Hi Jenn,
How is little Somi? What did they find? You did the right thing
rushing her in, I sure hope she's going to be okay. She's lucky she
found herself in your care, you pay attention enough to know when
they're in danger.
With your big boy's diarrhea... Have you tried switching him off all
dry food? Sometimes a simple diet change is enough to make a
difference. It could certainly be stress, do you know if how long he's
been like this? Anyway, try feeding him a canned food with no grains,
no veggies, (raw would be better, but I doubt you have that kind of
time, so try this first). A word of caution, just in case you're
thinking of using it, Immodium is not a good thing to give kitties with
chronic diarrhea. It slows the gut motility, (slows transit time), and
the body can't rid itself of whatever is causing the problem. It can be
dangerous if there is a bacterial intestinal infection.
Very pleased to hear Mythic is feel better. I understand your
reluctance to the steroid shots, but they really do have their place
when someone is so inflamed that nothing else will get it in order.
Even if Mythic had to be on a very low oral dose, eod, or every 3rd day,
for a while, it might be just the ticket to get things under control.
Here's a quote from someone on my IBD list about prolonged steroid use:
> When the body is being artificially supplemented with a steroid the
adrenal gland begins to shut down because the body doesn't need to
produce this steroid (cortisol) any longer. This is why it's
critical to NEVER just stop giving a steroid after prolonged use --
the adrenal glands needs some time to start working on their own
otherwise the patient will (or could) die -- no cortisol leads to the
shut down of the system and death. This is known as an adrenal
crisis.
An immunosuppresive dose of steroids is one which doesn't allow the
adrenal glands to function at all on their own. This will lower the
resistance of the immune system to everything from healing from
injuries, fungus', activate latent viral and bacterial infections
that the body may well have fought off on its own, etc. I don't know
if each cat has the same threshold for complete suppression, but one
of the most critical tools to PREVENT this is EOD dosing of steroids
(or every third day if possible), which allows the adrenals to work
on their own part of the time. When this isn't possible for whatever
reason (or through the incomeptency of some vets who think cats can
go forever on high daily doses of steroids) a lot of problems can
occur.
In patients where too much steroid is given you also run the risk of
Cushings/Cushingoid responses, which are the result of too much
cortisol. Symtoms can include hair loss, bone fragility, bruising
and thinning of the skin. Excess steroid can also predispose to
diabetes regardless of whether the cat was naturally predisposed to
diabetes. Frequently, withdrawing the steroid can reverse these side
effects, but do we really want to even get to the point where that's
a concern? And often the damage is already done.
I would worry FAR less about an EOD or every third day schedule of
pred. over the long term. In the end, steroids can be life saving but
often cannot be tapered successfully. That's why I'm so dedicated to a
food solution
as far as possible, because if a medication is needed I would prefer
to start with the most digestable diet first, which could lower the
amount of medication needed. >
Hope this helps,
Nina
