We're on poop watch over here

gabicards

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We've been giving my 8 month old kitten more wet food and an S. Boulardii + MOS supplement, and he didn't poop yesterday - he normally does it in the middle of the night, when we're all asleep, and he skipped it this past night. So now we're on poop watch because I really want to see what it looks like 🤣

The life of a pet owner...
 

artiemom

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FRom my understanding S. Boulardi is used as a stop measure for diarrhea. I think I would stop giving that.
I hope other members will soon chime in with advice.

it is ok for a kitten or cat to miss one day of poop. You just have to watch the consistency of the stool. You do not want it too mushy or too hard.
 
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gabicards

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FRom my understanding S. Boulardi is used as a stop measure for diarrhea. I think I would stop giving that.
I hope other members will soon chime in with advice.

it is ok for a kitten or cat to miss one day of poop. You just have to watch the consistency of the stool. You do not want it too mushy or too hard.
He's gotten veeeeery little of it, we're working up towards the 5 billion daily dose - I've just sprinkled a bit on his wet food twice daily. He's had mostly soft stools with a little blood for 2 months, and an ultrasound showed some inflammation. We think it's due to some type of food allergy, so we've mostly removed dry food from his diet. But he needs a little help with the inflammation, so S Boulardii was recommended to us. :)

He's never been constipated, so hopefully this won't be a first!
 

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If there is some type of food sensitivity, you may want to try Novel protein foods; such as rabbit, quail, duck, venison. This is what is usually suggested. Most kitties with food sensitivities/allergies use a prescription food. It comes in both wet and dry. Ask your vet about it. You do need a prescription for it. Ask your Vet.

Re: S.Boulardi, Is what you are using, just S.Bouldardi? or is it in a probiotic mix? This is another thing you want to look into.
There is also a great website: IBDKitties. They have so much information.

Usually when there is inflammation of the GI tract, a cat is prescribed a steroid, and possibly an antibiotic--to calm down the inflammation.

There is a lot of info out there about IBD-- Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

Good Luck.
 
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gabicards

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If there is some type of food sensitivity, you may want to try Novel protein foods; such as rabbit, quail, duck, venison. This is what is usually suggested. Most kitties with food sensitivities/allergies use a prescription food. It comes in both wet and dry. Ask your vet about it. You do need a prescription for it. Ask your Vet.

Re: S.Boulardi, Is what you are using, just S.Bouldardi? or is it in a probiotic mix? This is another thing you want to look into.
There is also a great website: IBDKitties. They have so much information.

Usually when there is inflammation of the GI tract, a cat is prescribed a steroid, and possibly an antibiotic--to calm down the inflammation.

There is a lot of info out there about IBD-- Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

Good Luck.
Indeed, that will be the next step! He's already getting a few pieces of N&D's lamb + blueberry kibble almost everyday, as a "treat". He was given Pro Plan's Hydrolized kibble exclusively for exactly one month, but there weren't any significant changes to his litter box situation. It was when I realized he had not had any issues while eating mostly wet food, which is why we sort of transitioned him back to that. Now he gets about 90% of Royal Canin's Kitten sachet and 10% of Pro Plan's Hydrolized kibble (because he seems to get hungry faster when eating just wet food). I sprinkle a little bit of S. Boulardii on the sachet I give him for lunch and on the one I give for dinner. Very very little of it, been doing it since Sunday (so 3 full days).

He pooped last night and his stool was better than I had seen since late April! It took him longer this time and he didn't poop as much - my theory for now is that he might be digesting more effectively, but I'm keeping a close eye on his litter box behavior. Fingers crossed!
 

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S boulardii is used to firm up the stools, fibre such as psyllium to soften and help them to poop regularly. If you think its a food allergy try removing chicken. Maybe he hadnt pooped because of the diet change but in your shoes I would stop the s boulardii and see what happens.
 
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gabicards

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S boulardii is used to firm up the stools, fibre such as psyllium to soften and help them to poop regularly. If you think its a food allergy try removing chicken. Maybe he hadnt pooped because of the diet change but in your shoes I would stop the s boulardii and see what happens.
He didn't have any digestive issues while on wet food, though, even if it does have chicken. So I thought it was perhaps worth the try again? But I do already have some options on sight that are both wet and without chicken. I'd be willing to consider raw, too, once I research more about it.

As for S. Boulardii, I'm a bit confused now - is it not also used to help with inflammation? At least that's what I understood from IBDKitties: "This yeast-based probiotic is often used in conjunction with an L. acidophilus-based probiotic and is a very important tool in resolving diarrhea and healing inflammation in IBD cats."

