S.o.s. All Three Cats Sick

[Kflowers]

Well, okay daftcat75, we know who types fastest, don't we?

Your post was more encouraging.

 

[dan32]

Once again, thanks for the replies. Especially the moderators who give so tirelessly! This one just has me stumped and I've had cats for years and years.

On the subject of moldy kibble, I store the master kibble bag taped up tight in the cupboard, and refill a plastic airtight container periodically which is what I dispense from.

I keep thinking this took a while to come on. First one was sick for a day (now three weeks ago) then recovered, then second was sick for a day (two weeks ago) but recovered, then third one got sick, then gradually by last Friday all were sick and last weekend they were all throwing up and pooping all over the place. I don't think any of them kept anything down for several days.

It is such a hopeless feeling trying to get them to eat once they have thrown in the towel. And it can happen so fast.

Seems like if it was bad food, you would get them all sick suddenly. I've been watching this PBS Nature series on the big wild cats and they were saying how robust cat's digestive systems are, even with some of them eating rancid week-old meat when no prey was available and not having any ill effects from it.

This sort of followed like some human viral flu-type thing which is what my vet thought, but I didn't think such a thing happens with cats. Makes you think how vulnerable catteries or shelters are, if something like this can break out in the general population, seemingly from nowhere. Imagine trying to dose 20 or more cats...

My humble and grateful appreciation for all replies.

 

[dan32]

Just to tie things up...

We finished the week long metronidazole dosing of all 3 cats - it was torture for all of us. At the end, I dumped two entire litter boxes and washed them out with detergent and bleach and changed the litter completely. We are two days beyond the last of the metro dosing and everyone is eating - normal poops (hallelujah!) and no vomiting.

Keegie is leary of the turkey Primal cubes, actually all turkey which usually he loves. They eat four different flavors of Primal cubes - it is only the turkey he is avoiding. I was thinking of a previous reply about cats "having memories" of bad foods.

I am still using boiled water for them, but I have been drinking the well water for a while with no problems. In a few more days, maybe we will resume well water for all.

Still wondering where this illness came from, I can see I am tracking plenty of wet leaves in from outdoors. This was my first experience of something communicable like this with three cats who don't go out ever - I've had cats for almost 50 years.

I guess I'll just brush it off as a "one off", but I don't know.

 

[lavishsqualor]

I'm so glad to hear that they are all better! Next time if your vet gives you metronidazole be sure to ask for the pill form, or if they have to dispense a liquid, ask them to flavor it appropriately for a cat. Metronidazole is so foul tasting that I've had cats foam at the mouth from it. Next time, too (god forbid that there is one), you could also use a little Saccharomyces Boulardii, a probiotic yeast, in their food. It was miraculous at stopping diarrhea in kittens I was fostering, even more so than the metronidazole. Doctors use it to treat C. difficile with great success. Finally, I wanted you to know that I think you're a F A N T A S T I C owner and your three cats are awfully lucky.

 

[dan32]

One of the moderators told me that metronidazole could be made into a topical (mixed with lipoderm) that could be applied to their ear. I didn't know that at the time or I would have done it that way. As it was, the metro that the compounding pharmacy made up for me was supposedly in a chicken flavoring, but that still didn't go down so well.

I would hate to think of trying to pill a cat again! I have tried a few times and ended up either crushing the pill in a mortar & pestle and mixing with baby food (basically making up my own suspension) and "swabbing it in" or by having the compounding pharmacy make it up for me.

I was having some luck with giving Psyllium Husk Fiber to stop up the runs, but they were also throwing up everywhere. The metro did seem to stop all of it, so it wasn't all a bad thing.

I will make note of the Saccharomyces Boulardii for future reference, hopefully never needed again. You always learn something new on this forum.

 

[dan32]

So all's well that ends well... NOT

Now five days since last of the metronidazole dosing and I have been digging around the litterbox and finding these odd shapes - not the perfect poops. Ok, so maybe the metro destroyed their flora and that needs re-establishing or something.

I have been giving small midnight snacks of small amounts of canned mixed well with miniscule amounts of yogurt thinking I was being clever. It seemed to go down well with everybody for a few nights - then last night Keegie vomited it all up and kept on going. I gave him a small amount of baby food after which stayed down until morning when he got very sick again.

My vet came back from his holiday trip and called today to see how things were going. I explained about the less than perfect poops and Keegie's recurring vomiting (the other two seem OK, I think). My vet still thinks that it has to be the food they eat and re-asked what that was. He is especially aghast at the Primal (raw) frozen cubes which they have been eating for the last five years without any issues.

Anyway, I am going to try an experiment and just feed canned only for the next week and dispel or confirm any problems with the raw. If we are still having a problem, then I suppose it was the kibble that was the issue. But, something's still not right.

 

[Kflowers]

Any food can have a problem and it's ages before there are enough complaints or evidence to make a company issue a recall. Bad things can happen to any food without malicious intent on anyone's part, but it can still make you sick. So, what you're doing, eliminating one food for awhile is certainly wise.

Please note I have nothing against raw diet. I couldn't do it because I don't know what meat is supposed to look like - excepting not green, gray or fuzzy - and so don't trust my knowledge. That's me, not the raw food.

 

[dan32]

I hate to give up on the raw diet - they have been on it for 5 years, no problems at all. And it took me quite a long time to acclimate them to it in the first place.

I am substituting their usual Primal raw with Wellness Core cans in similar flavors - they seem to like it. I am going to give it a full week and see if the stools improve.

I have an awful lot of stock of the Primal raw in the freezer. I just re-stocked at about $120, so abandoning their raw diet would be quite an admission of defeat.

 

[danielle4522]

dan32 hi dan just curious if your cats had an bad side effects on the metro? I am going through a similar situation with my kitties right now, both are sick with diarehha out of no where, vet gave me metro and a probiotic to give them and I’m super nervous about giving them metro, was your experience ok?

Turns out both my kitties have an overgrowth of clostridium perifigens from god knows what that they can catch in the environment, maybe this is what your kitties have? As it does cause sudden diarreha, and it’s treated with metro but can come back and regrow. Vet diagnosed with a stool sample that was sent out for a deep analysis as the basic in house ones don’t test for it.

How are your kitties doing now?

 

[dan32]

Well, they all hated the taste of the metro - even tho mine was mixed into a chicken flavored suspension. The stuff tastes like poison. I should think the metro kills everything, good and bad - it may have the side benefit of being an anti-D, but it is really an anti-parasite med.

My guys also were vomiting violently along with the D---. This started before Thanksgiving, so it has been a few weeks.

The loose stools weren't really improving on their old food - even after the metro, so I also changed foods - but it has now been a week on the new food and the stools are just getting firmed up now. The eating is still a little different - I am thinking the Wellness canned is more filling than the Primal raw they were getting previously. Nobody seems too interested in kibble at all - which is fine, I guess.

They love that Wellness Core stuff! It will be impossible to get them back on their Primal again... I'm not sure where we go from here.

My parasitic stool panel all came negative, so I have no idea what caused my little pandemic. And my three don't go out. Hard to imagine you can just track something like this in on your shoes..

 

[danielle4522]

dan32 thats disappointing that the metro worked and bad stools came back a few days after, that makes me worried that my cats will relapse, we end the metro on Monday and both are pooping normally as of now.

When the vet did a fecal sample did you have it sent off to do a PCR fecal so that tests for deeper things like salmonella, clostridum, Giardia etc...and did they come of negative for all of that too?

My cats have clostridium from undiagnosed reason and while the metro is helping I’m scared they will relapse and I can’t change foods do to my cats food allergies, but both my cats eat different things so I don’t think it’s the food??

This is just weird

 

[danielle4522]

dan32 also when your cats were on the metro we’re you feeding them the primal the whole time? Or did you switch to wellness early on in the meds?
Curious if a cats diarreha can clear up on the meds if what’s causing it is the food and the continue to eat that food on the meds...

And did you give them a probiotic while on the metro and after?

Can’t stop thinking about what is going on with them

 

[dan32]

I fed the Primal all through the metro dosing, then noticed that the stools were still not solid after about 3 days past the last metro dose. Also, there was a few more episodes of vomiting post-metro. It was at that point that I switched over to the Wellness, which we are still feeding now 3 weeks post metro. Things are back to normal, but it took a while - still not sure if it was the Primal or not.

The ER did a parasitic panel on the stool I left with them - I am sure it included Giardia (extra test I requested) and various worms, but maybe not salmonella or clostridium. It was a pretty standard test done by one of the big labs (Idexx). All came back negative.

I did feed them 1 tsp. of plain yogurt mixed into 1 tsp. of baby food (each cat) for around five nights after we switched over to the Wellness as a simple probiotic.

 

[danielle4522]

dan32 okay thanks for the info, nervous for the meds to be over for my kitties.

But your cats did have totally normal
Poops while on the metro yes or were they still soft?

Glad they are doing better it’s not fun to have no idea what’s happening to your pets

 

[dan32]

Not to get too graphic, but... As far as how the poops were on the metro, I can't be sure. It took multiple clean-outs of the litter box for me to realize I was scooping out these weird blob-like shapes but no perfect torpedoes. I think I originally thought they were pee clumps until I broke some apart.

I think I was so excited they were eating that I hadn't thought about the finer points of their digestion. The metro does have some anti-diarrheal medicine in it, so in a way it might mask over some things while they are on it - which was my fear.

We have the perfect torpedoes now though. I think it took a couple of weeks post-metro for things to settle out, plus we had changed brands which can take some acclimation.

 

[danielle4522]

dan32 ah ok so you don’t believe they really had perfect torpedo poops while on the metro?

Just trying to prepare myself for a relapse after the meds, I’m sure the metro is masking whatever is going on in my kitties, I don’t even know if I should change their diet since they both eat different things

 

[dan32]

Well, leading into them taking the metro - we were down to all 3 of them not having eaten much of anything for 3-4 days, so it took a while for anything to show up. I had them split up, so remember waiting on the one to make a poop at all and thinking maybe he was constipated. It took almost a week since he hadn't eaten much and now to think of it, it resembled a normal stool enough that I was relieved. So maybe the metro did sort of firm things up a little.

I would say the metro interrupted whatever was making them sick long enough that they would eat again (and stop vomiting) and their little systems had to take it from there. I really think it took them 3-4 weeks to fully recover.