oy vey, diagnosis is invasive, generally, and thus Lucy never has had a
proper one. To actually diagnose, they need to do an endoscapy, and sometimes
they can not definitively diagnose that way either and so need to biopsy a full
section of the intestine, which means surgery. What I did with Lucy, and
what vets will often do, is tried prednisone to see if she responded favorably
to it. When she did, and also responded favorably to raw food, and she had no
parasites, etc., we concluded it was IBD. What IBD is very hard to
distinguish from, though, is small cell (slow growing) intestinal lymphoma,
which is why I am always worried when Lucy seems worse.
For a cat who is a recent rescue, though, it could be IBS, which is
stress-related rather than related to stress allergies or inflammation like
IBD. With IBS, if you can keep the stress under control and calm the cat
down, the diarrhea should get better.
I think the first thing I would do with a cat with diarrhea that could
possible be infectious or parasitic in nature is try a week of flagyl and see if
it helps. It can also help with IBD if the IBD is in the lower (large)
intestine. If you can, I would also put him on raw food or at least EVO, which
is a grainless canned and dry food (grains seem to aggravate IBD a lot).
If it does not get better, I would talk to a vet and get a stool sample analyzed
for other parasites or bacteria, and then think about food allergies. I would
only get the scope or surgical biopsy done as a last resort. Even if lucy does
not get better from what I am doing and might have lymphoma, I am going to try
to convince the internist to just try the treatment (leukeran, a chemo agent, in
addition to the pred), which they give for both small cell lymphoma and severe
IBD, and see if helps, rather than put her through the stress of the scope or
surgery. Endoscope for stomach or upper intestine is not so bad-- light
anesthesia and then a scope without any cutting-- I have had this a few times
myself. But endoscope for lower intestine, which is where Lucy's problem is,
requires the vet to give the cat several enemas first and, I think, more
anesthesia (it's actually like a colonoscopy). Plus once they have been on pred
it is harder to differentiate IBD from lymphoma anyway.
Michelle
In a message dated 9/17/2006 7:59:57 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
|
- IBD and metronidazole Lernermichelle
- Re: IBD and metronidazole Marylyn
- Re: IBD and metronidazole Kelley Saveika
- Re: IBD and metronidazole Lernermichelle
- Re: IBD and metronidazole FORGETMENOTPETS
- Re: IBD and metronidazole Lernermichelle