My kitten has a fair amount of inflammation, which we saw during his abdominal ultrasound - enough that his vet wondered if it was chronic already. She also doesn't want to give him steroids now, at least not without a biopsy, which I'd rather not do until we test other food for more time. It feels like too much stress to put him through at the moment.
 

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I haven't tried raw but its supposed to be really good to feed cats with IBD. S boulardii does help with inflammation, I give it to my IBS cat when he has diarrhoea but only for a few days. If the diarrhoea continues then its a vet visit and a steroid injection. I am not a vet and can only say what my experience has been but can you have a chat with your vet to get his opinion.
 

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I am not a Vet, either; but, personally, I would not give S.Boulardi to a cat for non-diarrhea issues. I would go to a probiotic and steroid for inflammation..
Best to discuss this with your vet. S. Boulardi is usually a stop treatment for diarrhea.

I agree with your Vet, that you do not want to use steroids until after a biopsy.
I would ask about a good probiotic for cats... from your Vet.
 

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Might consider a wifi motion activated security camera to install near the litterbox. It'll capture everything. It's been a real help for me when dealing with my cat and her UTIs and constipation issues b/c I can see if she's straining or just what she's doing in the box.
 
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gabicards

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Yesterday afternoon and today in the morning Topaz had the best looking stools I had seen in months, without blood. So during lunch and dinner I didn't sprinkle S. Boulardii on his food, to see what would happen, and, surely enough, tonight we had a diarrhoea situation. Very wet stool, almost liquid, and with some blood.

So we're going back to S. Boulardii tomorrow, and I'll start on AnimalBiome's fecal transplant pills as soon as they arrive.

Best to discuss this with your vet. S. Boulardi is usually a stop treatment for diarrhea.

I agree with your Vet, that you do not want to use steroids until after a biopsy.
I would ask about a good probiotic for cats... from your Vet.
Caveat is, both vets that see my kitten have never heard of S. Boulardii (or they don't remember it at all). I've sent them some links to look into it, in case they're curious, but I have no idea whether they did it or not - they're busy, I suppose.

As for the probiotics they recommend, I used one for a while that didn't do anything - it's Brazilian and called Florentero. And when I asked for another probiotic recommendation from his 2nd vet, she mentioned Fortiflora is the well known best - which is not available in Brazil, but I could try it once I'm back in France, in the last week of July. I always gave it as a supplement to my previous cat, and it never did anything as far as I could tell (hopefully it helped in ways I couldn't see...).

Well, it's never easy, is it? :)
 
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gabicards

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Might consider a wifi motion activated security camera to install near the litterbox. It'll capture everything. It's been a real help for me when dealing with my cat and her UTIs and constipation issues b/c I can see if she's straining or just what she's doing in the box.
Thanks for the idea, this never occurred to me! I'll snoop on some online stores to see what I can find.
 

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I don’t like that Pro Plan kibble one bit. The first ingredient is rice starch and the next is soy protein isolate. I don’t care that it’s hydrolyzed. Your kitten is not a vegan and would never eat soy. Never ever. That food may cause more issues than it solves. If you feel more comfortable with a prescription kibble (and you shouldn’t, but I get it—it can be lonely going against your vet’s advice), I would much rather you try Hill’s I/D kibble. It’s not a quality kibble. But for the 10% you are giving (if it’s truly only 10% of his calories), it will work or it won’t. But you’ll be in much better position to blame the chicken if it doesn’t.

I’m just thrilled you are going to try the AnimalBiome FMT pills. I saw some wonderful results in the first month Betty took them. Then I saw just how much those results were because of the FMT pills in the two weeks she wasn’t taking them. If there is a lot of inflammation in his gut, I would plan on those pills as being an ongoing part of his treatment. Don’t expect him to be fixed in one bottle. If you can afford it, I highly recommend doing the testing as well. Even with international shipping, I expect those tests to be cheaper than ultrasounds.

Have you had a diarrhea PCR done for him? I wonder if his chronic soft stools might be caused by a gut bug like clostridium rather than IBD. S boulardii is not normally an IBD treatment. It can be effective against e coil and clostridium. If he’s got one of those, that could by why the s boulardii is helping. But if his inflammation is caused by an intolerance or allergy, the only thing that will really help is removing that trigger ingredient.

My recommendations:

1. Add a wet meal or snack (a tweener as in between meals) if you can. Cats aren’t meant to eat only twice a day. My five year old eats five meals a day. Yes I’m tired. But that’s how she gets enough wet food only calories in her to keep her off the kibble. I expect as she heals, she’ll be able to eat larger meals and I can either collapse her meals or put a couple of them in feeders knowing they are more convenience than necessity.

2. If you must still feed kibble, and probably recommended for growing kittens who should eat as much as they can, upgrade your kibble. If you’re going to stick with prescription, see if you can get Hills instead. No cat should ever have to rely on soy protein for their nutrition.

3. Get a Diarrhea PCR. It’s not cheap. But then neither is treating the wrong condition for several months and not getting anywhere. If he has clostridium, steroids and probiotics will do nothing for that. S boulardii will help with gut bugs. That’s why I’m suspicious of your kitty’s IBD diagnosis.

4. Do the Gut Health tests. Plan on more than one bottle of the FMT pills. If you cannot pill him (or get him to eat food coated pills), don’t bother with the FMT pills. That’s dried poop in them and he won’t appreciate that opened in his food. Betty managed to bite open two of the thirty and only one in her mouth. But that one, you could see it on her face. I don’t normally give her kibble (except five pieces each week to get her butt on a baby scale), but I made sure she got a few pieces to get that taste out her mouth. We skipped that day after that. Betty is a pro at eating food coated capsules though.
 
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gabicards

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I don’t like that Pro Plan kibble one bit. The first ingredient is rice starch and the next is soy protein isolate. I don’t care that it’s hydrolyzed. Your kitten is not a vegan and would never eat soy. Never ever. That food may cause more issues than it solves. If you feel more comfortable with a prescription kibble (and you shouldn’t, but I get it—it can be lonely going against your vet’s advice), I would much rather you try Hill’s I/D kibble. It’s not a quality kibble. But for the 10% you are giving (if it’s truly only 10% of his calories), it will work or it won’t. But you’ll be in much better position to blame the chicken if it doesn’t.

I’m just thrilled you are going to try the AnimalBiome FMT pills. I saw some wonderful results in the first month Betty took them. Then I saw just how much those results were because of the FMT pills in the two weeks she wasn’t taking them. If there is a lot of inflammation in his gut, I would plan on those pills as being an ongoing part of his treatment. Don’t expect him to be fixed in one bottle. If you can afford it, I highly recommend doing the testing as well. Even with international shipping, I expect those tests to be cheaper than ultrasounds.

Have you had a diarrhea PCR done for him? I wonder if his chronic soft stools might be caused by a gut bug like clostridium rather than IBD. S boulardii is not normally an IBD treatment. It can be effective against e coil and clostridium. If he’s got one of those, that could by why the s boulardii is helping. But if his inflammation is caused by an intolerance or allergy, the only thing that will really help is removing that trigger ingredient.

My recommendations:

1. Add a wet meal or snack (a tweener as in between meals) if you can. Cats aren’t meant to eat only twice a day. My five year old eats five meals a day. Yes I’m tired. But that’s how she gets enough wet food only calories in her to keep her off the kibble. I expect as she heals, she’ll be able to eat larger meals and I can either collapse her meals or put a couple of them in feeders knowing they are more convenience than necessity.

2. If you must still feed kibble, and probably recommended for growing kittens who should eat as much as they can, upgrade your kibble. If you’re going to stick with prescription, see if you can get Hills instead. No cat should ever have to rely on soy protein for their nutrition.

3. Get a Diarrhea PCR. It’s not cheap. But then neither is treating the wrong condition for several months and not getting anywhere. If he has clostridium, steroids and probiotics will do nothing for that. S boulardii will help with gut bugs. That’s why I’m suspicious of your kitty’s IBD diagnosis.

4. Do the Gut Health tests. Plan on more than one bottle of the FMT pills. If you cannot pill him (or get him to eat food coated pills), don’t bother with the FMT pills. That’s dried poop in them and he won’t appreciate that opened in his food. Betty managed to bite open two of the thirty and only one in her mouth. But that one, you could see it on her face. I don’t normally give her kibble (except five pieces each week to get her butt on a baby scale), but I made sure she got a few pieces to get that taste out her mouth. We skipped that day after that. Betty is a pro at eating food coated capsules though.
I get it, I don’t like that kibble either. We stopped giving it to Topaz for a couple of days, but I was worried he was staying hungry with his 3 sachets of wet food, so I bought it again. I’m scared of transitioning to yet another kibble because I know food changes can irritate their gut, too, and his is inflammed already 😔 but I did buy N&D Lamb & Blueberry, which was seemingly the best dry I could get my hands on. I’m not really transitioning him into that yet, as I want him to be comfy with the wet food first (I don’t want him to eat two new foods at once, because if one causes a problem I won’t know which is doing it).

