Why is my cat having diarrhea after lowering prednisolone dose?

Typically cats get really bad vomiting episodes with IBD and occasional diarrhea. The prednisone likely is treating for inflammation or an immune mediated condition of the gut, which can include lymphoma, IBD, or a condition called lymphocytic plasmocytic colitis. At any rate, if the prednisone is helping, then I would continue with therapy as indicated. A lot of the times you can only get a final diagnosis with gut diseases by having a surgical biopsy taken of the intesines. As you can imagine this is a very invasive procedure, so response to therapy is typically the route we taken when making suspected diagnoses. I would also highly consider getting Beau on a hypoallergenic diet to help make it easy for her gut to digest food. My top picks here are Royal Canin hypoallergeic hydrolyzed protein, Hill's Z/D, OR Royal Canin Selected protein (rabbit/potato). Ask your vet for a prescription if interested! I hope this helps and best wishes with your pet Beau and her chronic loose stools. Take care.

Hello. This is a reasonable thing to do, but please discuss this with your veterinarian first. Your vet has all the particulars on your cat's condition, so for me just to say its OK to start cutting back on a medication without having any information on why the medication was started in the first place would not be right & may be harmful to your pet. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

Hello and welcome back! Prednisolone not working suggests that IBD is not the problem. Metronidazole is a broad spectrum antibiotic and treatment for giardia, therefore likely the problem wasn't a bacterial or giardia infection. A negative fecal rules out other parasites like worms or coccidia. If Beau has hyperthroidism then the diarrhea could be related to this, and tweaking of the medication might be required. He still could have cancer in the GI tract (lymphoma) which doesn't always cause an obstruction or pain, especially not right away. He could also have food allergies, or liver disease, or pancreas disease. There would be pain with an obstruction, and clinically this doesn't sound like an obstruction, but you can have no pain with cancer. Best of luck with Beau.

Hello. If the blood appeared after you started the prednisolone, then it is possible that it may be irritating the colon. Since I do not know why the steroid was prescribed to your cat, do not stop the medication until you talk to your veterinarian tomorrow. Thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

You have a very valid question. Here is the problem, your kitty does not have a diagnosis for why the cell counts were low. This makes it difficult to know how to taper meds like pred nor how long to provide treatment. Has your kitty been tested for feline leukemia/FIV? Was there any additonal testing done other than a CBC? It really would be important for you to discuss your concerns with your family vet who should be open to a discussion about a med that can have long term side effects. We typically do slowly taper drugs like pred for several reasons and your vet will be able to tell you why he or she picked that particular tapering schedule. I hope this helps and thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach!

It would be unusual to see diarrhea as a side effect of prednisone, so I would suspect fat something else may be causing it. If your dog is acting normal otherwise, you can try withholding food for the next 12-24 hours and then feeding plain boiled chicken and white rice for the next few days. If this doesn't help, or if she develops any other symptoms such as vomiting, acting lethargic, or not wanting to eat, then I would recommend having her examined by a vet as she may have a more serious problem.

If he was on 12mg of prednisolone for 10 days straight and then it was suddenly stopped, then yes that could be part of the problem, but its also possible that he is still ill from the original disease. I would strongly recommend that you take to your veterinarian; it would be useful to recheck a physical exam and some blood tests. They may recommend running a baseline cortisol to ensure that stopping the pred is not the cause of current symptoms. Thank you for asking Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach!