I have been going through a lot of threads on this forums before I decided to create one myself.
We have two cats - Boba and Chewie.
Boba is a domestic tabby rescue, been living in our home for the past 3 years, she is 3.5 yrs old; Chewie is our newly adopted strayed kitten, very hyper tortie, joined our family around 2.5 months ago and currently 4 months old.
Chewie has a sensitive digestive system and her stool has always been hard and sometimes slightly softer at the end. Around a month ago, one night she started vomiting bile and undigested food, also followed by watery greenish diarrhea. We took her to the vet immediately and after doing a microscope test on her stool, vet discovered a huge amount of campylobacter. She was administered with an antibiotic for 5 days and symptoms cleared after her second day of medication, we completed the 5 days treatment.
After around 2 weeks, her diarrhea came back again and this time has a slight orange tint to it, otherwise she is a very playful kitten with good appetite. We brought her back to the vet and this time they did another in-house microscope test and the vet "believes she saw some giardia cysts in her stool". She was holding a book and show me the picture of the cysts while telling me she saw something very similar, which is a round little microorganism. Ok - so we were prescribed with 7 days of metronidazole, panacur and pro-kolin. Lab test were not done, as vet said we can do the lab test after her treatment instead. As directed, I threw away all her litter and bleach the litter box twice per day or more as long as we see fresh stool in her box. She is also being crated as we need isolation from her and the resident cat. Things were better after the 7 days of treatment, her poop is now dark brown, has shape but sometimes slight moist that will stick on to the litter but its ok as long as she isnt creating a poop mess.
Question - vet told us we SHOULD NOT bathe Chewie as it will create more stress and might give her a cold during this cold weather. We used baby wipes to clean her paws, back ear, fur and bum two times a day. I saw many people will bathe their kitten, should we do it ?
We asked if Boba also need medication just in case she is also infected, but the vet said there's no need unless symptoms is showing. However we are worried that she is shedding cysts back into the environment while at the same time there's no symptoms showing. Vet did another microscope test for Chewie and she cannot see any cyst but only trace of campylobacter. Same day, we sent Boba and Chewie's stool for lab test and both are clear.
Boba has been roaming around the house free while Chewie being crated. Recently Boba's stool is slight softer and not as healthy as I'd like it to be (TMI but she used to have firm, dark brown one line stool that doesnt really smell bad). But I notice her stool has been having a slight smell, lighter in colour, and have a lot of moist in it (TMI again, her stool will sometimes stain the scooping tool when I try to clean her litter box).
I have been giving Protexin Synbiotic D-C probiotic to both cats daily as told by the vet. We will do another lab test again to see if they are both free of giardia. I would like to know if it is common that in-house microscope test will give a false positive for Giardia in cats' stool? Is it possible that the vet mistaken yeasts as cysts in the first microscope test she did? We are now consulting another vet hopefully can get more profession advice.
Vet suggest we can let Chewie out now and have her play with Boba since both are clear from the lab test, I don't feel comfortable doing that yet but at the same time its heart breaking to see the playful girl staying in the crate or the confined room by herself most of the time, shes constantly crying for attention
I am so tired and sick of worrying and feeling so anxious daily when i check out her litter box. i got a warning letter from my employer because i was late for work for the whole week due to sudden onset of no.2 from Chewie so I had to clean everything again before i leave the door. I neglected my social life and rush home everyday to check on them and I don't know how long i can do this for. Anyone who had Giardia in their household feel the same? ((
We have two cats - Boba and Chewie.
Boba is a domestic tabby rescue, been living in our home for the past 3 years, she is 3.5 yrs old; Chewie is our newly adopted strayed kitten, very hyper tortie, joined our family around 2.5 months ago and currently 4 months old.
Chewie has a sensitive digestive system and her stool has always been hard and sometimes slightly softer at the end. Around a month ago, one night she started vomiting bile and undigested food, also followed by watery greenish diarrhea. We took her to the vet immediately and after doing a microscope test on her stool, vet discovered a huge amount of campylobacter. She was administered with an antibiotic for 5 days and symptoms cleared after her second day of medication, we completed the 5 days treatment.
After around 2 weeks, her diarrhea came back again and this time has a slight orange tint to it, otherwise she is a very playful kitten with good appetite. We brought her back to the vet and this time they did another in-house microscope test and the vet "believes she saw some giardia cysts in her stool". She was holding a book and show me the picture of the cysts while telling me she saw something very similar, which is a round little microorganism. Ok - so we were prescribed with 7 days of metronidazole, panacur and pro-kolin. Lab test were not done, as vet said we can do the lab test after her treatment instead. As directed, I threw away all her litter and bleach the litter box twice per day or more as long as we see fresh stool in her box. She is also being crated as we need isolation from her and the resident cat. Things were better after the 7 days of treatment, her poop is now dark brown, has shape but sometimes slight moist that will stick on to the litter but its ok as long as she isnt creating a poop mess.
Question - vet told us we SHOULD NOT bathe Chewie as it will create more stress and might give her a cold during this cold weather. We used baby wipes to clean her paws, back ear, fur and bum two times a day. I saw many people will bathe their kitten, should we do it ?
We asked if Boba also need medication just in case she is also infected, but the vet said there's no need unless symptoms is showing. However we are worried that she is shedding cysts back into the environment while at the same time there's no symptoms showing. Vet did another microscope test for Chewie and she cannot see any cyst but only trace of campylobacter. Same day, we sent Boba and Chewie's stool for lab test and both are clear.
Boba has been roaming around the house free while Chewie being crated. Recently Boba's stool is slight softer and not as healthy as I'd like it to be (TMI but she used to have firm, dark brown one line stool that doesnt really smell bad). But I notice her stool has been having a slight smell, lighter in colour, and have a lot of moist in it (TMI again, her stool will sometimes stain the scooping tool when I try to clean her litter box).
I have been giving Protexin Synbiotic D-C probiotic to both cats daily as told by the vet. We will do another lab test again to see if they are both free of giardia. I would like to know if it is common that in-house microscope test will give a false positive for Giardia in cats' stool? Is it possible that the vet mistaken yeasts as cysts in the first microscope test she did? We are now consulting another vet hopefully can get more profession advice.
Vet suggest we can let Chewie out now and have her play with Boba since both are clear from the lab test, I don't feel comfortable doing that yet but at the same time its heart breaking to see the playful girl staying in the crate or the confined room by herself most of the time, shes constantly crying for attention
I am so tired and sick of worrying and feeling so anxious daily when i check out her litter box. i got a warning letter from my employer because i was late for work for the whole week due to sudden onset of no.2 from Chewie so I had to clean everything again before i leave the door. I neglected my social life and rush home everyday to check on them and I don't know how long i can do this for. Anyone who had Giardia in their household feel the same? ((