Miss.Contessa's Trials...

[warmbear]

Good Morning everyone..

I am trying yet another tack with Miss.Contessa's unending watery stools.. Although she is a still technincally a kitten (she is not a year old yet), I am now trialing friskies "sliced" lamb & rice formulated for geriatric cats with digestive problems. I hope that this works, as I am running out of options here.

She eats this food somewhat oddly... She will go and lick-eat all the gravy and rice from the food, and then come back later and eat the "slices" of lamb. The good news is that she is keeping it all down (so far).. Now to just watch the litter boxes...

[jennielynn1970]

Is there a reason she is only eating wet food? Many times wet food is what give kittens and cats runny poops. Is there a dry food that you can try, that will enable the poops to firm up. Or boiled chicken and rice? Rice would help too. I'd definitely not feed wet food to an animal with chronic runny stool issues. I know we didn't give wet food to any of the kittens at the shelter if they had runny stools.

[Freedom]

Hmm, in addition, I'd worry that a growing kitten won't get the nutrition she needs from a senior formula.

What has the vet suggested?

Does she get treats? Those may also be the culprit.

I'm don't recall the history, sorry. Have you tried a better quality food, rather than a grocery store variety? Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover is a high quality food. You can find a place that carries it near you by going to their web site; you put in your zip code. Other high quality foods include Old Mother Hubbard, Fromm's, Canidae, and Merrick. any of these in the kibble form should work fine.

Let us know how she is doing!

[emily_the_spoiled]

There are a number of brands of wet and dry cat food available that do not contain corn, other fillers, or preservatives. When I took my guys off food with those ingredients the diarrhea (and vomiting cleared up almost completely)

Good luck!

[warmbear]

Obviously you missed my previous posts.

Miss.Contessa has always eaten dry food (until now). She has been tried on every concievable & ultra-expensive dry kitten food, and has constant water for stools since day one. She has been on antibitotics & probiotics... She has been on kitty kaeopectate. Nothing has worked.

She has been to the vet more times than I can count. She has never even had all of her kitten shots, because the vet is afraid to give them all to her, because of this chronic, ongoing problem.

She has not been altered, because the vet will not do it until her bowels get better. She was recently in heat for a few days (about a week).. She is undersized at less than 5 pounds (she was the runt of the litter of 7), although she seems to have attained her full growth (I think that this unending problem contributed to her lack of size because it causes a constant nutritional loss).

She does not eat treats, nor human foods. (She absolutely hates treats, and we never give her human food because of her problems)

[emily_the_spoiled]

Sorry about all of her problems. I found that the vet wanted me to switch to an (expensive) prescription cat food because one of my guys was diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome. But removing those things from his diet seemed to really help. I eventually converted most of them over to a raw diet (and yes I make their food ), but if you just want to try a little before going that route the Evo brand by Innova was quite popular in my household

[warmbear]

We have already been the prescription food route.. It was a waste of money, as were the other ultra-expensive kitten foods the vet had us try. We have tried them all; Both at the vets, and at the pet shop as well. Each food has been given a month's trial (or more). She has a diagnosis of colitis, but that is just based on the symptoms, and her stool samples.

I am aware that the senior foods are not as nutritious as the kitten foods, but if the senior foods can stop this water for stools, she will be getting more nutrition from the senior food than she has been from the kitten foods with this problem.

[Catty1]

I am sure you have tried these too - canned pumpkin (not pie filling) and Metamucil.

Just in case.

[emily_the_spoiled]

You must be really frustrated right now. The only way they can positively diagnose colotis is to do a biopsy of the GI tract and not all vets can do something like that. I spent ALOT of money on Tanner last summer so I can understand what you are feeling. Thankfully he is 3 yo, so he doesn't need as much as a kittne (but try and tell him that )

If the senior food doesn't work there are holistic pet places that sell frozen food for a raw diet. I am not sure where you live and whether they are available there, but that might help a little...

[warmbear]

I live out in the boondocks. (LOL).. We are lucky to have a WalMart 30 miles each way from us. The pet store is 50+ miles each way, the vet is 30+ miles each way. We also tried all the kitten food available at the "feed" store (30+ miles each way). Of course, we tried all the grocery store brands of kitten food first, and they did not work (obviously).

The situation is more than old, and I feel badly for the little cat.

Her tiny behind has to get very sore from all those trips to the sandbox. The vet would still have us coming in every week, if I did not say NO very firmly. (I simply cannot be forever running to the vet's office, I have two disabled adults in my house that I have to get to doctor's visits etc. -- besides, we have already tried everything suggested by the vet, and nothing has worked.)

Increasing fiber in her diet does not seem to help & and psyllium doesn't help and gives her terrible kitty GAS, which is not a good combination with watery stools (understatement).

[Catty1]

okay...just wondered if there was something you hadn't tried.

Raw diet? Emily mentioned it, just wondered if you had tried that yet.

AND...pure aloe gel. Health food store or Herbalife. Smear on paw, size of dime. I am serious. Soothes inner tract as Aloe does for outer skin.

HUGS and give your baby a pat for me!

[jennielynn1970]

Poor kitty... I had read those posts, but didn't connect them to your kitty, sorry!

This is a good site for Irritable Bowel Disease... Cornell is a fantastic resource.
http://www.vet.cornell.edu/fhc/brochures/ibd.html

I hope you can find something out to help her. When my girl, Sophie, had really bad IBD, I had to change her over to California Natural. The vet suggested that because he said that the extra vitamins and minerals added to the other brands can make her system even more irritated. California Natural is supposed to be just chicken, chicken broth and rice. I use Nutro now as well, and that also works extremely well.

I hope you can find some relief for you girl. Did you try a teaching hospital? We have University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in my area. Not sure what is available in your area.

[krazyaboutkatz]

I'm sorry to hear this and I feel your frustration because I'm going through a similar thing with my Starr. He had very bad coccidia as a kitten and has always had mushy stools. They've gotten worse lately and he sometimes can't make it to the litterbox in time so he poops on the carpet. The vet also thinks that he may have colitis.

So far I've tried California Natural Chicken & Rice, Natural Balance Venison & Green Pea, and he's now on Hills I/D which isn't working very well. He's also currently on purina fortiflora which is a probiotic and he's been on dewormers, and other meds but nothing seems to help.

I've been trying to avoid using steroids but now I'm willing to try almost anything. My oldest cat has to go to the vet for a recheck on Sat. so I'm going to ask the vet more about what I can do for Starr. I sure hope that you'll find something that will work for Miss Contessa. Good luck.

[emily_the_spoiled]

Have you talked with the vet about a short course of prednisone? I doubt they would want to put her on it for very long but it might be long enough to get things under control so it would be easier for you to try and find something that helps her.

If you are interested there are some holistic pet food stores on the web...

http://search.onlynaturalpet.com/search.aspx?searchterms=evo&click=5&s_kwcid=evo%20 cat%20food|742301523

[warmbear]

Prednisone has already been tried without effect. The vet did mention that Miss.Contessa is not the only kitten she has seen in the past couple of years to have this chronic problem, and they have not found anything definitive that works for the poor kitties (what works with one, does not work with another). Unfortunately, we have already tried everything that the vet can think of.

Sometimes they grow out of it, according to the vet, but no sign of that happening here.

I have noticed that Miss.Contessa is not vomiting as often as she used to, but she continues to have a single heave periodically.

This is why I am trying everything I can think of at this point. I have noticed that her stools are no longer foul (They were very foul for quite awhile, and when I stopped the last of the designer kitten food, I noticed that she was no longer emitting as much kitty gas, and her stools did not smell foul anymore.)

Miss.Contessa is a very active kitty, she eats well, and sleeps well. She seems to be a perfectly normal cat (a bit little perhaps) except for the water for stools. Her coat is shiny, and her eyes glow.. She has very good muscle tone as well.

Last night, my neighbor gave me a tube of nutritional booster paste for cats & kittens, and if this food works, I will try it as an additive.