My Juli has diarrhea šŸ˜æ

JulietteTruong

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Fml. I just saw Juliette poop diarrhea. I think Iā€™ve been doing too much, too soon, with changing her diet up recently. The past couple of weeks Iā€™ve been trying to get her to eat a home cooked food, using the U-Stew premix and chicken. That was the first batch. Then I made the second with beef. She hasnā€™t taken to it like I had hoped, as Iā€™ve had to trick her into it by using treats, toppers, and her usual commercial wet food by mixing it into the home cooked stuff.

Yesterday morning, her poop seemed mostly normal, except for the last bit. The first 90%ā€”solid, small oval brown bits, but then at the tail end was a little squirt of liquid. A few minutes afterwards, she came back to poop again! Only this time, it was a nickel-sized pile of liquid poop.

this morning, her appetite seemed a bit off to me, but I thought maybe it was because I added too much water to her food so she got put off. I also noticed her trying to chew on some grass, but thatā€™s not unusual for her so I didnā€™t think anything of it. And then a few minutes ago, I saw her have another liquid bowel movement. Now that I know she has diarrhea, I wonder if sheā€™s trying to ease her poor tummy. Sheā€™s still her affectionate self, but Iā€™ve noticed her grooming her butthole several times today. Iā€™m worried sheā€™s not well.šŸ˜æ

Iā€™m going to pause on the u-stew food for now. Iā€™m also going to stop giving the freeze dried duck liver and greenies.

What else should I do? Should I get probiotics?
 

daftcat75

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There's a lot here in this article.
My Cat Has Diarrhea - What Do I Do?

Short answer: I would pick up some s. boulardii from a health food store and start with a half capsule twice a day. If you're lucky, she'll like the taste and you can mix it into her food. If you're not, you can try to roll it up with something more appealing like the duck liver treats. When moist, it becomes tacky like dough. That makes it easy to roll it with something she likes better.

Vitamin Shoppe

And it's in stock at the Torrance location.
Vitamins and Supplements | The Vitamin ShoppeĀ® Torrance
 
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JulietteTruong

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There's a lot here in this article.
My Cat Has Diarrhea - What Do I Do?

Short answer: I would pick up some s. boulardii from a health food store and start with a half capsule twice a day. If you're lucky, she'll like the taste and you can mix it into her food. If you're not, you can try to roll it up with something more appealing like the duck liver treats. When moist, it becomes tacky like dough. That makes it easy to roll it with something she likes better.

Vitamin Shoppe

And it's in stock at the Torrance location.
Vitamins and Supplements | The Vitamin ShoppeĀ® Torrance
thatā€™s really close by! Is there a brand thatā€™s good?
 

daftcat75

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It's entirely possible that the beef didn't agree with her. Or that you introduced it too quickly. Fix the diarrhea first. Then you can cook up a small batch of the beef minus the U-stew. I'd give her a small portion (a tablespoon) the first meal. Wait a poop to see how it treats her. You may have to make batches with less powder at first and slowly balance it out over a few batches. Or you may look into another premix like Alnutrin. I recommend keeping canned her main food and homemade a guest meal until you've found the protein and recipe/premix she likes and does well with.
 
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JulietteTruong

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It's entirely possible that the beef didn't agree with her. Or that you introduced it too quickly. Fix the diarrhea first. Then you can cook up a small batch of the beef minus the U-stew. I'd give her a small portion (a tablespoon) the first meal. Wait a poop to see how it treats her. You may have to make batches with less powder at first and slowly balance it out over a few batches. Or you may look into another premix like Alnutrin. I recommend keeping canned her main food and homemade a guest meal until you've found the protein and recipe/premix she likes and does well with.
Ugh I think Iā€™ve been overzealous with trying to
That one (the first Vitamin Shoppe link.) The Jarrow brand is the gold standard because it has the MOS, a pre-biotic.
oops sorryā€”brain fart I didnā€™t think to click on the link. Jarrow, got it. Iā€™m going to get it soon.

this morning she ate most of her wet food, I gave her a can of the Purina stuff and mixed in water. With her canned food, Iā€™ve always rotated brands and stuck to pates. She was fine until yesterday so I suspect youā€™re correct about the beef.
 

