Bunny’s persistent diarrhoea

The medication isn’t working. It’s already been 15 days now and Bunny is still having diarrhoea. Bunny has had diarrhoea before this, but it always resolved itself within a day or two. But this time, it has persisted.

This diarrhoea has resulted in weight loss and of course, discomfort, I’m sure.

After 7 days on Metrogyl to address the diarrhoea, I decided that I should just stop the antibiotics. Of course we all know that antibiotics destroys the healthy flora in the gut, but the vet said that prolonged diarrhoea would have already destroyed the healthy flora in the gut. But I decided that the antibiotics just isn’t doing its job so that there is no point in continuing it and letting it destroy the good flora. At least if I stopped it, the gut can have time to heal and rebuild the healthy flora with the help of probiotics.

Saccharomyces Bourlardii is THE antibiotic recommended for diarrhoea and it worked wonders in Robin. But it did not work for Indy last time when he had weeks of diarrhoea. But for Indy’s case, it was different. Indy was not losing weight or appetite. He was still very active. He only had loose and bloody stools (I’m not using a profanity here, his stools HAD blood in them). My raw-feeding friend had repeatedly cautioned me that if the animal is not sickly, there is no need to do anything at all with diarrhoea; it’s just a case of detoxification but I chose not to listen to him (which was foolish of me). Instead, I took Indy for numerous vet visits, put him on various medication, subjected him to various tests which all turned out negative. All medications prescribed did not work at all and his diarrhoea continued UNTIL…

….I read this life-saving article written by a shelter operator who had a cat with very persistent diarrhoea. He finally solved the problem by switching the cat’s food to rabbit (yes, sorry….but rabbit is a biologically appropriate food for cats). The solution was actually protein rotation. Cats (or maybe even dogs) can develop allergy to a certain protein if the protein is given for too long. So the trick is to rotate protein in the cat’s diet.

I immediately switched Indy’s diet to pure raw rabbit (Cubgrub has pure raw rabbit) and voila…the problem was resolved within days. Indy’s diarrhoea days, watery and bloody, were over! So Indy’s was a case of an allergy to chicken which resulted in diarrhoea for many weeks.

But for Bunny, it isn’t as easy. Bunny refuses to eat raw food now. I don’t really know what he wants, actually. He demands for variety and he likes kibble. Sigh…kibble isn’t exactly a good food when one has diarrhoea. Our senior vet recommends plain boiled chicken, given at small amounts. But Bunny also did not like plain steamed chicken anymore.

And whenever Bunny wants to eat, I give in and I let him eat whatever he wants because he is only 3.6kg now. I do not want him to lose anymore weight due to food restriction.

I’ve tried steamed pumpkin as well. He only ate it once and that’s it, hated it after that. Force-feeding is very stressful for him. In any case, pumpkin also did not quite work.

Bunny’s weight loss is due to his gut problem and also his heart condition. It isn’t his kidneys. I used to think that chronic kidney disease is one of the worst diseases to be afflicted in cats, but there are clearly other conditions which are hard to treat too.

I gave Bunny Saccharomyces Bourlardii too, but it did not or has not worked.

So now, I’ve stopped the Metrogyl to let his gut replenish the healthy flora. I’m still giving him Sacharomyces Boulardii as well as Max Pro GI alternating with Gentle Digest. Gentle Digest is a bacteria-based probiotic whereas Sacharomyces Boulardii and Max Pro GI are both yeast-based. I’m guessing that he needs both types.

At the same time, I will try my best to reduce chicken in his diet. I think, like Indy, perhaps Bunny has a chicken allergy too, being too long on chicken even though I did rotate his proteins, but he has been mainly on a chicken diet simply because that was the only food he would eat. Not because I did not want to give him anything else.

Monge Monoprotein has a pure rabbit canned food but Bunny won’t take it for a few days in a row. Two meals consecutively maximum, then he won’t eat it anymore. But I will still attempt to give him this rabbit canned food and the other protein I’m attempting to give him is fish. I know fish isn’t an ancestral food for cats since cats come from the deserts of ancient Persia (modern-day Iraq), but perhaps Asian cats have evolved over the millenniums to eat some cooked fish (never feed raw fish to a cat because it contains Thiaminase which destroys the Vitamin B in the cat’s body which can result in death).

I know that biologically, every species’ digestive system does not evolve much unless the passage of time is very, very long. By “very, very long”, I’m referring to periods that take a fish to evolve into an amphibian. Cats from ancient Persia are still cats in modern-day Subang Jaya, so cats are still cats and their digestive system is still, basically, the same.

I resorted to fish because Bunny won’t eat rabbit for more than two consecutive meals.

So yesterday, Bunny had steamed tilapia and he liked it…at first. After two meals, he decided he didn’t quite like it anymore…sigh. I shall alternate it with canned tuna, which again, isn’t exactly a recommended food for cats since tuna has a very high level of mercury compared with other types of fish. Sardines would be good as well.

An update: After the visit to the vet’s today, the vet advised me to not to give fish to Bunny as it will not help with diarrhoea. 

Bunny was dewormed today.

I hope we can find a solution to this diarrhoea problem soon, before he loses even more weight.

Wherever Bunny is, Cow Mau is always nearby.

Bunny used to have chronic constipation and now he has persistent diarrhoea. Sigh… I’ve already stopped all his constipation medication (Lactulose was stopped much earlier. The vet said to continue with Cisapride, but I’ve even stopped that now.)