- Joined
- Jul 26, 2022
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Hi all. Apologies for the long post, just want to get all the details out there. My wife and I adopted a 1 year old a month ago from a rescue. The rescue was also taking care of her kittens, and we had to wait a while to get her because she was nursing her kittens. They also got her spayed a few days before we got her (side incision). The rescue assured us she had a clean bill of health and was the perfect cat for new owners. The paperwork provided showed which vaccines she already had and what she still needed.
Since day 1 she has had diarrhea. At first it was yellow and smelled VERY bad. We transitioned from her food at the foster care (which was Royal Canin kitty & mommy) to the Purina Liveclear we are currently giving her. We figured it was just due to a combination of stress from new home and people, the recent spay, and the new food. Regardless we had a vet appointment set up to get her checked out. Vet does a basic physical and finds nothing wrong besides her being underweight. She was 5.5lbs at the time. They said we really need to get her to eat a lot. They gave her a deworming topical and also prescribed metronidazole. We brought them a stool sample later in the day and they had results within 24 hours - she had both giardia and tapeworms. They upped the dosage of metronidazole as a result. They also suggested a probiotic so we started giving her fortiflora. I will say the diarrhea was still there, but it got a bit better. The color became brown and didn't smell nearly as foul as before. Slowly overtime it became paste-y textured too, rather than liquid.
Around this time we found out that the rescue had been withholding information from us. They had known she has had constant diarrhea since as long as they have had her. They figured it was just worms and that she would be fine with deworming. The foster stopped contacting us after we found out, and the rescue said they don't know if the foster managed to help her diarrhea or not while they were there.
After a while worms started coming out of her butt, both in her diarrhea and just normally while she would be relaxing. Vet assured us this was the dewormer taking effect. That lasted about a week. Oddly enough, the day after her metro finished, the worms stopped coming out. We were worried that they only stopped because the meds stopped. They put her on panacur for a couple days after the metro finished. Then they ran the same test as before and found that she was clear of giardia, but still tested positive for tapeworms. They said they believe she is tapeworm free due to the dewormers, and that since they test DNA that she will just show up as positive for a few weeks. We still found it odd though that the worms stopped coming out the day after she finished the metro.
Anyways, since she still had diarrhea they now wanted to try pro-pectalin probiotic instead of fortiflora. Again no change. The latest thing they did was prescribe her prescription food. It is Hills GI Biome. This is probably a good time to point out that our cat is a very picky eater. She wouldn't try any of the wet food we got her so she has been on dry food. She doesn't like treats with the exception of one (one of the squeeze up go-gurt like treats). We tried going grain-free and she wouldn't have it. She completely rejected pumpkin puree (she treated it like poop in her litter and was trying to cover it up). She is also 6lbs now so she gained half a pound over 3 weeks or so. The day we brought home the GI food, she didn't eat all day. She spent the entire day looking for food. We even found her chewing on random things out of hunger. Oddly enough, that evening after not eating all day she had probably the best poop she has had (it wasn't completely healthy but it was like solid/paste, leaning towards solid). Finally at night she caved and started eating the mix of her purina and the GI food. Over the next few days she would eat but she would be very picky about it. She is not eating nearly as much as before when it was just the purina, and also I'm not sure if the GI food gets stale quicker or what, but she always wants new food in her bowl even if her bowl already has food in it, which she didn't do often with the purina.
Things took a turn for the worse again this past Saturday night, 2 days after she started eating the mix of old food and GI food. She didn't eat any of her food overnight at all, not even a tiny bit. When we woke up in the morning she seemed to be in a bad mood. She wasn't meowing (and she is typically VERY vocal and the only time she doesn't meow is when she is mad at us, typically after we give her medicine). We emptied her food bowl and put new food in and she was sitting next to it but not eating. She then moved to drink water and there was this big blob of mucus on the floor where she was sitting. She drank water and then went to the litter box, and it was complete liquid diarrhea with red blood in it. We were debating whether to take her to emergency room or wait it out. We decided to wait. She seemed to improve throughout the day. No more discharge, she was eating and meowing, but her diarrhea was still completely liquid and smelling bad again like those first few days.
Monday morning we called the vet. We already have an appointment scheduled for tomorrow (Wednesday) so they said since she is eating and drinking to just wait. She seemed more of herself yesterday but again it was just liquid diarrhea. Today, she again didn't eat any of her food we left for her overnight. In the morning she went to poop twice within an hour, and the second time my wife said she thinks she saw like pinkish/dried blood. But both times were completely liquid.
So that's where we are now. We know none of this is her fault and just want her to get better. We are awaiting our vet appointment tomorrow. They are also in the process of running a new stool panel which tests for more serious illnesses rather than the standard stuff. They said if this comes back negative then they may look into something called the Texas A&M panel. My wife has been getting frustrated with the vet and wants to get a new vet, but I'm not sure what difference it will make. She's clearly been worse since she's been on the GI food. Should I be asking the vet about doing allergy tests/blood tests? Just not sure where to go from here.
Since day 1 she has had diarrhea. At first it was yellow and smelled VERY bad. We transitioned from her food at the foster care (which was Royal Canin kitty & mommy) to the Purina Liveclear we are currently giving her. We figured it was just due to a combination of stress from new home and people, the recent spay, and the new food. Regardless we had a vet appointment set up to get her checked out. Vet does a basic physical and finds nothing wrong besides her being underweight. She was 5.5lbs at the time. They said we really need to get her to eat a lot. They gave her a deworming topical and also prescribed metronidazole. We brought them a stool sample later in the day and they had results within 24 hours - she had both giardia and tapeworms. They upped the dosage of metronidazole as a result. They also suggested a probiotic so we started giving her fortiflora. I will say the diarrhea was still there, but it got a bit better. The color became brown and didn't smell nearly as foul as before. Slowly overtime it became paste-y textured too, rather than liquid.
Around this time we found out that the rescue had been withholding information from us. They had known she has had constant diarrhea since as long as they have had her. They figured it was just worms and that she would be fine with deworming. The foster stopped contacting us after we found out, and the rescue said they don't know if the foster managed to help her diarrhea or not while they were there.
After a while worms started coming out of her butt, both in her diarrhea and just normally while she would be relaxing. Vet assured us this was the dewormer taking effect. That lasted about a week. Oddly enough, the day after her metro finished, the worms stopped coming out. We were worried that they only stopped because the meds stopped. They put her on panacur for a couple days after the metro finished. Then they ran the same test as before and found that she was clear of giardia, but still tested positive for tapeworms. They said they believe she is tapeworm free due to the dewormers, and that since they test DNA that she will just show up as positive for a few weeks. We still found it odd though that the worms stopped coming out the day after she finished the metro.
Anyways, since she still had diarrhea they now wanted to try pro-pectalin probiotic instead of fortiflora. Again no change. The latest thing they did was prescribe her prescription food. It is Hills GI Biome. This is probably a good time to point out that our cat is a very picky eater. She wouldn't try any of the wet food we got her so she has been on dry food. She doesn't like treats with the exception of one (one of the squeeze up go-gurt like treats). We tried going grain-free and she wouldn't have it. She completely rejected pumpkin puree (she treated it like poop in her litter and was trying to cover it up). She is also 6lbs now so she gained half a pound over 3 weeks or so. The day we brought home the GI food, she didn't eat all day. She spent the entire day looking for food. We even found her chewing on random things out of hunger. Oddly enough, that evening after not eating all day she had probably the best poop she has had (it wasn't completely healthy but it was like solid/paste, leaning towards solid). Finally at night she caved and started eating the mix of her purina and the GI food. Over the next few days she would eat but she would be very picky about it. She is not eating nearly as much as before when it was just the purina, and also I'm not sure if the GI food gets stale quicker or what, but she always wants new food in her bowl even if her bowl already has food in it, which she didn't do often with the purina.
Things took a turn for the worse again this past Saturday night, 2 days after she started eating the mix of old food and GI food. She didn't eat any of her food overnight at all, not even a tiny bit. When we woke up in the morning she seemed to be in a bad mood. She wasn't meowing (and she is typically VERY vocal and the only time she doesn't meow is when she is mad at us, typically after we give her medicine). We emptied her food bowl and put new food in and she was sitting next to it but not eating. She then moved to drink water and there was this big blob of mucus on the floor where she was sitting. She drank water and then went to the litter box, and it was complete liquid diarrhea with red blood in it. We were debating whether to take her to emergency room or wait it out. We decided to wait. She seemed to improve throughout the day. No more discharge, she was eating and meowing, but her diarrhea was still completely liquid and smelling bad again like those first few days.
Monday morning we called the vet. We already have an appointment scheduled for tomorrow (Wednesday) so they said since she is eating and drinking to just wait. She seemed more of herself yesterday but again it was just liquid diarrhea. Today, she again didn't eat any of her food we left for her overnight. In the morning she went to poop twice within an hour, and the second time my wife said she thinks she saw like pinkish/dried blood. But both times were completely liquid.
So that's where we are now. We know none of this is her fault and just want her to get better. We are awaiting our vet appointment tomorrow. They are also in the process of running a new stool panel which tests for more serious illnesses rather than the standard stuff. They said if this comes back negative then they may look into something called the Texas A&M panel. My wife has been getting frustrated with the vet and wants to get a new vet, but I'm not sure what difference it will make. She's clearly been worse since she's been on the GI food. Should I be asking the vet about doing allergy tests/blood tests? Just not sure where to go from here.