Phinehas and Malachi health issues - confirmed diagnoses: herpes virus in the eye

[wolflady]

Thanks KAK. I certainly hope he gets to feeling better. He's still pretty much the same. Very lethargic with diarrhea. He loves the red bed you brought over, so that's good. I'll give him his first dose of meds tomorrow and hopefully it will help him to feel better. I'll be sure to keep you posted. Please continue to send some healing vibes for Phinehas.

[wolflady]

No improvement with Phinehas this morning. He's still not eating and still has the bloody diarrhea. I tried enticing him with some wet food, but he wasn't interested. His medicine says "give with food", but if he's not eating...what do you do? I ended up giving him a dose this morning, because I want to get him on the antibiotics. He wasn't too happy about it and probably half of it ended up on the floor. I'm just so disappointed. Maybe bringing this little kitty home was a mistake. Phinehas was just fine....never any diarrhea or illness from the day I first brought him nome, and now if this colitis is going to be a permanent thing...it's going to be a nightmare. It's my fault he's suffering now.
I don't want to keep Phinehas cooped up in the bathroom, but it's the only room we have to isolate the kitties. My place is small and I don't want to put him in any carpeted rooms since he's leaving diarrhea smears wherever he sits down. I've been wiping his bottom, but it's not really helping since it seems he has it leaking out constantly.
I swear, I must have bad karma following me around since I never seem to catch a break. My husband is going away for 3-6 months to work a contract job since he hasn't been able to find anything out here for 4 months and we thought adding a friend to keep Phinehas company would be a good thing. Introductions went well, but I guess there was a catch to all that. Why couldn't it have just gone fine and stayed fine? I wish the universe would just give me a break! I'm so frustrated these days.

Prayers for Phinehas are appreciated.

[krazyaboutkatz]

Karen, Things will get better just have faith. If you still want to borrow the cage that I have please let me know. It's large enough for a small litter box and a bed too. I sure hope that Phinehas will start improving soon. Prayers and positive thoughts are still being sent his way.

[Barbara]

Don't give up yet- it's just the first day. I am sorry for both of you. My vet said that in the case of diarrhoea fasting is recommended. We had Filou fasting for six hrs first time but when it didn't become better we even had those 24 hrs which were extremely tough for him and us. But after that and the antibiotics he became ok.
Sending best thoughts for Phinehas.

[Sonia59]

I just see this thread. We are sending our best thoughts that Phinehas feels better soon. I am sure he will.

[cassiesmom]

Dear Phinehas, I hope you will feel much better soon. Paws and fingers are crossed for you!

[phesina]

We are saying our prayers and sending our loving thoughts and healing vibrations along to Phinehas. Suddenly meeting his grandson who has just moved in has probably been a bit of a stress for him!

[krazyaboutkatz]

Karen, have you received Phinehas's blood test results yet? Hopefully they'll be in the normal range. Here's a very good article about colitis that may be helpful to you: http://www.petplace.com/cats/colitis-in-cats/page1.aspx.

The part that might pertain to Phinehas is dietary change or stress or both of these. I know that you put out some fancy feast canned food for the kitten and it was out for quite a while before he ate it. I wonder of Phinehas ate any of this and maybe this upset his tummy since it was out for a while and he's not used to eating it.

I hope he'll recover quickly and that his appetite will come back. If he's bad about taking his liquid medication you might want to switch it to pill form. Some times the antibiotics can also cause diarrhea so you may want to try giving him some plain yogurt. Get well soon Phinehas.

[Russian Blue]

Sorry this is happening, Karen! But stress will bring out any problems in a cat pretty quick. Get out the feliway plug-ins and any other Bach's remedies.

The first thing I thought of was coccidia. When we brought Phoenix home to see if that would help Nakita, Nakita started having diarrhea (with blood) within the first week. When we took the stool sample, it was coccidia.

Here's a better description:
Coccidia

I'm assuming you took a stool sample in?

It was an easy fix. A pill dose each day for a week (if I remember correctly) and both cats were clear.

So, don't worry too much just yet.