What's the cause of the diarrhea? Has all parasites and such been ruled out? Then what you want is a raw diet. THAT is what will stop the runny poop. Don't forget the probiotics. : )

 

A brief summary; rescued kitten from owner who didn't want the litter and it wasn't a great home, took her straight to vet to get her checked as i already have a kitten at home. Vet gave her jabs, wormer and a clean bill of health. After taking her home I noticed diarrhoea and blood and mucus in her litter tray. Took back to vet, and was given Panacur and prebiotics. Since this point we have been back and forth to vet for 5 months, with mounting bills. She was on grain free wet food, and has had a 3 day pooled stool sample tested, it was negative for giardia and the usual accompanying screens. Not tested for coccidia or TF. Vet insisted tf would be cured by panacur (!!!) then given a 4 week course of Metronidazole, which ended with poor kitten vomiting and pooing watery diarrhoea, not able to make to litter tray. It got so bad I had to confine her to one room for fear of the children accidentally coming into contact with it. The vets answer was to give us Hills Prescription Gastrointestinal Dry Food.

At this point we moved veterinary practices. Our new vet is wonderful!! She immediately ordered bloods to rule out anything more sinister like FIV or Leukaemia, thankfully they came back negative. We are waiting on a blood test for liver function. She has prescribed a 5 day course of Panacur for both kittens, and said to continue with dry food for time being.

Kitten has had first fully formed stools since we had her, and the awful smell seems to be dissipating! So my question is about food. The packet says to use for 1-2 weeks to relieve diarrhoea. Then what do I do??? I will of course discuss this with the vet, but id like to know of anything that has worked for others in a similar situation. One of the vets at new practice mentioned James Wellbeloved. Any thoughts greatly welcomed!!!

 

@lorilu I've written another post about the our battle with diarrhea, its on the link.

 

Is there a reason you can not continue with the Hills if this suits him?

 

Its prescription and only recommended for two weeks to stop runny tummies. I've looked at their commercial sensitive stomach version, and I may get it. Just thought I check if there's a better quality dry food around first. Plus the new vet mentioned James Wellbeloved, but I'm not familiar with it, may be all dry is similar in composition?

 

And bladder issues!

 

If you can't leave her on the vet diet for longer I'd try to find something as close to it ingredient wise and then use that for a few weeks until you're sure everything's settled - then I'd start to look at other foods and introduce say 1 wet for several weeks and then another flavour, again for several weeks and keep going like that (obviously as long as everything stays OK - if you hit a problem it should be easy to remove the offending food as you'll know what you've changed).

Slowly does it - you need her to build up her strength and recover - and grow! - I'd do everything slowly and gently

 

Thanks @Lilylass I was hoping to do something like this. Of course I know a wet food diet would be better, and I definitely plan to transition back to wet food. Its just after 5 months of diarrhoea, she's finally able to make it to the litter box, so for the next few weeks I wanted to keep her on it, and then once the panacur has finished, begin to introduce ******* into the diet. At the moment there's just too many variables to know what's causing the runny poo, so I'm trying to concentrate on one thing at a time and whittle it down. Thank you everyone for your advice, I really appreciate it

 

Fingers crossed her tummy stays settled - wets went straight through Mia when she was little (also a bit of a poor start) but I'd say she was 100% by the time she was a year. She loves wet now and hardly has any dry (just a little RC Calm to help stabilise her moods) so don't panic that you'll not be able to make a transition

 

I wonder if it's the fact the Hills i/d Dry is dry food that has helped the diarrhoea, or the fact that it's i/d full stop. Have you tried the i/d wet version?

 

^ or it could have been the 5 days of panacur...

 

Missed that bit!

 

I haven't tried the wet, I'm not even sure what i/d means? I'm hoping the longer course of panacur she's on will finally sort her out, its been going on so long now

 

i/d doesn't mean anything really, it's just the name Hills gave to their sensitivity diet.

 

I had an experience with low rate cat food dine (wet) caused diarrhoea I got told it was because of the additives and gelling agents. I swapped to raw and a good quality wet food (with no additives, colours or gelling agents), with dry in between. No more troubles.

You must be so concerned feeding the kitty anything but hills. I know I would be after 5 months of diarrhoea. Maybe look for a good wet food, and try half a tin on her. See if that does anything for one week. Then increase it to 1 tin per day and observe. Then slowly increase the amount your feeding per week and observe for any signs of diarrhoea, remember Slow and steady wins the race!

Oh poor little dear thing. Xxx

 

My old girl had to have dry food for sensitive stomachs, we also used the prescription food which we were told we could keep her on for long as it was needed (she had cancer) she didn't like so we got her Hill science plan for sensitive stomachs, that worked for a little while then stopped and we tried royal canin sensible 33, for her it worked almost instantly and you can get small sample bags to try before paying out for the big bags.

 

Thanks guys. She was eating Smilla, feringa and animonda grain free wet food previous to the dry. She loved it, and I'm not convinced it was the food upsetting her. So far this week she has been 100% better! She's still on Panacur, the course finishes soon, but it seems to have sorted her bloated smelly belly. I think ill give her a few more days on the dry food, to see if the diarrhoea comes back once the panacur is out of her system, then ill know its not food related. Otherwise ill try what some of you have said and ease some wet food back in. Fingers crossed!