Prolonged loose stool following antibiotics

vsvpflex

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My 2 year old male cat had a particularly nasty UTI a while ago. He ended up being on antibiotics for right around a month. The uti is gone and he has been doing great, no signs of uti anymore. But the antibiotics did a number on his stomach. Since then he’s had soft stool on and off. He isn’t gassy, bloated, or pooping multiple times a day. He’s still pooping a normal amount, but when he does it’s just on the soft side. It varies from day to day, some days it has more form than others. He’s showing no negative signs, still playful, lovey, energetic, great appetite, and isn’t dehydrated. We started him on forta flora to try to remedy the problem (he always gets probiotic in his food but introducing the forta flora is a new thing), today is his 3rd dose of the forta flora and we are seeing moderate improvement. Curious if anyone else has struggled with this issue before, and if so if you have any tips or tricks to help get his stool back to normal.
 

Alldara

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V vsvpflex Yes this is very common after antibiotics.

I've used a bit of plain goat milk yogurt (1/4 tsp) about an hour after antibiotics and maybe a few days after.

Flotiflora worked well for us too! It does take a few weeks to rebuild the flora in the gut no matter what method you choose.

Lastly a touch of pumpkin or sweet potato, baked, unseasoned, no butter or anything can help. Again just a 1/4 tsp or so every other day. A lot of local rescues here use that when a cat's tummy is upset for whatever reason to help settle it.
 

mrsgreenjeens

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Same here. Plain yogurt sometimes works, as does the FortiFlora. An entire month's worth of antibiotics is certainly going to mess up the gut flora, so it's good to give him separate probiotics, aside from what the manufacturer puts in his food. I give my guys human probiotics. I just open up the capsules and dissolve 1/2 capsule in a little water before mixing into their wet food twice a day.
 
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vsvpflex

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V vsvpflex Yes this is very common after antibiotics.

I've used a bit of plain goat milk yogurt (1/4 tsp) about an hour after antibiotics and maybe a few days after.

Flotiflora worked well for us too! It does take a few weeks to rebuild the flora in the gut no matter what method you choose.

Lastly a touch of pumpkin or sweet potato, baked, unseasoned, no butter or anything can help. Again just a 1/4 tsp or so every other day. A lot of local rescues here use that when a cat's tummy is upset for whatever reason to help settle it.
I know this isn’t the most pleasant to look at, but as an update here is a photo of what his poop looks like currently.

He is on fortiflora and started taking it 4 days ago and I know it doesn’t work super fast. I’m just curious if by appearance of his stool if I should be concerned or not
 

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daftcat75

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That’s not right. 🙈

Try s boulardii instead of FortiFlora. Unfortunately antibiotics strips the gut of good bacteria with the bad. But it doesn’t kill all the bad. E. coli is one that flourishes in the void left by antibiotics. S boulardii will help firm up his stools, it will nourish good bacteria, and it will starve out E. coli and other harmful strains that may have overpopulated when the good bacteria was killed off.

Jarrow Formulas Saccharomyces Boulardii + MOS - 5 Billion Viable Organisms Per Serving - 90 Delayed Release Veggie Caps - Probiotic + Prebiotic - Intestinal Tract Support - Up to 90 Servings

https://a.co/d/aty78TA

You can open the s boulardii into his food or a treat at half a capsule two to four times a day. If he doesn’t like the taste, you can repack those human sized pills into smaller cat sized gelatin capsules (size four or size five.)

A company who sells s boulardii as well as more powerful gut health supplements like FMT pills is AnimalBiome. For $100, they can test his poop and tell you just where the imbalances are and offer dietary suggestions to correct them. They also sell supplements to reduce harmful populations and repopulate helpful strains to bring his gut back into balance.

The Cat Gut Microbiome
 

Alldara

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If it isn't sorted within another week, I would just call the vets office and see what they say about it. If your cat isn't dehydrated, it'll take time to build the guy bacteria back up. I don't think more medication would be helpful if there's no other symptoms.

It *would* be a concern if you didn't have a medication that causes diahera that your cat was on for so long.
 

Astragal14

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Would you guys say this is a good amount of improvement from the last photo I posted?
I personally don't think this is enough improvement after a week on the Forti Flora. You want to keep the diarrhea from becoming chronic, because at some point continued diarrhea just creates an environment in his gut that encourages more diarrhea.

Try s boulardii instead of FortiFlora. Unfortunately antibiotics strips the gut of good bacteria with the bad. But it doesn’t kill all the bad. E. coli is one that flourishes in the void left by antibiotics. S boulardii will help firm up his stools, it will nourish good bacteria, and it will starve out E. coli and other harmful strains that may have overpopulated when the good bacteria was killed off.
I second daftcat75 daftcat75 's recommendation of using S.boulardii, it's a great strain to use for diarrhea. I also strongly recommend switching from Forti Flora to a different probiotic. Forti Flora has only one probiotic strain, it's relatively weak and is comparable to our human use of Pepto Bismol. One month on an antibiotic is a long time and likely removed way more than one strain of good bacteria from your cat's gut. Forti Flora isn't strong enough to replenish everything he's lost.

Two good probiotics that you can use in combination with S.boulardii are Proviable Forte and VetriScience Entero Flora Pro - both of these are only available through veterinary offices. You should see noticeable improvement within a few days/1 week of using them. If there's little to no improvement after a week and no other symptoms have gotten worse, at that point I recommend asking your vet about a B12 injection. B12 is what helps your cat's gut absorb the good stuff and he's losing a little bit of B12 the longer he has diarrhea. The injections are also inexpensive and have virtually no interactions, so they pretty much can only help.

Proviable®-Forte Sprinkle Capsules For Cats - Proviable®
Entero Flora Pro

Hopefully stronger probiotics and some of the foods recommended here are enough to restore balance. There are some next-level supplements and more veterinary support that can be recommended if these don't help.
 

daftcat75

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I am revising my s. boulardii recommendation to this product:

KittyBiome™ GMP – AnimalBiome

KittyBiome's GMP (s. boulardii) product is in capsules that are kitty-sized (size 4 rather than the size 0's the Jarrow come in.) GMP also comes with a bacteriophage that's not in the Jarrow product that will specifically target problematic bacteria strains that flourish with antibiotic use (clostridium and e. coli.)
 

stephanietx

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I have a kitty with chronic loose poops if we change his food. Saccharomyces boulardii works for him as does Culturelle. We sprinkle into wet food and mix in. S. boulardii twice a day, about 1/4 of a capsule. You can give up to 1/2 capsule twice a day (open and sprinkle the powder into food). S. boulardii can be purchased at health food stores on online.
 
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