When did they last run a blood panel?

That is an interesting question. More usual concerns around here are that vets want to rack up income from un-necessary visits and over-testing.

There are intestinal bacteria strains that are very difficult to see...even Giardia can be hard to spot. My cat had diarrhea that came back after the Flagyl treatments ended. He was ready to take a munually extracted stool sample (ouch!)...but the morning of the appointment, her stools were magically normal.

I had started to give her pumpkin in her food, probiotic supplements, and a full switch over to Wellness canned and a little Royal Camin glutin-free rabbit a few days prior, so I'll never know what, if anything did the trick. Because she was a shelter cat, my vet guessed that it might have been T-Foetus...but we'll never know.

Obviously, your cat has been wormed? Also, is your cat vomiting or re-gurgitating? (like Eskimos having 30 words for snow, cat people have an eqyally extensive vocabulary to describe cat barf). Do you give him Petromalt? Could it be something as obvious as hair balls?

The vet last ran a blood panel in September. They never suggested it when I was there a week ago. I don't think it is hair balls because there is no hair in the vomit. I believe she is vomitting because she last ate about five hours previously. I am not giving her anything other than her normal cat food. I just don't know if the vet isn't looking hard enough or if they aren't being careful because they don't consider this serious (I know they see a lot of animals who have more serious conditions than diarrhea)

I'm concerned that they waited too long (stool sample not fresh anymore) to do the tests for bacteria and just charged me the $45 and gave my cat a clean bill of health yet her symptoms haven't subsided. And according to the vet the original problem was taken care of (no more bacteria).

If they do the test again and find bacteria (it will be 4 days since they did the test that came back negative) does this mean she has been reinfected or they just missed something the first time?

The antibiotics themselves could be causing it. A second opinion does not hurt. I would also try probiotics. You can even give her a spoon of unflavored live culture yogurt twice a day. It will help kitty get good bacteria in her gut.

I may have missed it...but was Puss given worm meds?

She was wormed when she was about ten weeks old.

Giardia and coccidia can both be extremely difficult to identify in stool samples, and both can cause diarrhea. In both cases, vets often treat based on symptoms rather than definitive diagnosis. You might consider asking your vet about treating for giardia and coccidia even without diagnostic confirmation.

I suspect, though, that the persistent diarrhea is a result of having been on so many antibiotics. Antibiotics kill off the good gut bacteria along with the bad, so it is quite common for antibiotics to leave the digestive tract biologically unbalanced with diarrhea as a result. I, too, recommend probiotics to help restore good gut bacteria. You can purchase acidophilus capsules at any health food store. Just open a capsule and sprinkle a little over her food each day for as long as she is receiving antibiotics and a few days afterwards. I wouldn't use yogurt, however, since a lot of felines are lactose intolerant and will be make sicker with any sort of dairy product.

Laurie

Vets love animals and want to help them, the real issue though is the $$ behind it.. a raw fed cat... organ,meat,bone all raw- would have no teeth issues no cancer,no uti no kidney diseases, no overweight issues- this would make it non marketable after neutering/spaying/ expect for shots and serious injuries. and so vets don't go raw-most of the time. Thats why vet school says things to them like kibble is good for teeth, and all that BS.

Cats can live very long on raw diets- like 30+ years if your lucky.

Raw meat diets are the best

next to that Instincts,Innova EVO, Ziwi peak Orijen.

There are many types of raw diets, I'd stick to either prey model- dead rats/mice-rodent pro has these. or a prepared one from Natures variety/barvo.. Cat/feline diets can be hard to make and serious life threatening issues can happen if you leave out heart/ and liver-organ meats.

Do not change diet now. It can make the situation worse. After the gastric problems are stabilized, gradually change her diet, if she is not already on a better quality food.

Someone else on this forum had a similar problem, with diarrhea. Please take a look at the advice there. Be sure, in addition to the good advice you got above, add water to her wet food.

About changing vets: Diarrhea for more than a few days, certainly for a few weeks, and in a kitten, can be life-threatening. As you already learned, they can become severely dehydrated, which is dangerous. That a vet would be unconcerned with that, and with your concerns, is a problem. I would like Meghane to weigh in here; she is a vet.

