Cat with chronic diarrhea.

[edmckiddie]

hi we adopted an 8 year old female cat in reno nv dec 2019. she has chronic diarrhea and also vomits a lot. she's on prescription food purina rX wet food. she's down to 6.3 lbs at the vet visit last week. vet says it would take $700 of work to find out if it's irritable bowell or cancer. we can't afford that. we love our small, scruffy cat. she still seems somewhat healthy, she hunts mice and rabbits. any suggestions ?

 

[BlackCatOp]

Has she ever had solid stool since you have had her?

Edit: also my concern would be IBD/cancer or something else - especially since she has outside access. In reality it can be very challenging to differentiate between IBD or cancer (intestinal biopsy typically needed) and ultimately the treatment for the two is essentially the same (prednisone.) If other common causes of diarrhea have be eliminated then (intestinal parasites, diet) then I would highly suggest trying a round of steroids and see if she responds.

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

E edmckiddie , can you tell us WHICH rx food she is on? Sometimes there is a good reason to be on RX foods, but in the case of IBD or cancer, it's very possible that this food is NOT the right food for her. Case in point, if it's not helping Some rx foods have wheat gluten, that sort of things that can cause a lot of issues with IBD, and that's why I'm asking.

Until we know more, here is a website regarding IBD, just because we don't want to think cancer just yet. Many (too many) cats have IBD, and there are many things you can do to help, food being a large component. But I would definitely have her stools checked for parasites since it is apparent that she goes outside. This could be the cause of part of her diarrhea, although not sure on the vomiting.

IBDKitties – Helping Save Lives…One Paw at a Time

BlackCatOp is correct in that many intestinal cancers and IBD are treated the same way, but just know that if you start her on steroids, than decide to get an ultrasound done, it will more than likely skew the results. I think many people do the treatment without really knowing the exact diagnosis because they don't want to put their cat's thru a biopsy.

 

[jessica smith]

Same symptoms and same option given after bloodwork and simple things were tested, that it'd be thousands of dollars for a biopsy, or we could just make guesses on treatments and see how it goes. We did the latter and in the other thread can see the winning trick seemed to be tylan powder, but is also on a hydrolized protein diet and depo-medrol shots every 2 months just in case after we had also done elimination diet and dewormers and what not. When the bingo-trick was found, weight shot up very quickly.

 

[cindy321]

have you tried raw diet? we had a cat with similar problem before, but totally recovered after slowly introduced her to raw diet

 

[BuddhaCat]

Has she been dewormed? I have a cat with chronic diarrhea I just wormed today and let’s just say a lot came out to explain the irritation in her system...