7 Weeks Old – Distress When Passing Stool?

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  • #817237
    Ashley
    Participant

    Hey guys! So, I’ve had pretty smooth sailing with my orphan kittens – they’re 7 weeks old now. We’re just about weaned. They’re eating four canned food feedings a day (babycat intensive) and they free feed on royal canin baby kibble and water. Also, they only go in their upgraded kitty ‘mansion’ when I eat or sleep or have to leave the house (so they spend about 3/4 of the day in my lap and 1/4 playing in the rooms I have blocked off: my office, the hall, and the kitchen). But we’ve had such an easy three weeks (since our last round of worry), that it seems like it was time for some more trouble.

    I’m not really sure how to explain what’s going on with Mina – I guess the best way to explain it is that she’s having a lot of trouble pooping, even when her poop is soft. Around the time she needs to poop, she starts getting distressed. For about the twenty minutes before AND after she poops, she has trouble with her back legs – but I can’t tell if she’s dragging them to ‘itch’ herself or if she *can’t* use them. My mom’s been here, and I’m leaning more towards can’t use them, while my mom thinks she’s just dragging them to itch. While she’s trying to poop, she pants – open mouthed, tongue out – while she does. But after she calms down (about 15/20 minutes), she’s immediately back to jumping and playing and pretty much just like her normal self — until it’s time to poop again.

    I took her to the ER vet last night – but a) they were SWAMPED, and b) Mina was already back to normal by the time I got her there, so they looked at her and pushed us to the back because she was being lovey and climbing all over me and loving on every tech that came to see her. She did this – acted like a perfectly healthy kitten – for four hours – during repeated checks. So, they finally took her (and i stool sample I collected at home) from me and had her in the back for forty minutes (have I mentioned yet that I hate this vet? I prefer to stay with my animals) and ended up telling me that she was just constipated (regardless of the fact that she’d had one soft poop that morning, followed by one hard poop just before going in). I asked if she needed an enema or anything, and they palpitated her stomach and said no – that they could feel her colon (??) and that there was nothing else in there. They also tested her for worms – said she came back negative but gave me a wormer anyway (??). I also told them that she’d rolled off an ottoman I sit next to me for them to sleep on, and that it’s about 16 inches off the ground, and that she climbs on/off it just fine when she needs to. I thought maybe this was the problem at first, because my Meathead fell off a bookshelf when he was about 2.. but it was a really high bookshelf and he bruised/inflamed his hip joints and couldn’t use his back legs for about a day. But they seemed to think this couldn’t be the problem because the leg things is only when she poops.

    So I left (with no treatment of any kind) thinking she’d be fine. All they said was to take away the kibble for another 2 weeks. And she was fine, until she went to the bathroom this morning. It’s runny again (could be because I added KMR back into their diet yesterday AFTER Mina’s issues started because I started to worry if maybe I had taken it from them too soon – six week mark), and she did the leg thing, again. I held her for a few minutes, and after that, she jumped off me and ran and started playing like nothing was wrong with her. So it was a much shorter leg episode than it had been, about 5 minutes after instead of 20.

    I thought about going to my vet this morning and I still can – they don’t close until 5, so I have time. I’m a little strapped after last night, but I’m not too proud to borrow from my parents if I need to. But they’ve been running, playing, climbing, jumping, pouncing, FIGHTING (LOL) and acting fine for the last two hours.

    What I’m curious about is if I need to wait this out and let the kibble/constipation (possible inflammation from rolling off the stool? Maybe it only really hurts badly when she strains to poop?) or if this is an extreme dire 911 situation that absolutely cannot wait for my next paycheck (in which case, we’ll pack up and head to MY vet right now)? Has anyone seen anything like this?

    BTW: here’s a semi-current pic, from last bath day: http://i61.tinypic.com/5l1gdf.png

    #817263
    Ashley
    Participant

    UPDATE: She seemed better during the day, but got worse (lethargic AND restless, no appetite from 5PM on) around 10PM, so I took her to the other emergency clinic across town. They palpitated her belly and said it was *obvious* that she had a very full bladder and a very large amount of stool inside her. So they made her pee, gave her an enema, perscribed a laxative, and sold me a couple cans of critical care food. I brought her home, gave her the lactulose – she ate very, very well, drank some kmr, and climbed right in her litter box and pooped without a bit of problem, like nothing had ever been wrong. We’re still heading into my vet for a thorough workup on Saturday… But as of right now it looks like everything she was going through was my fault for letting her have kibble too early. :\

    #817281
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Ashley,

    You’ve done a great job raising your kits. Some kits take to kibble with no problem and some have a bit of a problem. 5 weeks is the recommended age to introduce kibble so don’t be so hard on yourself about giving them kibble. I’m really sorry about the crappy emergency vet you saw but am glad you found one that was willing to help Miss Mina. KMR can cause constipation so give them goat’s milk instead.

    #817407
    Ashley
    Participant

    Well, she got better and then worse again. Still having periods of lethargy. She hasn’t been strong enough to do any rough-housing the last couple days, but she still wants to cuddle and do gentle play with Lily (Viktor turned out to be a girl as soon as she was big enough for me to get a good look – so I’ve got two baby girls). I got her to my vet the day after my last post.

