Diarrhea/IBS? Possible causes

[jra82]

Hi,
My almost 3 year old cat, Ginny, is having some stomach issues.
As back ground, she was a stray that I rescued from a building site when she was 10-12 weeks old.
We put her on wet kitten food and she did great for a few weeks. Then she developed diarrhea and bloody stools. The vets said she likely had IBS, possibly due to her tough early weeks of life. They ran no tests.
We switched her to boiled chicken and tuna with a supplement mix made for cats. She did well on this.
She is very food obsessed and I was worried this may have been because her diet lacked something, and she was deficient in some core nutrients. I made the decision to switch her back to pet foods.
I had her on the Pro Plan sensitive tummy wet food and the Royal Canin sensitivity dry food. All good for a month. But now the diarrhea has started again.
I'm going to book her into the vets as soon as I can.
I was hoping some people here might have some ideas about what could be causing the issue. Or even what questions I should be asking the vets and what tests I should ask for.
It seems strange the both times she was on the pet food she was fine for a month or so before the diarrhea started.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you

 

[Alldara]

She could be getting in to something, chewing on a plant or trash surfing.

Have you tried any probiotics yet? Sometimes fixing the gut health can do wonders. I had Ghost on some human ones. You can speak to your vet about it.

 

[verna davies]

She might have giardia or maybe an allergy to one of the ingredients in pet food. Ask your vet to test for worms or such.

 

[stephanietx]

I have a now 13-year old IBD kitty who has had gastrointestinal issues since he was 8 months old. He was rescued when he was 10-12 weeks old and we put him on high quality kitten food and did all the "right" things regarding his diet, then he had his first episode of gastroenteritis totally out of the blue at 8 months old. We put him on rx dry and continued with his regular wet food and that worked for several years. Then it didn't. Fast forward to last spring and he started having very runny stool and uncontrolled urination. He was diagnosed with pancreatitis and we worked for a few months to get that under control. On Thanksgiving Day, the diarrhea started again. This time, the pancreas was fine, but we started treating him for IBD and it was confirmed mid-December that he did, in fact, have IBD via ultrasound.

There is no real known cause for IBD except gut health and stress both play a big part in it. However, it seems as if chicken and fist foods are a trigger for many as well as gums and carrageenan in most canned foods. The recommendation is to switch the kitty to a novel protein (one single protein) such as rabbit, venison, duck, turkey, or lamb for food. To clear up the diarrhea, usually Metronidazole is given. We give him this as needed now, but at the beginning, it was daily or twice daily. We also added slippery elm bark syrup to his diet and that also helped when he was experiencing the worst diarrhea. Most kitties with IBD are also B12 deficient and cannot absorb nutrients from food into their bodies effectively, so B12 shots are given. The normal protocol is 1 shot a week for 4 weeks, then one shot once a month. We did this and it seemed to have helped our little guy. He just got his monthly B12 shot last week! Many cat owners, myself included, have great success with Zofran to treat indigestion and prednisolone (steroid) for inflammation. Our kitty had severe gas, so we also give him simethicone (baby gas drops) to keep that down. We are currently feeding him Royal Canin gastrointestinal wet and dry, but we also give him RAWZ duck and turkey varieties, as well as Instinct Venison.

It's been 3 months since his diagnosis and his poops have become normal again and he's using the litterbox almost 100% of the time, but there are still times when he poops on the floor, and that's an indication to us that something's not right and we may need to give him an antacid or up his simethicone dose or frequency.

I'm going to attach a few articles for you to read. Colitis, IBD, and pancreatitis seem to be related and can mimic each other. I will also attach the link to the post I started chronicling my kitty's bout with IBD.

Inflammatory Bowel Disease in Cats and Dogs
Colitis in Cats
Pancreatitis in Cats
Tumbles' Journey with IBD

 

[FeebysOwner]

There is more than likely some filler and/or other ingredient(s) in the pet foods you have given her that is the issue. Eating them for about a month would make sense as it could take that long to cause an intestinal intolerance.

You were probably better off with homemade foods for her if she didn't have the same issue while eating them. There are other supplements besides EZ Complete and Alnutrin, but these two are both considered to make homemade foods nutritionally complete for a cat.

If you were using one of these, or something similar, her food obsession is probably not from a nutritional deficiency. It could be that the homemade food made her feel well enough to actually enjoy eating. There are recipes on the internet that give you the amount of all the vitamins/minerals that are needed to make complete food for a cat, so it is doable to follow them and not buy a pre-made supplement.

You might find this link helpful - as it covers information that applies to a lot more food than just raw feeding.
Raw Feeding for IBD Cats - Feline IBD - Healing can happen!

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

My personal feeling is that if she does well on your homemade food with a supplement mix for cats (like EZ complete or Alnlutrin) you should continue with that.

Has she always acted hungry. Many cats rescued from living on their own are food insecure, never knowing where their next meal is coming from. Or perhaps you actually are underfeeding her? But as mentioned above, it's very possible she is sensitive to something in the cat food you are feeding, so if you want to continue that route, you may need to do food trials, which are quite time consuming. They say to allow 13 weeks between each new food to see what "symptoms" appear and then disappear.

 

[jessica smith]

I fought with this for years, we tried so many solutions that didn't work that its really exhausting to even try listing it all. Any supplement, injection, medication you can think of, been there tried that. Long story short, ask your vet to prescribe a small bag of this as a trial: https://www.chewy.com/royal-canin-veterinary-diet-adult/dp/35481

The ingredients seem like trash, but it was not just a Band-Aid but a 100% cure. And all attempts I've made, even trying other hydrolyzed products, have failed to transition to, so I gave up and dealt with the price. Perfect poops, coat drastically improved, weight went from 7.5lbs to a stable 10.5-11lbs, so much energy, and personality improved becoming so loving and affectionate a true snugglemuffin that will let you do anything to him, blowing kisses on his tummy to throwing him over the back of your neck to wear as a scarf, he loves it as long as he is being paid attention to.