problems with bone

[nljnky]

Hi

I have a 12 yo cat with chronic diarrhea.  I have been feeding raw for over a year now.  It had not really helped.  I have tried sooo many things.  Probiotics, yogurt, pumpkin, etc, etc.  All of it makes it worse.

I get food from hare-today and use the alnutrin supplement.

I eliminated chicken several months ago.  That really seemed to help for a while.  What is happening now is she will have solid stool a few times, then its loose but much improved over what it was before.

Maybe about every three weeks or so she vomits.  It is just liquid and bone fragments.  Lots of bone fragments.  Its like she doesn't digest the bone at all.  Could this be why the stool goes back to being watery?  I know they need the calcium.

I don't know what to do about this.  My vet is no help since she is not a fan of raw.

I do give her 2.5mg of prednisolone daily.

Suggestions??

Thank you

 

[ldg]

This is really interesting, because I was recently discussing this issue with another raw feeder. Many prey model raw feeders say "feed enough bone that your cat doesn't have loose stool."

Well - the problem with that is - what if our cats have compromised GI systems, and aren't properly digesting the bone? How do we know they're getting the right Ca ratio?

One of my cats, Spooky, gets easily constipated. So if I fed her bone to the point that she didn't have loose stool, her Ca ratio would be very low. I added digestive enzymes to her diet, and now I can feed her the right amount of calcium. So I suspect she wasn't digesting her meat correctly, meaning she wasn't getting enough phosphorus out of the food. Your kitty seems to have the opposite problem.

I feed a kind of home made prey model raw (I don't feed bone and I use supplements): but a number of my cats don't like egg yolks, which is a rather critical component of the diet due to the choline and vitamin D. So I buy ground stuff from Hare Today, and I feed them four meals a week of ground food: I use it to "hide" 1/4 of an egg yolk at each of those meals, so they each get a total of one egg yolk a week. Every time someone has needed an x-ray for something, if it's been the afternoon that they had a meal of Hare Today ground at breakfast, there is bone bits from beginning to end.

So I think not completely digesting all that bone is normal... but it also sounds like there's a digestion issue. Unfortunately, digestive enzymes wouldn't help, as those don't target minerals.

...and the problem is that her body will rob her own bones of calcium if she's not properly digesting those bones. Blood work won't reveal a problem (most likely). But have you had blood work done recently?

I think you have four choices.

You can either

1) use ground meat and organs, and add the Alnutrin Supplement with calcium. Actually, I'd recommend trying this. I know it's not whole ground animal, but with this method, you'll find out if the problem is with her digesting the bone. Alnutrin with calcium can be either calcium carbonate from lime or eggshell. In my weird PMR, I use ground eggshell. I'd recommend the Alnutrin with eggshell, because in addition to the calcium, it has magnesium and other trace minerals. If you want to try this option, use 90% meat, 10% liver (or 5% liver and 5% kidney) and follow the instructions on the Alnutrin with eggshell for how much to include.

2) Assume the problem is something else. Give her the equivalent of a "colon cleanse" using Food Grade Diatomaceous Earth. Lazlo was having issues with hairballs, and someone recommended it. I know some people caring for ferals that use it regularly for parasites. So I did a lot of research on it. There's not much in animals - other than for use in farm animal feed, mostly chickens. But the results, anecdotal, are VERY interesting. And a lot of people use it for themselves - and it seems to help people with allergies, IBD, and there are studies of its use in lowering cholesterol, so we at least have studies that indicate it IS safe for internal use. This is the one I ordered: Just be careful when you put it in the food. It is like a very fine flour, and it is not safe to inhale.

The recommended dose for an adult cat is one teaspoon daily. This is not something I would want to use long term, and I haven't decided how I'm going to use it yet. But I gave it to Lazlo at half a dose (half a teaspoon) daily for two weeks. The first few poops were stinky - clearly cleaning him out. But it cleans everything out, including the healthy bacteria. So it HAS to be used with probiotics. I don't know which probiotics you used, but my holistic vet recommended a human L. acidophilus probiotic, and I use Natural Factors double strength acidophilus+bifidus (10 billion CFU), split into 1/2 a capsule in the morning and 1/2 a capsule in the evening. Lazlo's energy went through the roof, and while he'd been very picky about eating and finishing meals before, after two doses of this stuff, he started eating all of his meals, start to finish. :dk: I'll probably give it to all the cats either daily for one week a month, or at 2 or 3 meals a week. I haven't decided yet.

If she's having malabsorption problems due to an imbalance of bacteria, or if she has something in her GI system that doesn't belong there, this really may help. :dk: I'm pretty sure it won't hurt to try. (Lazlo is a cancer survivor).

3) Find a new vet, or look for a holistic vet, and see if they can help you work through this. I would look for a vet (a D.V.M.) trained in Chinese Medicine. But this is because that's what we looked for and found, and she's been very helpful. Many are trained in homeopathy, and I really don't know anything about it. You can search for a holistic vet here: http://www.ahvma.org

4) Consider that it may be a protein allergy that's causing an issue. What proteins are you feeding her? Consider just "novel" proteins like lamb, llama, rabbit or venison (does HT have that with bone? Not sure) for a while.

And please do keep us posted!

 

[nljnky]

Thank you so much for all that information.  

I think I will try the alnutrin with calcium.  Should I use the one with lime if a chicken allergy is suspected or is egg shell going to react differently?

I don't really want to change vets at this point.  I love mine and trust her 100% with my babies lives.  There is one in the area who uses chinese herbs so good to know shes available if it comes to that.

I had a couple different blood panels done on her when this all started so it probably would not be helpful now.

She is still a happy affectionate playful girl so I will keep trying anything and everything.

Thanks again.

Janis

 

[ldg]

If there is a chicken allergy, my understanding is that the eggshell would not trigger it: eggshell is composed of minerals, not proteins, and it is the proteins that trigger allergies. But we don't know if the membrane is removed, and that could contain traces of protein, so if there is a chicken allergy, it could trigger it, depending on how sensitive she is. It's like children with peanuts: some can have a food with no peanuts in it even if it was manufactured in a plant that processes peanuts, and some children are so sensitive that even that minute exposure would trigger the allergy.

So to be ultra careful in the test run, maybe the calcium carbonate is the better option. Long term, I'd want to use the eggshell. But to eliminate chicken as an allergy trigger, probably safer to try the Alnutrin with calcium that isn't eggshell. :nod: