Kitten with chronic diarrhea

[krande20]

Hi all,
I recently started fostering a kitten whose previous owner returned to a shelter due to his chronic diarrhea. He is about 6 months old. Overall, he seems to be healthy and happy, but he has diarrhea every day, and supposedly has had this issue for at least 4 months.

Before I got him, he started having diarrhea at his previous home and was eventually diagnosed with a coccidia infection the week of August 13th, and treated with 3 days of Penozurial. (the other cat in the household was also treated at that time). He was neutered on August 21 and his stool sample was declared negative on August 28.

On September 2 his owner found an abrasion on his left back paw. It didn't appear to be healing so on Thursday, Sept 6 he was given a shot of Convenia to prevent infection of his paw and his foot was soaked in Betadine for five minutes every night for seven days. At this time, he continued to have diarrhea (which was attributed to the antibiotics) and his foot wound healed in the original place, but expanded to a toe and the other side of the pad because he kept chewing it. The owner eventually got him a head cone to prevent him from chewing his paw and allow it to heal. Again to the vet on September 20th when he got his remaining vaccinations and they looked at his paw. He was given antibiotic ointment and a new soaking solution which for the next week, as well as keeping on his head cone, and his paw finally healed. During this time, his diarrhea worsened, when it was expected it to get better after the two week action of the Convenia shot wore off. Back to the vet on Sept 25 to see about his diarrhea. They did a couple stool samples that were negative, and gave me Forti-Flora to try to repopulate his intestinal tract, thinking that he had been through a lot and we should try a conservative approach first. His diarrhea seemed to become more solid at this time, but did not ever become like normal stool. It has remained an orange color and very soft texture since then.

Vet called on Oct 23 because I realized the diarrhea still wasn't improving and they gave him another medication to try, called Metronidazol. He got it orally twice a day for a week and he did not improve. After his medication finished last week, he started eating Hills Science Diet Kitten Intestinal formula which I have been feeding him solely since with no change.

Has anyone else had experience with this sort of issue? I have four other cats and none of them have ever experienced anything like this. I am worried that he is dehydrated and his health may start to deteriorate. THANK YOU for any advice!

[BendyMom]

There have been times when I answered the phone "house of sh*tty kitties" i have also been told "but you are the poopy butt expert"
in fact right now my two incontinent kitties are having chronic runs.
as a stop-gap, to make the world a little less messy, try getting pumpkin pulp - just the plain pulp not the pie filling - and offering him a tablespoon once daily. Many cats actually like it. The fiber in it helps firm things up. the poop will be pumpkin colored, but more solid.
this doesn't fix the problem, just makes it a little easier to deal with as you figure it out.
metroniadzol is usually a very good treatment, but not everything responds to it.

have you tried Panacur? it is very safe so doing a trial of it won't put your kitten at risk. It treats giardia. the current thinking on my two is that they have a very very stubborn case of giardia. after goign through just about every medicine adn additive available, panacur seems to be the only one making a difference. but instead of teh usual 5 day course we are doing a 10 day course this time. last time we ended the course and two days later it was back. aaaaa!
the improvement is slow, but at least it is improving.
so, that is something to suggest to vet to try. it also is not very expensive.

you coudl be dealing with an over sensitive gut issue, i have had many a cat with such problems. finding the diet that works for them is not easy. the I/D is usually a very good food, I've used it often myself but again not every cat responds well to it.

one problem you have with this situation is that the gt is now inflammed and irritable, so its good to try to calm it down.
my method for doing this is to withhold food for 24 hours (or if you can't stand the screeching at least 16). then feed them plain boiled chicken meat. it is easy to digest, good for them, and usually palatable. Sometimes you run into a weird cat like one of mine who doesn't recognize it as food, and thinks only kibble is food, or doesn't like chicken, but most cats seem to enjoy this. I feed them nothing, absolutely nothing, no treats no NOTHING but plain chicken for several days. normally by the third day i'll see some improvement. If this has helped, you start introducing things very slowly. Give them a few bites of the a nice stomach friendly kibble. see what happens. This process takes patience.
I have had many cats who did amazingly well on grain free foods, but foods with grain inflamed their gut horrible. If you can get a sample package of a grain free food (gotta go to a pet store for it) that would be best. I would go with one that says it is a limited ingriedient diet. you don't want to give a bunch of new stuff to the kitty's gut. if you can't find one labelled that way, look for one that is JUST one type of meat and not a combination - be sure to check ingriedient list! they sneak things in there that aren't on teh front of the bag. I would stay away from the foods that add tons of fruits and veggies (like Wellness) as these are things the cat gut is really not designed to handle and while a healthy gut might be OK with them, an inflammed gut doesn't need a challenge.

I definitely feel for you, and I commend your patient and persistence with your kitten. This is a long, frustrating battle.

hope some of my ideas work for you!

[critters]

And Panacur doesn't taste nasty either, which is a big help.

[krande20]

BendyMom, thank you so much for your amazing reply with so much information. I really appreciate it! We have been doing the pumpkin and Mac really likes it. No change in his stool yet, but it's only been a couple of days. He is scheduled for another vet visit tomorrow and I will ask about the Panacur.

It's not really the mess that bothers me, we also have a kitten with paralysis and she can be messier - she needs to be expressed and regularly cleaned. Mac is very good about using his box and hasn't had any accidents. I just feel bad because he is obviously not 100%.

I found on Amazon a grain-free food called Natural Balance. Have you used this brand? I have also been known to make homemade cat food, so I may very well bust out the food processor for that. If you've got any good recipes, let me know.

[krande20]

Well, the poop saga continues. Mac hates his new limited ingredient food, which is really saying something because before this, he never met a food he didn't like (or leaf, or bug, or any random speck on the floor). He does everything he can to steal food from the other cats, and since there are 4 of them, he is usually successful at some point.

His diarrhea was staying the same for a few days, but now it is bloody. Something is really wrong with this poor little guy. He is going back to the vet again tomorrow morning. They have been running a test to see if he had some sort of intestinal protozoa which is looking negative, but it has a couple of more days to complete the culture. The next thing the vet wants to try is Panacur.

About a week ago, we discovered a rash on the backs of his legs on both rear legs. He got a steroid shot and that cleared it up pretty quickly, but only treated the symptoms, not the cause. Wondering if it could possibly be related to whatever is causing his digestive issues?

This poor kitten is having such a hard time, but he does not let it get him down. He is such a sweetie. I hope I can figure out what the problem is and fix it soon, or I'm afraid his insides might be seriously damaged.

[BendyMom]

it must be poop day.
Butterbean has gone back to messy poops here. sighs.

the rash could be from irritation from being dirty, i've had that happen.
Most of my food allergy guys get Natural Balance Limited Ingredient diet. some love it, others not so much.

today i am going ot see if i can find a beef or venison or some other redmeat food to try Butterbean on. Black Cherry is vastly improved eating raw beef, but Butterbean only recognizes kibble as food, normal looking kibble not the freeze dried stuff either. he won't even eat cat treats most of the time.

the blood is most likely from his poor irritated gut, interesting that the steroid shot did not help the poop situation as it should have also calmed down inflammation in the gut.
i just had a PCR test (fecal test they send out to look for cooties) done on Butterbean and it came back negative.
argh!

you an me can hope for solid poop for Xmas I suppose.

[krande20]

The food I have is Blue Buffalo Duck & Potato. The woman at PetSmart highly recommended it, but Mac won't touch it. I am actually considering boiling some chicken and rice and mashing it up together for him. He always wants people food, maybe he will fall for it?

On the first day of Christmas, my kitty gave to me...

[BendyMom]

i haven't tried that.

i actually just picked up a lamb limited ingriedient food, its dog food. they don't seem to make red meat diets for cats without chicken.
if butterbean would eat human food i would be glad to cook for him. I cooked for Bendy for years. I know a hunter, and he would give me ground venison. I'd cook that up with some peas and pumpkin, add a liver based kitty vitamin and he did GREAT on it. I've done the same with ground beef. Right now Black Cherry gets beef cubes for dinner and her iams kitten in teh morning and the beef cubes have made a huge difference.

but butterbean will not touch it, wn't even look at it, if it isn't kibble.
he saw the other cats eatiing canned food. he ran over all excited, sniffed around,but could not figure out what they were so excited about...