    While my vet agreed she was very constipated (still), that the constipation is a symptom, not the problem. As for what the problem IS, he has no idea. He keeps running tests. Nothing came back positive yet. X rays were clear: no blockages, urinary or fecal. It’s not parasites, FPV, FIV, FeLV, or diabetes. A culture for funguses is still out – but he said it could take up to four months to determine the fungus if there is one.

    So, he had me take her off both her KMR and her RC completely – she’s now strictly on Critical Care canned food. He taught me how to give enemas at home, as well as SubQ. He prescribed an antibiotic and an antifungal (in case either is the problem) and gave me another prescription for the laxative for when I run out of the other.

    She seems to feel at her best for the few hours immediately after her antibiotic, and at her worst right before time for the next dose. Is that normal? And does that mean that the problem is something that requires her antibiotics, like an infection?

    She had her longest “good” period so far yesterday. We went from 11PM the night before to 11PM last night without a “bad” poop – she’d pooped several times with no problems until a bad one hit. I WAS giving enemas every 18 hours, I’ve moved to twelve and we haven’t had a bad poop since that one. Her appetite is spotty, sometimes she feels good and she’s really hungry – sometimes she feels bad and isn’t really hungry and I have to sit with her and keep moving her back to the plate repeatedly. She IS still drinking water regularly – she wakes up to drink even if she doesn’t eat – so vet says one or more of the meds could be the problem with the decreased appetite.


    @Pussigato
    , I keep trying to give her goats milk – I’ve tried several times since they were little and they hate it. They wouldn’t take it out of a bottle, if it got in their mouth, they’d spit until they foamed it out of their mouths. They both turned out to be finicky little eaters – it was pretty hard to get Miss Mina to switch from Royal Canin to the critical care – she wanted HER food, not this new stuff. She eventually took to it, but it was work (I have to feed them at separate times in separate rooms now or she tries to take Lily’s Royal Canin. Oddly enough, Lil would gladly trade her, she at wants the CritCare SO bad).

    #817417
    Kittyzee
    Participant

    Some cats have serious reactions to oral antifungal medications. One poster on here almost lost his cat to antifungal meds given for ringworm. If you are feeding her Hartz KMR, stop now. You can get KMR from your vet or PetAg makes a very good one and there are others. Too many bad things have happened to kittens for no reason that use Hartz KMR. If you aren’t using it, then goat’s milk (yes, I know she doesn’t like it) is the best because it has good flora in it for her gut. And she’s going to need it since she’s on an antibiotic. Hopefully, if you keep trying to give it to her, she will take it. Is she still on the bottle? You could try and mix it with her wet food and see if that helps. For some cats, dry kibble sucks the moisture from their bodies and makes all kinds of problems. Wet food for her sound like it would be best. Since she’s drinking plenty of water that’s good too. Sounds like you are doing all you can do at this point. Just cuddle her and love her, which isn’t hard to do I’m sure 😉 and keep us posted!

    #817421
    Ashley
    Participant

    I wasn’t feeding her Hartz – I don’t use anything by them, ever. Ever, ever. I was using the actual KMR, blue can, white kitten – but my vet told me to take her off everything she’d been eating all together (in case it was a food allergy): the formula and her royal canin. She’s allowed to have critical care rx canned food I got from my vet, water, and pedialyte if I think she needs it. I will call him about goats milk first thing in the morning and if I get the go-ahead, i’ll syringe feed it to her if needed (with all the meds she’s taking, I’m getting pretty handy with a syringe) if i can’t get her to eat it mixed in her food.

    As for the anti-fungals, she takes them at the same time as her anti-biotics, and the two-three hours after she takes them is the only time she feels good enough to jump/eat heartily/ etc., so I’m going to keep on them for now – but at least now I know to be hyper-vigilant about how she acts immediately following the dose. So one of the two – the antibiotic or the antifungal is doing something good – I just don’t know which, unfortunately. If at any time she seems to be reacting badly, we’ll head straight into either my vet or the ER vet immediately.

    If she gets through this, she’s gonna be a wet food girl forever because I don’t think I’ll ever feel safe giving her dry again (this all started three days after she started eating kibble – might be a coincidence, might not).

    So far today, she’s been able to go the bathroom without any hind-leg issues (knock on wood) but her appetite has been no good (so she’s just been sleeping on my chest or lap mostly the entire day). She’s only had about a third of a 5.5 oz can all day, but I’m keeping her hydrated and trying to get her to take a few bites mixed with pedialyte + a 1 Ml syringe of pedialyte every hour or so (usually, i can get her to take a couple mouthfuls off my finger). (Before I could hit send on this, she woke up and asked for food – ate 1/8th of a can mixed with pedialyte and now she’s up and mobile and curious for the first time today).

    #817452
    Ashley
    Participant

    Update: she’s running, jumping, playing and purring this morning, she’s even tried to roughhouse a little with Lily. :fingers crossed:

    #817964
    Ashley
    Participant

    It looks like we made it through the worst of it!! Well, all of it, really. Mina is 100% back to normal and back to being the biggest troublemaker in the house. Both babies are upwards of two pounds, eating me out of house and home, and acting as sweet as sugar. Vet is like, 99% sure what we were dealing with was a UTI & constipation and that the enemas and the antibiotic cleared her right up.

    #817973
    Kittyzee
    Participant

    So glad for the update on your kittens! With your determination and good care sounds like you can finally breathe easier! Congratulations!

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