Krista's Care

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daftcat75

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Shoot! Back to puddles. :(

I wonder if yesterday’s poop was just the last of the seaweed calcium working through her. It still wasn’t good poop like dark spent fuel rods. It was still light and soft like it was still running too fast through her despite the late arrival time.

I did read that the s. boulardii can take a few days to work but that the most immediate difference would be a reduction in frequency. From last night’s until now was 15 hours. That’s not bad. It would be better at once a day. But it’s an improvement over several times a day.

And she still likes the s. boulardii as a topper or add-in so that will make the month I have to give it to her so much easier.
 

daftcat75

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So that was yesterday at 9am. Yesterday at 9 pm, she had another round of the squirts. I'm not even sure why I try to get a box underneath her. At this point, it's probably easier to clean it off the wood laminate than to pick it out of the box. But it's those times she backs against a surface. Like the box fan. She wants the poop to literally hit the fan.

I opened a capsule of the s. boulardii and measured the volume since it is not massive enough to split out on the scale. The Jarrow brand with MOS, 5 billion CFU, is 2 pinches (or 1 dash) for 1/8 teaspoon. This will make measuring out how much I give her a lot easier. For right now, I'm still working on the loading dose to stop the squirts already. I'm giving her 1 capsule twice a day today and we'll see if that gets us relief quicker.

I successfully gave her a B-12 shot--no fur puddles. Couldn't hurt. Should help. Even if she isn't B-12 deficient, she's gotta be using up her stores. Her meals aren't sticking around long enough for her to absorb the B-12 from food.

I'm also giving her a break from the mirtazapine today. I want to see if she still needs it. I also want to see if maybe this poop thing is easier if she's not eating as much. Maybe for a day. I can restart the mirtz tomorrow if she's not eating enough.
 

daftcat75

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Hi! Have you had your Monday weigh in?
8.8 lbs. :(

I was kind of avoiding it because I knew it wouldn’t be good with the food running too quickly through her.

But you can’t manage what you don’t measure.

Hopefully the s boulardii gets us out ahead of this soon. That we haven’t had a poop storm this morning is progress though.
 

daftcat75

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:vibes::crossfingers:
Is there any thing, or any other way to address the diarrhea? Different food, maybe?
With her IBD and pancreatitis, a different food can make things worse. I want to wait for the PCR results (any day now?) before I go in that direction. If she has an infection, a different food won't change anything.
 

daftcat75

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She just had her squirts. If that's all she's going to have for this round, then we're improving. It's hard to say a butt lake with a wall splash is an improvement. But it was just a single box affair.

I think a reduction in frequency is the first success. A reduction in volume and an improvement in consistency is what I'm looking for next.
 

daftcat75

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PCR results just came back. She tested positive for clostridium perfringens and enterotoxin A. Given that, there's a good chance the s. boulardii would be effective if given enough time. Except this has gone on long enough. Since s. boulardii is a yeast, it can be given with antibiotics without getting in the way, or getting killed off. In fact, it's often given to help with antibiotic-induced diarrhea. Therefore, my usual hesitation to giving her antibiotics is not valid. The metro should help and quickly too.
 

daftcat75

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We got the first dose of metro in her. I’m not sure if we’ll do it this way again. I don’t like mixing medicine into food unless she actually likes the medicine. Otherwise it’s a struggle to get her to finish. Because I can’t be certain she took her meds unless she finished her food. I thought maybe mixing it with the s boulardii since she likes the taste of that might be the perfect enticement. But she noticed. I think tomorrow morning’s dose, we’ll try dosing her by mouth. I don’t think I’ve given her liquid by mouth in quite awhile. This is going to be a fun ten days. Antibiotics always are. But the last thing I want is antibiotic resistant diarrhea. So however we need to do it, let’s git er done!
 

daftcat75

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The metro was much easier than the mirtz this morning. We wrestled through three different attempts on the mirtz and I'm still not certain she didn't spit it out a third time.

For the metro, I tried to mix it with a little tuna water and put the two in a small lickable portion. She wasn't having it. She missed out on 9 more days of tuna water. Actually, I'll keep trying to put together a lickable portion. But because she wasn't having it this time, I pulled up a new dose and a small amount of tuna water with it. Then I got down to her level and squirted just a small amount into the side of her mouth and let her lick at it and swallow before I gave her a little more. It took about four or five squirts. It wasn't too bad. I think for dinner dose, I'll try it with her at my level on the kitchen counter.

We're at 21 hours since the last squirts.
 

daftcat75

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So dosing her at my level was no good. I lost the leverage of being able to lord over her.

And while I think she got a dose worth in the medicine meal (since she ended up wearing most of the syringe dose on her ear and clear on through to the other ear), I have to insist on her finishing that portion to be sure. And I don't even know what happens to metro left sitting out. That's a good point. Let's call it with whatever I snuck in her poison portion before she pulled up and whatever did manage to remain in her mouth on its transit from one side of her cheek to the other. I'll pull this up and replace it with an un-poisoned portion.

Also, still on poop watch! 30 some hours. I don't even know anymore.

(In my best Monty Python,)

"Nobody expects the Spanish Elimination!"

:whiskers:

(That's Krista's dad-joke face. Tough crowd!)
 

daftcat75

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Still on poop watch. I'm thinking it's going to be a 4am number.

I need her to poop so we can see where we're at between the s. boulardii and the metro.

I also realized the one thing that would probably make the medicine go down is the one thing I don't trust at the moment. I think it was the meat stock, more specifically, the giant turkey drumstick in the last batch that didn't get cooked all the way through that caused the clostridium. She has been more apprehensive about this batch than she has been about previous batches. I'm going to stick to wings from here and use a probe to verify internal temperature.

But I need to see the poops already...
 

daftcat75

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She had a single, solid, formed, low odor or no odor poop deposited stealthily in the box sometime last night. It was a perfect poop like she hasn't been squirting lakes out her bum for the last three weeks.

We also had a much easier time getting the metro in her this morning. I put the metro in a small puddle and tried to cover it with fish flakes. She was interested, but not enough to get past the metro taste. So I covered with sacchromyces boulardii and she licked that tray clean. :D The rest of the doses should go smoothly enough now.
 
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