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Yesterday morning, her poop seemed mostly normal, except for the last bit. The first 90%ā€”solid, small oval brown bits, but then at the tail end was a little squirt of liquid. A few minutes afterwards, she came back to poop again! Only this time, it was a nickel-sized pile of liquid poop.
Sometimes cats get discomfort in their tummies. It could due to quite a bit of stuffs like, air in the tummy, digestive tract has not enough time to digest the food, tummy doesn't quite agree with the food, ate something of the floor and all these happen just like some hoomans do except hoomans don't eat stuffs from the floor :lol: Only many toddlers do.

If it is not constant diarrhea the whole day through a few days, I guess you dont have to worry that much and if it only happened just yesterday morning. Let her have a rest and feed her smaller amount the next meal and get her to eat slowly.

Also sometimes the poop session is not over yet and they are still remains and therefore she came back again to poo the second time. I see this in my boy but it is not that serious to call it diarrhea. If its diarrhea, she won't even make it to the litter box.
 
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JulietteTruong

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That one (the first Vitamin Shoppe link.) The Jarrow brand is the gold standard because it has the MOS, a pre-biotic.
Ok I got the good stuff. Pricey! Hopefully itā€™ll do the trick. Iā€™ve been contemplating getting some sort of probiotic for her anyways. She spent most of her first few years on a kibble heavy diet, itā€™s only been since like 2019 did I start transitioning her over to more wet food. Prior to that, she had put on a few pounds and looked overweight. Even with the scheduled meals, and with ā€œdietā€ type dry food, it was almost impossible to get her weight down. Once I changed to only wet food, she trimmed down! But yeah, Iā€™ve always wondered if only having commercial foods her whole life has affected her inner flora. She does have a wellness exam with a new vet in a month, so Iā€™ll be sure to come with plenty of questions!

Just gave her half a caplet of the S. boulardii with half of a 3 oz can of FF chicken pate. She ate fine! Usually she gets the whole can but weā€™re taking it easy for now.

I hope this works!šŸ™
 

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If you really want to get pricey, you can have her poop biome tested and purchase fecal microbiome transplant (FMT) pills. It is basically colonies of the good bacteria from healthy donor cat poop. I'm sure they will explain this better than me. šŸ˜¹

Restore Cat & Dog Gut Health | AnimalBiome Microbiome Products

I had Krista's microbiome tested. It was fascinating. Sadly, she passed before we could complete the 30 days of FMT pills. (I'm not even sure we started the pills as she wanted nothing to do with pills by this point.) The testing kit comes with everything you need to collect two samples (about a pea's worth of poo) for "before" and "after" testing including gloves, swabs, containers, and shipping labels to send the samples to them. A few days later the report is available to you online.

If Juli's diarrhea doesn't clear up in a few days, I would bring (triple) bag up about a grape's worth of poop and bring it down to the vet for fecal float *AND* PCR testing. PCR is considerably more expensive than the fecal float test. But it will identify if she has a bacterial infection. The float test will only identify worms and parasites. The bad news is that the metronidazole they would probably give her for an infection will wipe out her gut flora and could make her diarrhea worse before it gets better. The good news is that you already have the s. boulardii to combat diarrhea caused by antibiotics.
 
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daftcat75

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Sometimes cats get discomfort in their tummies. It could due to quite a bit of stuffs like, air in the tummy, digestive tract has not enough time to digest the food, tummy doesn't quite agree with the food, ate something of the floor and all these happen just like some hoomans do except hoomans don't eat stuffs from the floor :lol: Only many toddlers do.

If it is not constant diarrhea the whole day through a few days, I guess you dont have to worry that much and if it only happened just yesterday morning. Let her have a rest and feed her smaller amount the next meal and get her to eat slowly.