Here is a link that might be useful: Diarrhea

runnswalken, I appreciate your enthusiasm for a raw diet, but it's not going to cure everything. I've got one cat who is absolutely fantastic on a raw diet. I have another one with IBS on steroids who thinks raw diets taste delicious, but pukes half a dozen (or more) times a day if she doesn't eat exclusively Wellness Chicken or Wellness Turkey canned formulas (and I have tried *every* commercially available, grain-free and/or raw diet, plus a homemade raw diet - along with implementing the strictest of elimination procedures). Wellness isn't even one of my preferred brands of food, but it's what, for whatever reason, keeps her from puking, literally, half a dozen or more times a day. It's weird, but it works, and my vets are happy to see that she's gaining weight, instead of the skinny, frail cat she was when I adopted her.

My childhood cats lived to be 21 and 22, and they were not fed what I would consider even decent cat food. There are many more factors at play in pet health than just diet, and your constant posting in just about every thread about only raw/natural/grain-free diets, regardless of the OP's topic, really doesn't do much for your cause. I am a huge proponent of species-appropriate diets (I have ferrets, and they're a dietary nightmare), but constantly harping without ever actually contributing to the original topic is very off-putting to people who may not already be as enthusiastic/educated/initiated/brainwashed/whatever as we are.

Your right.. it so much depends on what happens... but its still worth a try. Cat is young enough to take a diet switch with no issues. Wait until older- more difficult.

One dose of one worming medicine will not kill all of the possible intestinal parasites that can cause diarrhea. When presented with any young animal, stray or not, it is important to deworm them at least twice at 3 week intervals to make sure that you get all of the intestinal parasites. Certain parasites, such as hookworms, encyst in tissues at various life stages and dewormers cannot touch them in the encysted state. The encysted worms come out of that stage when conditions are good, such as when a previous deworming clear the GI tract of worms. If you don't repeat the deworming 3 weeks later, you miss all of the previously encysted worms when they re-activate. As I mentioned before, I also deworm EVERY animal having diarrhea with fenbendazole once daily for 3-5 days (5 days if I suspect giardia) and repeat in 3 weeks to get any encysted tissue stages.

Glad she has been FeLV and FIV tested; that was money well spent and now you don't have to worry about incurable dread diseases.

I don't think your vet has done anything wrong, with the possible exception of reading the fecal too late. When I suspect coccidia or giardia, I get the sample *in the vet office* and have the techs prepare a direct fecal and read it immediately. The float can be from home, but you will not catch the protozoans like coccidia and giardia with a float.

Which antibiotics have already been used? Metronidazole (flagyl) is a good one for GI issues because it kills giardia and some bacteria such as camplyobacter and clostridium. It also has some soothing effects on the GI tract. Other antibiotics, especially penicillin derivatives (amoxicillin, clavamox) can cause diarrhea in cats and IMHO and experience, do not help diarrhea except in cases of antibiotic-responsive diarrhea. Another antibiotic good for antibiotic-responsive diarrhea is tylosin. These are trial and error diagnoses and treatments. I haven't had a case of antibiotic-responsive diarrhea yet, but I have tried to treat a couple of cats for it, to no avail.

As far as food goes, it could definitely be the cause of diarrhea. Many animals develop food sensitivities and allergies over time with multiple exposures to their allergen. Think about people with bee sting allergies- every time they get stung, the reaction is worse. The same thing happens with food allergies. So the fact that you have been feeding the same food makes it even more likely that your cat has a food sensitivity. I think an elimination diet is a very good suggestion, especially considering that she is also vomiting intermittently.

I don't think your vet has done anything wrong except waiting too long to read that last fecal sample. Diagnosing chronic diarrhea and intermittent vomiting can be difficult, and sometimes there is a lot of trial and error involved. SO many things can be causing her symptoms, it make take some more patience in figuring out what is going on, especially if you want to stick with non-invasive steps in diagnosis. You could always insist on intestinal biopsies, but obviously that means major abdominal surgery. If your cat is otherwise doing well- eating, drinking, maintaining hydration, maintaining weight, feels fine- then I probably wouldn't jump to biopsies right away either, and stick with trial and error treatments. In your cat's case, given that she is negative for FeLV and probably too young for other kinds of cancer, the results of the biopsies will probably just show a specific type of chronic inflammation and but no specific cause anyway.

