Hi everybody,
I have an issue for my new kitten Giada (Italian for Jade), 9 months old.
I found her twelve days before Christmas, along with her three siblings. I kept one, her, and re-homed the other three kittens. I was able to trap their mother on the next day, and had her spayed.
Giada had been eating Kitten premium wet food (paté) from an Italian brand. She was fine till mid February, when her poop got a little softer. I took her to the vet along with some poop samples and the result was giardia, so we started the therapy (Fenbendazole) for 5 days, the next fecal tests were negative. But her poop was still soft, and on some days it was even runny. The vet told me that the parasite might have damaged her intestine, but in a few weeks all would be fine. He also prescribed some probiotics, which didn't work at all, so I introduced some more probiotics (like Fortiflora), even human grade ones that had worked fine in the past with Lola.
No luck.
So one month ago the vet advised me to slowly switch to a different food, and remove the dry food (grain free). Giada was 8 months old, the vet said that it wasn't too wrong to introduce her to an adult wet food with a novel protein. Her "kitten food" was Turkey, now it is Pork (still paté), from the same Italian brand. I switched to this new food over a week. As soon as she was on the new food only, her poop got much better, both in texture and in smell. And she went from 5 poops a day to 1 or 2 poops a day.
Two weeks later I called the vet and he said that this was a good news, anyway we shouldn't lower our guard till the end of May. And he was right, Giada's poop is soft again.
The vet said that if the issue wouldn't fix, he would have liked to have a biopsy of her intestine done.
Now my question is:
Has anybody of you have ever had a biopsy on a cat's intestine done? Is it completely safe?
My fear is that the relatively simple surgery might damage Giada's intestine for good!
Giada is up to date with her vaccines (RCP + FeLV), but she's positive to Calicivirus, probably contracted before I adopted her. Currently she has no symptoms from it. Her weight is 2.8 kg (about 6 lbs 3 oz), she hasn't increased in the last month, but would increase about 3 oz a week, January to April.
She hasn't been spayed yet. We should have had her done in late March, then the pandemic changed some plans, then I got COVID-19 and was stuck at home for 7 weeks. Anyway she hasn't shown any sign of heat yet.
She has an insatiable appetite, but I do not indulge her, she eats two cans of wet food a day (as per label)
Any input is more than welcome. Thank you!
I have an issue for my new kitten Giada (Italian for Jade), 9 months old.
I found her twelve days before Christmas, along with her three siblings. I kept one, her, and re-homed the other three kittens. I was able to trap their mother on the next day, and had her spayed.
Giada had been eating Kitten premium wet food (paté) from an Italian brand. She was fine till mid February, when her poop got a little softer. I took her to the vet along with some poop samples and the result was giardia, so we started the therapy (Fenbendazole) for 5 days, the next fecal tests were negative. But her poop was still soft, and on some days it was even runny. The vet told me that the parasite might have damaged her intestine, but in a few weeks all would be fine. He also prescribed some probiotics, which didn't work at all, so I introduced some more probiotics (like Fortiflora), even human grade ones that had worked fine in the past with Lola.
No luck.
So one month ago the vet advised me to slowly switch to a different food, and remove the dry food (grain free). Giada was 8 months old, the vet said that it wasn't too wrong to introduce her to an adult wet food with a novel protein. Her "kitten food" was Turkey, now it is Pork (still paté), from the same Italian brand. I switched to this new food over a week. As soon as she was on the new food only, her poop got much better, both in texture and in smell. And she went from 5 poops a day to 1 or 2 poops a day.
Two weeks later I called the vet and he said that this was a good news, anyway we shouldn't lower our guard till the end of May. And he was right, Giada's poop is soft again.
The vet said that if the issue wouldn't fix, he would have liked to have a biopsy of her intestine done.
Now my question is:
Has anybody of you have ever had a biopsy on a cat's intestine done? Is it completely safe?
My fear is that the relatively simple surgery might damage Giada's intestine for good!
Giada is up to date with her vaccines (RCP + FeLV), but she's positive to Calicivirus, probably contracted before I adopted her. Currently she has no symptoms from it. Her weight is 2.8 kg (about 6 lbs 3 oz), she hasn't increased in the last month, but would increase about 3 oz a week, January to April.
She hasn't been spayed yet. We should have had her done in late March, then the pandemic changed some plans, then I got COVID-19 and was stuck at home for 7 weeks. Anyway she hasn't shown any sign of heat yet.
She has an insatiable appetite, but I do not indulge her, she eats two cans of wet food a day (as per label)
Any input is more than welcome. Thank you!
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