I don't think this belongs in the
diet and Nutrition forum because I am posting about what we did to get Piper over her diarrhea.
Other posts I've made about this episode are:
Persistant Diarrhea (need help, guys) Piper and the Trichs Long story short, noticed soft poops and decrease in eating.
She tested positive for trichomonads.
We treated her with metronidazole but the diarrhea didn't go away.
Thought antibiotics were causing diarrhea. Expected it to stop when she was done with them.
Diarrhea got worse after she went off the antibiotics although I was giving yogurt to replace bacterial flora in the gut.
Tested another fecal thinking we didn't get all the trichs, but it was clean.
Under my
vet's instructions, I
stopped feeding PML, yogurt, chicken, fruit (except apples) and veggies and started on a bland "elimination diet" also known as the BRAT diet that pediatricians will recommend for kids with gastrointestinal issues. The human version of the BRAT
diet is B=bananas, R=rice, A=apples, T=toast. For gliders I substitute a very small dollop of cooked oatmeal instead of toast. You have to be careful with oatmeal because it can cause a blockage if you give too much, but they generally really like it. For the rice, I mix baby rice cereal with a little water, Gatoraide and a touch of maple syrup for flavor. I purposely didn't use honey because it is a big part of PML and I was trying to eliminate all that she had been eating up to that point. I also offered apples and bananas. She nibbled on the apples, but didn't touch the bananas.
Immediately upon changing her to the bland
diet, her diarrhea went away. I mean from liquid to total normal overnight! I had not seen really normal poops from her in over 2 weeks!
Remember:
I am not recommending this as a long term diet for gliders It is only to allow an irritated gut time to recover without likely allergens or irritants.
Two theories operating here:
1. She got the trichs and they caused the initial symptoms, but after they were eliminated, the gut was still irritated and she couldn't shake the diarrhea on a normal
diet. The blandness soothed her gut, allowing it to slow down.
OR
2. She developed a food allergy to something she was eating regularly which caused the initial symptoms. Trichomonads already present in the gut multiplied causing further problems and showing up on the fecal test. Treating the trichs didn't eliminate the intitial problem. Diarrhea went away when we eliminated the food allergen.
Now she's been having normal poops on the bland
diet for 4 days (since Thursday morning and it's now Sunday night). Two nights ago, I added back in the boiled chicken and a couple of mealies because I didn't want her to go too long without the protien. Still normal poo.
Tonight, I added a pinch of Wambaroo HPS to her baby rice cereal mixture. I figure if she doesn't react to it, I can continue giving it and have some confidence that she's at least getting some protien/calcium/vitamin supplementation even if it's not the whole PML
diet.
If she goes several days with the Wambaroo and poops stay firm, I will try my biggest suspect: the yogurt. Her poo got softer when I increased the amount of yogurt she was getting that last weekend after I stopped the metro. Also, the
vet's first recommendation when we began to discuss
diet possibilities was to eliminate all dairy products. He included Wambaroo in the dairy products because the first ingredient is whey protien.
I am just reporting what has happened anecdotally with one glider. I am not saying anyone should feed this
diet to healthy gliders, and only under a
vet's supervision and for a short time with gliders who do have diarrhea. I am posting it because I want to chronical what happens as I try to determine whether or not Piper has a food allergy, and if so, what the culprit is.
The
vet did say he's seen this work with other animals as well though. I'm not sure if he meant gliders or just all animals. They do see a LOT of gliders there.
Anyway, any and all comments or suggestions or criticisms (be gentle with me, lol) are welcome.