kitties as it is for us, and we all know how awful a toothache can be, so I'd say that was likely why she lost weight before.
Cats are SO incredibly stellar handling pain, but hide it so well that sometimes it's underestimated the extent of discomfort that's actually going on

I'd give it a full week on raw only, I am no expert on raw food but heard plenty that it can fix quite a bit in their systems.

Also, stool can be saved and taken in for testing within 24 hrs but of course the fresher the better.

Lots of people have used S. Boulardi for digestive issues and/or sensitive tummies, it sort of coats the lining and gives some relief.
It's certainly worth trying on her.

If the raw diet doesn't completely fix the diarrhea issue, be sure to have her poop tested to make sure there is nothing there.
At that point, I would opt to have the ultrasound done. Been there.
Despite my girl hating the vet, they were able to successfully ultrasound her without any calming meds.
If there is question on her cooperating, the vet can send home something very mild to calm her enough to cooperate well, but not actually drug her.
Alot can be seen in an ultrasound. Mostly looking for inflammation and where, and can identify IBD/inflammatory bowel disease. IBD is very common these days and has greatly grown in the past decade.
The sooner this is discovered and changes are made to control it, by far the better off you both will be as far as progression in case that is what is going on with her.

Thank you for the insight! I've probably got 100 opinions on this in the past few weeks, and most people do say that if it isn't something dietary then it's most likely IBD. Today is her second day of raw only food, and her stool already looks much better. It is still quite soft, but it is actually looking formed now which is a big improvement. I still saw a small amount of blood in it that looked fresh, but only a very small amount- I had to analyze the poop pretty closely to find it. Hopefully she is feeling better and will be having blood free, normal stools soon.

 

[alzycat]

Update: She just had her first solid stool in months!

 

[entlaufene]

Yay solid cat poop! It usually takes a couple days to see any change in the poop from a diet change (unless it causes immediate diarrhea). Maybe you already talked about allergies/trying different proteins in another thread, but my cat had a similar stretch of gross water poop and weight loss, turns out she's allergic to probably everything that was in her old food, I had to find a hypoallergenic food made out of horse and parsnips before her poop went back to normal (but I didn't have much preprepared raw food to choose from where I was so I didn't go that route).

But blood in poop: red (fresh blood colored) means it's pretty close to the butt opening, and could even be from the anus (especially if it's been irritated, which is pretty likely) and is generally less worrying. Black means higher up in the intestines and is generally a worse sign.

Sometimes red blood on cat poop is from inflammed or infected anal scent glands, but I think it's more common to see it with harder poop (that squeezes the blood out of the gland). But if the poop is too soft for too long, stuff can build up in the scent glands. Normal solid poop will squeeze them so they get cleaned out regularly. It could also be the pudding poop after a long period of water poop was enough force to clean out some scent glands that were irritated from not being squeezed out for a while. I don't know how much your cat will tolerate, but you can feel a blocked up scent gland if you push down a little near the anus, it's not supposed to feel like a hard marble and if it does, a vet might have to squeeze it out for you (if the finally solid poop doesn't take care of it).

 

[alzycat]

Yay solid cat poop! It usually takes a couple days to see any change in the poop from a diet change (unless it causes immediate diarrhea). Maybe you already talked about allergies/trying different proteins in another thread, but my cat had a similar stretch of gross water poop and weight loss, turns out she's allergic to probably everything that was in her old food, I had to find a hypoallergenic food made out of horse and parsnips before her poop went back to normal (but I didn't have much preprepared raw food to choose from where I was so I didn't go that route).

But blood in poop: red (fresh blood colored) means it's pretty close to the butt opening, and could even be from the anus (especially if it's been irritated, which is pretty likely) and is generally less worrying. Black means higher up in the intestines and is generally a worse sign.

Sometimes red blood on cat poop is from inflammed or infected anal scent glands, but I think it's more common to see it with harder poop (that squeezes the blood out of the gland). But if the poop is too soft for too long, stuff can build up in the scent glands. Normal solid poop will squeeze them so they get cleaned out regularly. It could also be the pudding poop after a long period of water poop was enough force to clean out some scent glands that were irritated from not being squeezed out for a while. I don't know how much your cat will tolerate, but you can feel a blocked up scent gland if you push down a little near the anus, it's not supposed to feel like a hard marble and if it does, a vet might have to squeeze it out for you (if the finally solid poop doesn't take care of it).

Thanks for the reply! We didn't really discuss allergies, but I did suspect it could be something like that. I haven't changed her protein yet but so far she seems to be doing better without any protein changes. If she doesn't get back to 100% then maybe I'll try a novel protein

Yes, the blood looked like fresh blood. And I didn't know that about the anal scent glands! That sounds very well like what it could have been then. She just had another solid poop with no blood so hopefully that's all over with now!