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digestive problems

Dkppunk Jun 27, 2008 03:05 PM

we have an american shorthair who is 8 years old. when he was young he was left under my neighbor's porch by an unknown individual. when we finally took him in he was practically skin and bones from malnutrition (my neighbor did what they could to get food out to him). he was always a little plump and had tapeworms, we tried multiple times to get rid of them but they never fully went away. recently we think his body finally pushed them all out of his system because he lost a lot of weight very quickly, but still has his little bit of spunk, and we haven't seen them coming from him. ever since then he has had a problem getting to the bathroom in time. and when he does go his feces are very watery. we had to start feeding him canned cat food recently because he has also lost many of his front teeth, due to malnutrition as a kitten, and cant hold hard cat food in his mouth. he is our baby and i would like to help him. he is slowly getting better at making it to the bathroom, i think his body was just so adjusted to having the tapeworms that he needs to readjust it so he can make it.
if anyone has any suggestions that may help it would be appreciated. we have put a few more litter boxes around the house to help him make it to the potty.
Doo

Replies (2)

PHKitkat Jun 27, 2008 08:23 PM

Hi There,

Thanks for trying to take care of this kitty but at this point he really needs a vet. I don't go along with your tapeworm theory and if you did this with an OTC product you may have done more harm than good, unfortunately. Even when worms are present they are not likely to cause severe problems. This is especially true of tapeworms, which a cat gets by swallowing fleas when he is grooming. A cat can have tapeworms for a very long time without having symptoms.

Watery diarrhea can be a very serious thing as a cat can easily become dehydrated. This is especially true if a cat is debilitated and has little reserve. Your guy needs a vet appointment ASAP.

The vet will most likely want to do a full blood panel, a urinalysis, and possibly an x-ray. If this were one of my babies I would take him in and have all this done. It's very important to find out what is going on.

Please take your kitty in and keep us updated.

Regards,
PHKitkat

Dkppunk Jun 28, 2008 04:56 PM

we paln on doing so, we just have been quite short on money for a little while. we did not use an otc product his body just passed them. we had tried stuff from the vet but it didnt work. we will be taking him to the vet very soon.

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