Also sometimes the poop session is not over yet and they are still remains and therefore she came back again to poo the second time. I see this in my boy but it is not that serious to call it diarrhea. If its diarrhea, she won't even make it to the litter box.
Diarrhea doesn't need to be more frequent or more urgent. Any poops with more water volume than normal should be taken somewhat seriously. By itself it is dehydrating. But it can also point to more serious conditions like insufficient digestion, malabsorption, or lymphoma. When Krista's lymphoma started to present, it wasn't more frequent or more urgent. But her poops were always liquid. They got better with pred. But they didn't fully form up again until she started chemo. I'm not suggesting that Juli has lymphoma. But I also wouldn't dismiss what she's going through because it's not frequent and/or urgent. In fact, if it doesn't clear in a few days, I would take her to the vet for additional fluids. Also bring in a poop sample for the fecal float test to look for parasites, and the more expensive PCR test to look for a bacterial infection like clostridium.
 
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JulietteTruong

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If you really want to get pricey, you can have her poop biome tested and purchase fecal microbiome transplant (FMT) pills. It is basically colonies of the good bacteria from healthy donor cat poop. I'm sure they will explain this better than me. šŸ˜¹

Restore Cat & Dog Gut Health | AnimalBiome Microbiome Products

I had Krista's microbiome tested. It was fascinating. Sadly, she passed before we could complete the 30 days of FMT pills. (I'm not even sure we started the pills as she wanted nothing to do with pills by this point.) The testing kit comes with everything you need to collect two samples (about a pea's worth of poo) for "before" and "after" testing including gloves, swabs, containers, and shipping labels to send the samples to them. A few days later the report is available to you online.

If Juli's diarrhea doesn't clear up in a few days, I would bring (triple) bag up about a grape's worth of poop and bring it down to the vet for fecal float *AND* PCR testing. PCR is considerably more expensive than the fecal float test. But it will identify if she has a bacterial or viral infection. The float test will only identify worms and parasites. The bad news is that the metronidazole they would probably give her for an infection will wipe out her gut flora and could make her diarrhea worse before it gets better. The good news is that you already have the s. boulardii to combat diarrhea caused by antibiotics.
holy shit, okay. I can see myself caving and doing that for her in a few years lol. Thatā€™s amazing. šŸ˜¹

This coming wellness exam with this Cat Vet will be our first time meeting though, since I recently moved here from out of state. And with covid it has made it so tough to get an appointment. I made this appointment like three months ago, after scouring the net for a good cat vet. Sheā€™s suppose to be really good!

I really hope itā€™s not parasites or viral. Sheā€™s an indoor cat but has access to my enclosed 100 sq feet backyard. The four walls are about 5 feet of cement, and sheā€™s never been able to jump high enough.Only during the summer, when we keep the back door open does she have access. If the door is closed, then sheā€™s indoors. I did get her vaccines up to date recently at the LA low cost clinic because I got paranoid and didnā€™t want to wait until meeting with the new vet since nice weather is here.
 

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Diarrhea doesn't need to be more frequent or more urgent. Any poops with more water volume than normal should be taken somewhat seriously. By itself it is dehydrating. But it can also point to more serious conditions like insufficient digestion, malabsorption, or lymphoma. When Krista's lymphoma started to present, it wasn't more frequent or more urgent. But her poops were always liquid. They got better with pred. But they didn't fully form up again until she started chemo. I'm not suggesting that Juli has lymphoma. But I also wouldn't dismiss what she's going through because it's not frequent and/or urgent. In fact, if it doesn't clear in a few days, I would take her to the vet for additional fluids. Also bring in a poop sample for the fecal float test to look for parasites, and the more expensive PCR test to look for a bacterial infection like clostridium.
Yes, but sometimes poop that are not formed and comes out as soft watery stools at the end of a solid poo does not constitute having diarrhea. It could just be a slight imbalance of anything but we don't have to worry that much unless it is a very frequent thing then we have to take note that it could be the digestive system or tummy not agreeing with the current food or the cat had ingested something that is not supposed to be eating.

My boy is well hydrated but once in awhile he have a slight runny poo at the end of his well formed poo. I guess that sometimes he stave off eating and when he go poo, I can hear gas coming out and sometimes it is a little runny then well formed poo and sometime he other way round. Above all, he is very normal and runny poo happen just once in awhile for him.
 