We did two stool tests, one of them was the PCR, and he only tested positive for FCoV. Clean of all other parasites. His breeder had done the PCR too, I have the results in his folder and he was clean for everything… he hasn’t been in direct contact with any other cats since he got here.

I won’t mind doing the FMT pills if they help. It’s hard to have an idea of what the issue really is, all I know for certain is it started after my dumbass transitioned him from wet to dry food after bringing him home. No dry food has ever helped, ultrasound showed inflammation and one of his vets was worried about prescribing steroids because he’s positive for coronavirus. After I understood why, I don’t want it either of we can avoid it - I really don’t want to mess with his immune system.

I guess I’ll try the wet food with S. Boulardii for longer, then the FMT pills and see where that gets me in the upcoming months. But even if I do control the symptoms, I can see myself doing an ultrasound again before the year ends to see his condition and whether he really needs a biopsy. I’ll never not be worried about FIP or lymphoma.

I also feel like I don’t see enough being said about cats that have soft stool and blood… I see a lot about diarrhea, yes. But diarrhea doesn’t always have blood, does it? My previous cat had giardia for ages until we finally got rid of it; and I rarely saw any blood. That’s what freaks me out, but their vets are just like “well, it’s diarrhea”…
 

louisstools

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Thanks for the idea, this never occurred to me! I'll snoop on some online stores to see what I can find.
This is the one I have. You'll need to get a micro-sdcard like this.
What's nice about it is it has configurable motion activation, push and email alerts, and you can add a micro sdcard and it'll record to it. I got one of the litterbox and 1 on the food bowl. Works pretty well.
 

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I like D-Link. For a couple dollars a month, they’ll record to the cloud for you rather than messing with SD cards. You can get a notification to your phone when a motion event was detected. A video clip is usually ready to view within a few seconds (when it finishes uploading to cloud.) And you can tune in to a live view. Besides all this, what I really like about these cameras in particular are their size and weight: about the size and weight of a salt shaker. I use 3M Command Strips to Velcro these cameras where they are needed including one attached to the side of Betty’s litter enclosure.

D-Link Wi-Fi Security Camera Mini Indoor w/HD Day & Night Vision, Motion & Sound Detection, Compatible with Alexa, DCS-8000LH-US (Renewed) https://a.co/d/1YVeXMP
 
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gabicards

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Thank you both! I've added the products to my shopping list to monitor prices. I can't wait for my flatmate to take the piss out of me for wanting to record my cat pooping lol

Also, we're back to S. Boulardii here, waiting on the FMT pills to arrive. The difference to his stools is honestly remarkable (I have pics to prove!). I hope with time it will help with the inflammation... fingers crossed!
 
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gabicards

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We've gone a few days now without S. Boulardii and entirely without kibble, which Topaz was still eating a little bit of because wet food doesn't seem to be enough for him... his stool are well formed and with no blood. He's getting no probiotics, treats or anything besides Royal Canin Kitten. 4 sachets a day now that we're not giving him kibble anymore, because he still seemed to be hungry after 3.

I'll give him a couple of different options from Edgard & Cooper next week to see if he likes any of them, and if he does I'll start transitioning him out of RC Kitten to one of those, which are novel protein (and sustainable!).
 

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I have a cat with a sensitive digestive tract. He does not have IBD, just very sensitive to food. We have to keep his diet pretty bland and he cannot have rabbit or fish. He is on a rx food. The previous one he was on started giving him diarrhea, so we switched. He gets s. boullardi in his wet food 2x a day to keep his poops firm and solid. We give him about 1/4 capsule twice a day. He's to the point now where he can go a day without it, but we have to get him back on it quickly. If he starts having issues, we add in a little bit of Cuturelle and that really helps him.
 
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gabicards

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I have a cat with a sensitive digestive tract. He does not have IBD, just very sensitive to food. We have to keep his diet pretty bland and he cannot have rabbit or fish. He is on a rx food. The previous one he was on started giving him diarrhea, so we switched. He gets s. boullardi in his wet food 2x a day to keep his poops firm and solid. We give him about 1/4 capsule twice a day. He's to the point now where he can go a day without it, but we have to get him back on it quickly. If he starts having issues, we add in a little bit of Cuturelle and that really helps him.
May I ask how you've concluded he doesn't have IBD? Does he have no inflammation as long as he doesn't eat certain things?

Glad to know he's on S. Boulardii regularly without any issues, and that it helps him! I think it helped my kitty, too, and he hasn't needed it in a few days.

Also, how long did it take you to figure out he can't have rabbit or fish?
 
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