The major extra-GI causes of vomiting and diarrhea have been eliminated with the normal bloodwork, so that is good. Your vet now seems to be concentrating on primary GI disease, and I think s/he is on the right track. Personally, I'd go ahead and deworm and start and elimination diet, which would also be good for inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome. I don't know if I'd do another round of antibiotics, but I don't know what has been used yet. If tylosin and metronidazole haven't been tried, I'd definitely go there. Fiber-responsive diarrhea is another possibility, so canned pumpkin may be a good option as well.

As far as trusting the vet or not, I think that is a personal call. If you feel like you have been blown off, I'd consider another vet. It's sometimes hard for vets to gauge how much information each client wants. I have clients who basically hand me a sick animal and just want me to do everything to fix it and tell them what to do as far as treatments go. They don't want explanations, they just want me to tell them what to do. Other clients are much more involved and want to know why I do each step in diagnosis and treatment and what to expect. And then there is everyone in between. I think everyone cares for their pets just as much, they all want their pets to get better, it's just that some people want more information and more input than others. You may have to let your vet know where you are in that broad range of client-types. I think your vet would appreciate someone who is interested in the medical aspects of their pet's health.

Having had so much frustration dealing with incompetent vets, spending so much money (only to be doing it on completely wrong diagnosis), almost losing one of my dogs three times (wrong diagnosis), etc. etc. etc. I have come up with guidelines that I adhere to.

This discussion has come up often here. In general, my opinion (based on my experiences) is a negative one. That said, I do have a current vet that I've had for about 5 years, and I truly love and trust her. It took me well over 17 years to find her, and she is on the same page with the way I think about the health of my three dogs.

My guidelines are:

*Put a time limit on meds. Ask the vet when you will start to see positive results. Leaving things "open ended" is a huge mistake. You could be doing the wrong thing for the wrong condition.

*If the vet switches medications more than once, and you are not seeing positive results, vet probably does not know what is going on with your pet. This is not always the case, but, switching meds should raise a red flag.

*Question everything vet says, and research diagnosis and meds. Google is an excellent way to do this. It will educate you and perhaps give you alternate options. Doing this has saved me TONS of money AND frustration. I have avoided having surgery done on my dogs at least 4 times and gotten a far better result because of this approach. If your vet does not approve of this, find another vet.

*Ask yourself: Is the situation you pet has a life threatening one? If it is, then obviously the approach needs to be different if the life is not threatened. Asking yourself this also puts things into perspective.

The veterinary profession is just that, a profession. They also have a business to run, which is expensive. Getting to the stage of being in practice takes a huge amount of intelligence and money. The debt that is accumulated for schooling alone is staggering. One must truly love animals to want to go through all of this.

All of that said, I believe the profession in general needs an overhaul. I seriously doubt that you will get even a simple apology from a vet because of a mis diagnosis that has caused the life of a beloved pet. For some reason, people in the profession just cannot bring themselves to do this (my current vet is completely comfortable offering apologies!). It seems the profession in general could develop so much in the positive sense if apologies could be stated for wrong doing, rather than all of the negative for saying nothing. Unfortunately, the damage is done, reversing it is practically impossible.

SG

Oh, I just lost my post, I hate when that happens!
Here's my short version,
try cooked white chicken meat....feed absolutely exclusively for a few days, 1/4 c 3-4 times in 24 hrs.
no skin, no bone, cooked slightly rare in micro, crumbled with a small amount of the cooking water.
Sometimes this has a magical soothing effect on the GI track.
Maybe try to stay with one of the doctors in your office (ask to see them) I'm sure they wannt to fix your kitty as much as you do. Maybe revisit the parasite issue?
Have they done a bartonella test?
Use forte-flora for your probiotic, I'm sure they have it at your office, do your chicken all by itself though first.
(I'm not a veterinarian, but vet tech in cat's only practice for ...sigh 30 yrs!) hang in there! Good luck.
Jill

And don't forget to feed Puss a little canned pumpkin (~1/2-1tsp a day).

If you have doubts about the care of your pet, seek another opinion. Most reasonable veterinarians will appreciate another opinion or three.

