Bad diarreah with no parasites.

[Courtney]

Hello! I am the proud mama of an F2 Snow Savannah boy named Ramses. He has always had on and off bad, smelly diarreah. It comes and goes with no rhyme or reason. He has been tested extensively for all parasites (we had the normal parasite test done and then when things didn't get better we had the extensive $150 panel done that looks for everything). All negative. We feed him Natural Variety Limited Ingredient Rabbit dry food (available all the time in a dish on the ground) and then we feed him wet food three times a day (split between him and his brother Loki the Jungle Bob). We have tried many wet foods, from the $3.00 a can Natural Variety Limited Ingredient foods (he loses interest in them, a texture thing I believe) to slightly less spendy $1.70 Soulistic grain free wet foods. It never seems to effect him one way or the other regardless of what he is fed. We have started feeding him lightly seared chicken (no oils or spices, lightly seared and shredded as suggested by the breeder). He loves it but again, no change. According to the vet he is in perfect health if the on and off diarreah was not present. The stool is smelly and will squirt out with loud gassy squirts, or sometimes it's just mushy lava, other times there are solids and even rarer is the perfect stool with no runny part. Sometimes there is a bit of blood (not much when it is there) and sometimes a bit of mucus (again, not much and random). I have recorded what food he eats and when each of the stools are in relation (the ones that we see him pass while we are home) and there are no patterns.

His brother Loki has normal stool (runny sometimes but more often normal) and smelly (it could be because it is poop and we live in a medium sized apartment). They have a filtered water fountain for drinking. I don't know what else to do or try. I am worried.

Ramses acts like a normal cat, full of energy, playful, not acting sick at all. We had fleas once (brought in by a lady cat we were babysitting). This has long since been taken care of, both cats are on Frontline.

Ramses has a bad habit of getting in the trash (we have solved this mostly by putting gallon jugs on the top). He has gotten lamb/chicken/beef bones out and chewed on them but I never saw any I caught him with splintered or split in any way. He also loves plastic and chews on whatever he finds. We keep things picked up but he occasionally gets some. He once puked up a bit of plastic and we will randomly find puke on the floor (we are unsure which cat does this. Over the course of an entire year I would say there were about 6 or so pukes, randomly sprinkled throughout the year). I could be wrong but this might be normal cat behavior. If he eats and then races around the house or is a piggy and eats too muchi I can see either one of them puking. Never any blood in the puke, just cat food or whatever treat they had.

Both cats are indoors but will go out on harness and leash on occasion. Ramses is 15 months old and has had this diarreah issue since he was about 6 months old.

Does anyone have any idea what is wrong with Ramses?

 

[WitchyWoman]

Some things to consider are environmental and food allergies. Normal culprits are food, household products such as detergents, air fresheners, seasonal allergies to pollens or mold, perfumes, the brand of litter you use.

Have you considered a raw diet? Or an elimination diet where a novel protein, such as duck, is fed? When trying to find the food causing the problem, the cat must be fed only one type of food for a few months to a year--no treats--nothing but the novel protein.

Have you kept a log of when diarrhea occurs to see if there's a pattern? You said it's random but you may be missing something subtle such as a stressor -- maybe issues with the other cat.

 

[WitchyWoman]

Also I don't know if the pcr panel tests for tritrich or if there's a special test. Ask your vet if he was tested for tritrich.

 

[Courtney]

The complete panel included the Tri Trich. It was negative. We only got his brother Loki 6 months ago so he wouldn't be triggering the diarreah. We have been feeding them the same dry food and same set of 4 types of wet food for a good while now. There are days where the stool is pure diarreah and days it is solid with no relation to the food. We know the dry food is ok but perhaps the wet food might have something in one of the flavores. I think we will cut it down to 2 flavors and see. We had home on a strict Limited Ingrediant Duck wet food but after a while he didn't want to eat much of it and it didn't effect the variety of his stool one way or the other. He was on just that and the dry food for a few months and it wasn't conclusive.

I have kept a log but I dont see all of his stools so I might be missing things. At the moment there is no clear pattern...

 

[Patti]

There are a few things I would consider... first cut out any food (wet or dry) that has any chicken in it - chicken is one of the most common food allergies found in cats. Next, I would switch to a high fiber diet (I have found that Iams Hairball has the highest fiber content, but it does have chicken in it) and/or add fiber to the current diet - you can purchase psyllium at any drug store and sprinkle it over the food. Third, even though he tested negative I would consider treating him for tritrich with ronidazole mg/kg for at least 14 days. If he is still having issues after taking these steps I would treat him for IBD (inflammatory bowel disease) with metronidazole and steroids.

If none of the above works it may just be Ramses' normal gut and something you have to live with...

 

[Trish Allearz]

And personally, I'd rerun the PCR panel. Tritrich can hide even from PCR panels and if he had more solid poop that day or anything-- it might have been missed. Really-- I am pushing Zoologix lately for this issue. You can email them-- they'll send you a little envelope at home-- and you just use a q-tip to swoop up some poop-- put it in the envelope and mail it back. BUT IF YOU ARE GOING TO TEST FOR TRITRICH, you need to have a runny diarrhea poop to send in. (I just think the test is so easy and really quite affordable-- if you tell them you are just running a tritrich panel, it's even cheaper-- but it doesn't hurt to do a full panel. Giardia also tends to hide.)

http://www.zoologix.com/

Particularly since you are indicating two kittens have it-- by brother, you mean literally? Or just a house mate?-- because that makes me think something is lurking in the GI tract versus just tummy issues.

 

[Sue]

My first thought was Tritrichomonas Foetus. I posted a lot of info under the T.F./TritRich threads. The foul odor, gas and cowpie stools that come and go were the symptoms that Tink had. Dr. Jody Gookin of NC State Vet Med school is the leading authority. I had to find a vet familiar with it, then took Tink in the day I found a cowpie stool. The vet took a fecal sample, put it on a slide with saline and looked at it under a microscope. It does tend to come and go. All other tests run prior to that day,always came back negative. Sue

 

[Brigitte Cowell]

I think the advice given above is perfect. I'd rerun the PCR like Trish suggests, as if the sample wasn't taken during a bout of diarrhea then it can miss the culprit. But as Patti suggests, it might be easier to simply treat for tritrich in any case...

Then, I'd work on eliminating things from the diet one by one... as Patti suggests, chicken is a common culprit, as is fish (this can be insidious in a lot of cat food formulas) and of course grains. When you mention the wet food, are you choosing different varieties all the time? This might be the problem, although the dry you've selected is a good idea, if you are giving even a tiny bit of food with the allergen in it (be it chicken, fish oil, corn etc) then his digestion will be upset.

Patti's suggestion of psyllium as fiber is easy to do too...unflavored Metamucil is just psyllium husks but you can find it in natural food stores too...

 

[Kristin]

If you do an elimination, keep in mind that a lot of formulas mix their proteins. And it could be something else in the food as well, some chemical or something.