Is 5mg prednisolone too much for my 9lb cat's chronic diarrhea?

Hi there. If Beau is on prednisolone to treat a chronic GI issue such as inflammatory bowel disease or something similar, then yes - lowering his dosage could certainly cause diarrhea or other symptoms to recur. If he was on it for something unrelated to this, then I would not expect decreasing his dosage to cause diarrhea "out of the blue" - so in that case, it's likely that there is some other cause.

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.

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!

Whether a long acting steroid or daily oral steroids are better will depend on whether one works better than the other for your kitty's condition. This is something that will have to be tried out. The good thing about short acting budesonide is that it can be stopped anytime if needed. The long acting steroid can not be stopped from working until its activity is over. Depending on the tyoe of long acting steroid this can be up to three months. Trust your vet to do the right thing and prescribe the proper treatment for your cat. If you have problems with pilling your cat there are ways to compound the medication into either a transdermal medicine or flavored chews (tuna, sardine, etc) which can be given like a treat.

Hello, and thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach. I'm sorry to hear about Portifoy's diarrhea troubles! It's not clear from the history what sort of duration we're talking about, but it can take time (sometimes weeks) to get IBD symptoms under control. Many cats improve much faster if put on a tapering dose of steroids (often prednisolone is used), so you could talk to your vet about this. Depending on what diagnostics were performed that led to the IBD diagnosis, those symptoms could indicate IBD, but could also be consistent with a food sensitivity/allergy, or GI lymphoma, among other things. An abdominal ultrasound helps with a diagnosis, if that hasn't been done, with a GI biopsy being the ideal diagnostic (although that's also quite invasive, and your vet can help you decide if it's worth the risk). At this point, I'd recommend communicating with your vet and letting them know how Port's doing, as they may have been hoping his symptoms would improve with the medications you mentioned - but they may want to change things (such as adding a steroid, or discussing the next diagnostic step) once they know he's still having diarrhea. Feel free to request a consultation if you'd like to discuss Port's case in more detail. I hope this helps!

Inflammatory bowel disease is an immune-mediated problem, in which the immune system attacks the cells of the intestines and causes inflammation, thickening, poor absorption of nutrients, etc. Prednisone is a powerful anti-inflammatory drug, and also has immuno-suppressive effects at higher doses. Both of these characteristics are useful in treating IBD.

HI there. So sorry Onyx is having this issue. If those medications are not working I would be worried about the possibility of something else going at. She may not have IBS at all. My suggestion would be to get some intestinal biopsies so you can have a definitive diagnosis. Without a diagnosis all your vet is doing is guessing as to what may be wrong. If you want proper treatment you need a diagnosis first. Here is a link to an article about chronic diarrhea in cats: https://www.petplace.com/article/cats/pet-health/chronic-diarrhea-in-cats/ In the meantime you can add in a probiotic to the diet. I suggest Fortiflora, it is the best. No human probiotics and no dairy. http://www.allivet.com/p-1130-purina-pro-plan-veterinary-diets-fortiflora-dog-supplement-box-of-30.aspx Hope this helps. Best wishes.