Many times we are restricted with our ability to diagnose because the owners decline a culture / sensitivity or radiographs or endoscopy with biopsy and so on. I'm not saying that is your situation but ... many times we can only try to do our best when the client allows us very limited diagnostics. Not the best of situations but a real reality of The Profession!

BTW ... If you don't go along with what vets recommended loooong ago and things turn sour because of a lack of specific diagnostics ... don't expect an apology.

If people fed their cats more like the wildcats they came from and less like cows and horses- there'd be a lot less UTI's, Kidney problems,skin issues,bad breath and teeth, poo issues,cancers.

Honestly this cat isn't even a year old! That would make her a preteen, you should be able to switch her to Innova EVO, Orijen, or one of the other, better foods.

The fact that she is already showing issues with pooing at such a young age means you are getting a tip of the ice burg- so to speak I say do it now before you get something really serious like advanced tarder buildup,caused by free-feeding kibble, or UTI's/or cancer.

our 16+ year old cat is only "JUST" beginning to have pooing issues, and even they are not outa line.

Well back to the vet's yesterday. It was a different vet from any we've seen before. She was very nice but some things bothered me. They did check a stool sample taken in the exam room and found no bacteria but did find a lot of white blood cells which is not normal and indicates something is still wrong. The vet talked about doing an elimination diet but the discovery of white blood cells leads me to believe that diet is not the cause.

The vet also talked about how since this is a reoccuring problem (cat wouldn't eat in September for a week, was vomitting and had some diarrhea but not much as she wasn't eating. Vet never identified the cause) And now again in December she was vomitting and had diarrhea and wouldn't eat for a day (probably because her stomach hurt) and it was diagnosed as an intestinal bacteria (campylobacter) and now (just a continuation of what she had in September) she vomitted twice in one day in January and still has the diarrhea. I wouldn't exactly call this a reoccuring problem since she was actually diagnosed with a bacteria the 2nd time and her symptoms were NOT the same as in September (she eats everything you give her and she wasn't eating in September). Also since in December they found the cause of her symptoms its not as if there is no explanation for her symptoms a few weeks ago. There is just no explanation as to why they continue after the bacteria is supposedly gone.

She is still on metronidazole until friday. One thing that really concerns me (and please tell me if it shouldn't) if that when she went to the vet on December 22nd she weighed 6.9 lbs. Now this was after a day of not eating much and vomiting and having diarrhea so she may have been a little lighter than normal. When she was spayed in early October she weighed 6 lbs. Well yesterday when I took her (jan 6th) she now weighs 8.2 lbs. This really worries me because she has gained over a pound in the last 3 weeks. Now she has been eating like a little pig but she's had diarrhea so I would think she would at least maintain her weight not gain more. I'm really worried she might have some type of tumor or growth. The vet did not mention this as a possibility but I am still worried.

I had to bring in another stool sample and they are sending it out to a lab to do a complete analysis to check for the cause of the white blood cells.

I have no idea if campylobacter follows the same course in cats as it does in humans, but I will pass along info that my GP told me when I contracted it a few years (and let me say, I know exactly how your kitty felt/feels!).

My dr had put me on Levaquin "just as a precaution," since he felt that I likely had a GI virus when I went to see him. On the off-chance that it was bacterial, and he was thinking at worst, salmonella, I'd have a few days of the antibiotic in my system while awaiting the culture results. I felt decidedly better shortly after beginning the Levaquin, which indicated to me at least, that I had had something bacterial.

When the dr called me to tell me that I had campylobacter, he sounded surprised (not as surprised as I was when the local board of health called me a few weeks later--it's one of those illnesses on the CDC list that needs to be reported). My doctor told me to continue the meds AND that sometimes it can come back a few weeks after finishing the meds, which would then require a second round of the antibiotic (and to call him right away if this happened--which it thankfully did not).

Again, I don't know if it can recur in cats, as it can in humans, but it might be worth checking out with your vet.

Good luck!

Thanks for the advice. They did test for the bacteria again (twice) and found none. They only way animals can be reinfected is through contaminated food, water or feces. She tested negative for the bacteria both times since she finished the first round of antibiotics. But something is still wrong. It hasn't helped that there has been a different vet each time I've taken her in but that is the nature of this clinic. They have six or seven different vets and you cant request a specific one (well you could try but no guarantee) as they dont' have their schedules posted and many times because of emergencies they send certain large animal vets out into the field and someone else comes in to cover them. To my knowledge there are two vets that specialize in large animals but none that specialize exclusively in the small animals so there is a chance for any of them to be out in the field.

