It's early and I may have missed something but WHY does the vet think IBD?
Gloria Lane <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
For diarrhea, generally my regular vets approach is to start with Flagyl and
high-fiber food.
Gloria
On Sep 17, 2006, at 7:07 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
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:
How is IBD diagnosed? Blood Work? I have a new rescue I am thinking he
might have it but then again he is declawed has litterbox issues and is scared
of his own shadow,
Thanks
Karen