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JulietteTruong

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Diarrhea doesn't need to be more frequent or more urgent. Any poops with more water volume than normal should be taken somewhat seriously. By itself it is dehydrating. But it can also point to more serious conditions like insufficient digestion, malabsorption, or lymphoma. When Krista's lymphoma started to present, it wasn't more frequent or more urgent. But her poops were always liquid. They got better with pred. But they didn't fully form up again until she started chemo. I'm not suggesting that Juli has lymphoma. But I also wouldn't dismiss what she's going through because it's not frequent and/or urgent. In fact, if it doesn't clear in a few days, I would take her to the vet for additional fluids. Also bring in a poop sample for the fecal float test to look for parasites, and the more expensive PCR test to look for a bacterial infection like clostridium.
I have a can of pure pumpkin purƩe on hand, in case I ever need it. What do you think, or is that overkill for now?
 

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I have a can of pure pumpkin purƩe on hand, in case I ever need it. What do you think, or is that overkill for now?
Probably overkill right now. My guess is this was nothing more than the beef not agreeing with her or all the changes coming at once. Try the s boulardii first. You donā€™t want to confuse matters throwing too many ā€œfixesā€ at it at once.
 

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I have a can of pure pumpkin purƩe on hand, in case I ever need it. What do you think, or is that overkill for now?
Don't panic first. Just observe if your cat still have the runs over the next few hours or so. If she does not have the runs anymore after that few hours, just do some adjustments to her meals and if you want, add a little probiotics to her meal each day just to stabilize the digestive system.

She may still have a little run left for the next poo session but if they are far in between, not much of a concern. But you can slowly pump up her digestive system slowly to keep her in a better condition even if she does not have the runs.
 
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Probably overkill right now. My guess is this was nothing more than the beef not agreeing with her or all the changes coming at once. Try the s boulardii first. You donā€™t want to confuse matters throwing too many ā€œfixesā€ at it at once.
Don't panic first. Just observe if your cat still have the runs over the next few hours or so. If she does not have the runs anymore after that few hours, just do some adjustments to her meals and if you want, add a little probiotics to her meal each day just to stabilize the digestive system.

She may still have a little run left for the next poo session but if they are far in between, not much of a concern. But you can slowly pump up her digestive system slowly to keep her in a better condition even if she does not have the runs.
ok. Step by step, one at a time.:chillpill: šŸ˜­
 
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Update: day 2 of S. boulardii (1/2 caplet 2x/day). Her biological schedule is still on point, as she woke me up at 6 am to eat. Gave her the probiotic with 1.5 oz of wet food. Shortly after she went to poop. Still diarrhea with a little gassy sound at the end šŸ˜æ.

Her energy level and behavior was normal otherwise. She alternates between prowling our little enclosed yard to chilling with the family. Cats really have such poker faces you would never think she was having bowel issues šŸ˜¼.
 
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Update: so she seems to be better now. Last I checked her poop had more shape. And sheā€™s been eating and drinking and behaving normal.

Should I keep giving her the SB? Should I think about getting some sort of cat probiotic supplement to give daily?
 

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Thereā€™s no harm in giving the s boulardii a few more days for insurance. Thereā€™s no toxicity with s boulardii. But it also doesnā€™t provide lasting protection. Its effect generally wears off in a day or two after stopping it. Hopefully she wonā€™t need anything else once you stop.

I donā€™t know which probiotics to recommend. You can start with Proviable, a veterinarian-recommended brand and product. You may have to get it through your vet.

I know some people give their cats human probiotics. But I donā€™t know which would be appropriate. Unlike s boulardii, you can overdo probiotics and make matters worse.

Personally, Iā€™d do the s boulardii a couple more days. Then Iā€™d see how she does without any probiotics. With Krista, I never knew whether probiotics were making matters worse or simply not working.
 
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Update: Juli had a bowel movement earlier, and it was solid! Formed, and brown. Iā€™m still giving her the S Boulardii. Should I keep it up through Friday, just to be safe?
 
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