I wouldn't dismiss the food issue so easily. White blood cells are an immune system reaction... allergies .... immune system.

re read Meghane's post, particularly this part:

As far as food goes, it could definitely be the cause of diarrhea. Many animals develop food sensitivities and allergies over time with multiple exposures to their allergen. Think about people with bee sting allergies- every time they get stung, the reaction is worse. The same thing happens with food allergies. So the fact that you have been feeding the same food makes it even more likely that your cat has a food sensitivity. I think an elimination diet is a very good suggestion, especially considering that she is also vomiting intermittently.

I would do an elimination diet... its not going to hurt and it might just help.

An elimination diet will be the next step. I am worried though that the vet keeps dismissing the bacteria she just had (proven by lab tests that it was campylobacter) and is now saying this is a reoccuring problem. She vomitted BECAUSE of the bacteria in her system (one of the symptoms of that strain). The first time she had any problems was in September and it was after we took her on a week long vacation to another state so it could have been brought on by stress. No cause for her illness was ever found. 2nd time was in December (three weeks ago) and the cause of her ailment was the intestinal bacteria. Third (or a continuation of the 2nd time since there was no break in between) is unknown. We will try the elimination diet if nothing is found by her latest lab tests (still waiting on the results). I am just worried it is cancer or something horrible.

I think you are dismissing the allergies as not that bad of a problem. When in fact, the allergies are probably what made your cat susceptible to the first infections. As the immune system is attacking allergens, it doesn't have enough capacity to attack exposure to other bacteria. Our pets and our immune systems are exposed to bacterias and parasites all the time. When their immune system is functioning normally, they can fight off these infections without supplemental antibiotics. When their immune system is functioning awry, attacking allergens can inhibit the systems ability to attack other stuff, making them more prone to an infection.

So the previous infections, may have been a symptom of the allergy, rather than the root cause of the problem.

I agree that food allergies are a problem. However, you don't get an intestinal bacteria just because your immune system isn't functioning at its highest capacity. And with a bacterial infection its not just a matter of fighting off the infection, the bacteria has to be killed and that is what the antibiotics are for. Her symptoms improved (the vomitting) before she even took one dose of the antibiotics.

I'm not trying to minimize the possibilty of my cat having an allergic reaction to something in her food, in fact I'm hoping thats "all" this is because it might be relatively easy to fix compared to other things.

However she has been eating the same food since she was 8 weeks old and after her first bout of illness in September she continued to eat the same food with no symptoms at all. I have one cat with food allergies (she vomits and she gets very itchy) and she has these symptoms any time she eats a certain type of food. My poor baby with the diarhea hasn't had continuous symptoms as she was eating the same type of food for the past 3 months and had no symptoms until now.

I'm not a vet so I can't diagnose her. I'm relying on the professionals to do so. My orginal post was because I am worried these particular ones are very organized or aren't taking the proper measures to diagnose her.

If you are uncomfortable with your vet, if you are getting a bad vibe, I would switch. Follow your instincts.

If the best Vet is town, isn't one that you feel comfortable with, then its not the best Vet for you.

Secondary bacterial infections are a very common sequela to inflammation of any body system. If Kitty's GI tract was inflamed for any reason, such as food allergy, that makes it much easier for bacteria to overgrow and cause problems. Most animals (including people) have Campylobacter in their GI tract, and it does not cause any problems. Inflammation causes changes on the surface of the affected body system making it easier for it to be colonized by opportunistic invaders, such as Campylobacter. Once the invader is colonized it can reproduce and the numbers get out of control, causing clinical signs. Don't worry about the campylobacter too much- it was probably always there and probably is still there just not in detectable or problematic numbers.

There are lots of reasons that kitty's GI tract could have been inflamed, allowing the campylobacter overgrowth. Food allergies, inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, parasites, dietary indiscretion (eating something she shouldn't have), stress, and medications especially antibiotics (not so much metronidazole, but the penicillin derivatives are notorious) among other things.

