Chronic diarrhea

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drjsiems

drjsiems

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In my quest for a new cat food to resolve Jake's chronic diarrhea, I am wondering if a diet too high in phosphorus and/or fat might be contributing to his diarrhea. He is currently eating Wellness canned turkey which has higher values for both phosphorus and fat. Does anyone have any input on this?

Thanks,
Judy & Jake
 
Have you had the vet test evaluate a sample for malabsorption indices, like excess fat?

If there is a deficiency of any necessary digestive enzyme (lipase is one), the fat (or other nutrient) may excrete in the stool. The treatment would be to add the deficient enzymes to the diet in addition to controlling the amount in the diet.
 
I assume you mean by "excess fat" that Jake may be getting too much fat from his food and is not digesting it? He is not overweight. How does one test for an enzyme deficiency? Since my vet is an all-kitty clinic, I am surprised she did not suggest this.

Judy
 
i'm not up on what exactly you've done so far to figure out the solution.
here's what we did:

1. stopped feeding him cat food in favor of chicken boiled in plain water. gave him this for a few days to see if his poo solidified (gave us a clue as to whether he was allergic or sensitive to something in his cat food and that's what was causing the diarrhea)

2. started adding back regular cat food to see whether diarrhea would start up again. started with chicken or turkey only, avoiding anything with beef or fish because many cats are sensitive to those ingredients

3. tried adding fortiflora or other probiotics to his diet to see whether those helped with the diarrhea

4. did a short course of flagyl (7-10 days) to see if that solidified the poo

5. gave a short course of steroids (5mg prednisolone or syringe of oral compounded budesonide) to see if that helped

6. tapered steroid off, to see whether problem stayed resolved

7. another thing we did was test his cobalamin and folate levels to determine whether he was deficient in either

8. did xray and ultrasound to see if he had IBD. some people do biopsies but they are often not definitive so we decided not to bother

9. ended up giving him a cooked chicken diet, augmented with supplements to help ensure proper nutrition

anyway, hope any of this helped. came up with these plans with the help of harry's regular vet and an internal medicine veterinary specialist.
 
Chris Cleo,

Since I think that Jake's current food is the culprit, I am going to start with your #1 suggestion of going to plain boiled chicken for the short-term. I have already done several of your other suggestions, but to no avail. Are you saying that the cooked chicken with the proper supplements is now your kitty's permanent diet and can be used long-term? That may very well be the solution to Jake's diarrhea problem so can you tell me what supplements/vitamins, etc. I should include with the boiled chicken so Jake can get the proper nutrition? Thank you!

Judy
 
drjsiems said:
I assume you mean by "excess fat" that Jake may be getting too much fat from his food and is not digesting it? He is not overweight. How does one test for an enzyme deficiency? Since my vet is an all-kitty clinic, I am surprised she did not suggest this.

Judy
Click to expand...

Exactly. And, I just checked the Merck Veterinary Manual online and apparently they don't do fecal exams any more, they do bloodwork.


According to my hardcover 10th edition (bought it to learn more), these are some of the causes for malabsorption:

TABLE 7. MECHANISMS OF MALABSORPTION

Luminal

- exocrine pancreatic insufficiency
-- via lack of pancreatic enzymes (maldigestion)

- small intestinal bacterial overgrowth
-- via bacterial activity: bile salt deconjugation, fatty acid hydroxylation, competition for cobalamin and nutrients

Mucosal
- inflammatory bowel disease, infectious enteropathies, dietary sensitivities, neoplastic infiltration
-- via mucosal damage: inflammation, brush border defects, disturbed enterocyte function, reduction of surface area

- villous atropy
-- via reduction in surface area

- brush border enzyme deficiencies
-- via lactase deficiency, diffuse small-intestinal disease

Postmucosal
- lymphangiectasia
-- via lymphatic obstrucion

- vasculitis, portal hypertension
--impaired delivery

The steps Chris and her vet worked out to help her cat check many of the most common of these mechanisms systematically.
 
I'm going to throw this out - giardia. I don't know if you've ruled this out or not.

We thought Emme had food allergies because of her diarrhea. We switched to one of the limited ingredient canned foods - venison and rice - for 2 months. It didn't solve the problem. On her third stool sample we finally found she had giardia. Once we had the correct DX, treatment with flagyl and cleaning her environment cleared it up.

"Giardiasis is very difficult to diagnose because the protozoa are so small and are not passed with every stool. Tests on serial stool samples (one stool sample every day for three days) are often required to find the organism." <http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=1+2122&aid=738>
 
yes, harry's internal medicine vet suggested we give harry the diet permanently.
(the plain boiled chicken was good for determining whether his problem was coming from the food, and it turned out to be true, plus he has a mild case of IBD, we believe, but we ended up supplementing cooked chicken when we decided to do the food change permanently.)
many people switch IBD kitties to a raw diet and it stops the squirts permanently.
but it may not be safe for cancer kitties, and of course if your cat won't go for raw i think it's the next best thing.
 
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