Although not having an overgrowth of campylobacter is good, not having ANY GI flora is bad. All animals need GI bacteria to help digestion. I hope they meant that she doesn't have any more bacterial overgrowth, not that she doesn't have any bacteria.

I agree that this isn't a recurring problem. She didn't have a bacterial infection in September. And she's had diarrhea since December, which is a continuing problem, not a recurring one. The only thing recurring is you having to take her to the vets.

Is kitty spayed already? If not, it may be a good opportunity to get her spayed, do an abdominal exploratory, and take some intestinal biopsies while they have her under anesthesia and are in the abdomen anyway. It may help figure out what is going on, and even though I think a tumor is highly unlikely, that would be a good way to both look and remove it. If she is spayed, might consider doing an exploratory anyway. It sounds like you are getting more and more worried, as anyone who cares as much about their kitten would be, and it may be worth it just to go whole-hog and find out once and for all what is going on. Sometimes it's worth just going in instead of playing around with treatments and tests forever.

If you didn't want to do exploratory surgery, then I would definitely deworm. Then try canned pumpkin on the food in case of fiber-responsive diarrhea. If that doesn't work, then try the elimination diet, which would help food allergies. If that doesn't work, maybe try tylosin in case it's antibiotic-responsive diarrhea. If that doesn't work, try some low dose steroids to control inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome. There's still plenty of trial and error treatments to try...

Gaining weight is a good thing. When animals have chronic diarrhea, we usually worry about them losing weight. It's also good that she has an excellent appetite.

You are right to worry about your kitten. If the vets are not as concerned about her as you are, that is a SURE reason to not trust them. After all, if they don't care, why are they vets?

If you are in the least uncomfortable or have lost confidence, do your homework and change vets. I hesitated with this with my oldest dog. I worried that she was on so many meds, had so many health issues.

We changed vets and provided all records from the previous vet. That was 6 years ago. I have been happier and confident with the new practice. True, they have several vets and you cannot always see the vet you want, but I have found each vet to be as thorough as the others I've seen and the care has been excellent.

Bonus is that our "new" vet has emergency treatment at their location vs. being referred to a vet we don't know who is located 1 hr. away with absolutely no traffic.

Best of luck.

My cat was spayed in October so exploratory surgery would be a very last resort. She is only 7 months old (we are estimating).

I like the vet I currently have because it is close (about 15 minutes from where I live) and they also have emergency treatment after hours (which I used once when she wasn't eating). I've asked for referrals and everyone points me to a vet that just retired (so out of luck there). A lady I work with is having the same problem finding a new vet since hers (the one everyone referred me to) has retired. I stopped going to my old veterinarian's office (long before I got my current kitty) because they were very expensive and actually turned a lot of sick animals away because they refused to accept any type of payment plan (I luckily haven't needed this, I always pay in full but I know a lot of pet owners can't) meanwhile they bought this $10,000 bronze statue of a horse and a dog running side by side and placed it in front of their practice (I know how much it cost because my mother's close friend works there as a vet tech). So I just saw that as a huge waste of money (not saying they should act as a charity) but you can't even wait a few weeks to be paid but buy some elaborate decoration for your clinic? It just seemed like they were just in it for the money and not to actually help animals.

The vet(s) I currently use, I've never had to go there for anything other than routine vacinations/spaying before my current cat (I have 3 others). I even took my sister's cat there when she was visiting (a few years ago) because he seemed to have a respiratory infection. But when I'm really concerned about my kitten they just dont seem to be at all. Even back in September after a visit on Sunday with the emergency vet (the one I like the most) He wanted to keep her overnight with IV fluids- I said no, I didn't want to leave her overnight and I took her home that night and she just started eating like normal and was fine from then until December- the vet never asked to do any type of follow up or was even concerned with her care. I had to call and schedule an appointment for follow up and was told since she was eating it wasn't necessary. I made an appt. anyway. The vet had gone on a one week vacation and didn't even update her records or leave any recommendations. I just worry about their lack of follow up.

But I guess doctor's offices are the same way nowadays. You see the dr. for 2 minutes he scribbles a prescription and anounces you have the latest virus that he has seen going around and you are on your way.

Whenever I take my pet in (for something other than regular shots and a check up) in a couple days I will get a follow up phone call from the Vet's office, making sure things have improved. One good sign of a good vet practice.

This cat has serious issues..... Is she white? Does she have blue eyes? Is she from a random/planned mating? These are all questions that have to do with gentics- NEVER breed from this cat, get her spayed if you haven't already done so- if you do it,( breed her) you'll be sorry.

With a cat so young having all these issues points to something gentic or blood related possibly. I would seriously sit down, take a look at yourself, her quality of life, and how much you plan on spending, Immune issues are rare in cats. You might want research " cat issues" similar to your own to try and figure out exactly what's wrong. If nothing can be done just keep her happy and content for as long as she is with you.

I do not think she will live to double digets but that's just my opinion and I hope I'm wrong. Some cats have issues that lead them to naturally short lives

What a horrible thing to say! My post is about trusting a vet not about if I'm going to breed my cat (she's spayed and why would anyone breed a cat (unless it's purebred) anyway? My cat's quality of life is certainly quite good at the moment as she eats fine, plays like crazy with her three playmates and doesn't seemed bothered by the diarhea.

I am calling another vet to set up an appointment as my vet has NOT called with the lab test results (I called them on thursday and they said the results should be in by the weekend even though the lab says 1-3 working days and the sample was sent out on last tuesdsay)

I am definately switching vets. I called my vet today to see if the lab results were in for my cat (who has had diarrhea for a month now!) and the receptionist said the results were in but a vet tech would have to call me back wtih the findings. I asked if the results just came in today and she looked and said no, they were in on friday (this practice is open on Saturdays too) so they had TWO days to call me with the results. I advised her that my cat has had diarrhea for a month and these results should be important. The receptionist came back to the phone and said the vet (that saw my cat at her latest appoitment) wasn't in that day but they could call me tomorrow with the results. I advised her that I needed to talk to someone today. She left again and came back and said she'd ask another vet to look over the results for the vet tech and they would call me.

Fifteen minutes later I got a call from a vet tech who didn't even ask if I was the person she was supposed to be talking to and she just said again that the vet that sent the sample to the lab was out until tomorrow and that she'd had another vet (one that has seen my cat before- she's seen four of the six vets there) look at the results and that the test (for what I don't know) was negative and there was no bacteria found. She said the next step is to a referring clinic and that the original vet would call me tomorrow if she had time as she'd be out in the field. THe vet tech just sounded like she wanted to get off the phone and I asked where the clinics were located (over an hour away) I asked her what kind of procedures they would do and she said they'd do a scope.

So if I hadn't asked any questions the entire conversation would have lasted thirty seconds. And the promise that the orginal vet "might call if she's not too busy" really irritated me. I'm sure there is ONE vet in the clinic that can take five minutes away from his schedule to contact me about a serious issue like this. I know they are busy but there is no reason the same vet that sent the sample away is the only one who can talk to me (my cat has been seen by a different vet every time I take her in.

So I am going to take her to a clinic that specializes in cats before I take the step of sending her to the "referring clinic" as the vet tech called it.

...an interesting question that I've had to deal with recently myself, except for a dog. Many of the same symptoms. It turned out to be Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency (EPI) which can affect cats too. It's amazing how many vets know so little about it and how much contradictory (and wrong) information exists out there.

EPI cannot be diagnosed through normal blood panels. You must specifically request a test called "TLI." I've included a link below for a helpful website on EPI in dogs. For cats, I'd recommend checking the Texas A&M website at http://www.cvm.tamu.edu/gilab/assays/TLI.shtml since they're the experts and are the ones who run the tests, regardless of where you are in the country.

EPI is usually accompanied (in dogs anyway) by a problem called Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth. It can't be detected by stool samples. Both EPI and SIBO cause diarrhea.

Your cat may not have EPI, but it's probably worth looking into. There's a wonderful Yahoo group (K9-EPIGLOBAL) that's solely about EPI in dogs and most of our dogs were initially treated for giardia, worms, etc. and given lots of antibiotics over and over. We EPI dog owners have come to accept that vets don't know much about EPI. We're OK with the open-minded ones who are willing to learn. If they instead get angry or huffy, we tend to move on.

Best of luck to you.

Here is a link that might be useful: EPI in Dogs