Symptomatic Care for Diarrhea in Dogs and Cats

[Dr. Jeff]

Below are some excellent suggestions from @Dr. Sara about how to help your pets with diarrhea.

There's more about diarrhea care and homeopathy over in the homeopathy folder.

Describing Your Pets "Diarrhea" Symptoms to Help Find an Individualized Remedy

Hi everyone- On the 6/22 Empower Hour! webinar Dr. Christina, Sara and I will discuss with you why and how to repertorize. This is the homeopathic method of individualizing pets to find and use helpful homeopathic remedies. Using it is easy once you look closely at individual symptoms, and...

holisticactions.com

Here's what Dr. Sara has for us today:

Pets develop diarrhea from stress and excitement as well as from eating things that they shouldn’t. As long as your pet's BEAM is good so s/he is feeling reasonably well (active, interested in food, no vomiting, small amounts or no blood in the stool) it is safe and reasonable to treat diarrhea symptomatically.

Mucus on the stools is a normal protective response of the intestinal tract to inflammation and irritation. Sometimes there will be a wee bit of blood on the stools because many dogs strain when they have diarrhea. Large amounts of blood can be more serious, and will require examination of the pet.

Uncomplicated diarrhea from stress or dietary indiscretion (garbage-itis) responds well to symptomatic homeopathic treatment. Choose remedies from the list in the homeopathy post, as described in point 6.

Symptomatic Approach for Diarrhea:

1 - In dogs, if s/he is medium to large (over 20 pounds) and there is a large quantity of diarrhea, it is best to start with a day of fast. During this day, you can give fluids, including electrolyte replacement fluids and broth, but no solid food. This gives the intestines a rest, and allows the lining to regenerate. If there is little or no diarrhea during the fast, and the dog feels good, you can resume feeding as indicated below.

2 - Feed frequent small meals of bland, easily digested food. I like to use plain cooked meat, as cooked meat is slightly easier to digest than raw. (My own animals all eat raw otherwise.) Some people want to add grains, if so, I would suggest cooked oatmeal. In digestibility studies with dogs, turkey is the most digestible protein, and oatmeal is the most digestible grain. A study of fecal (stool) quality showed that rice produced looser stools than barley or sorghum. Pumpkin is a good source of fiber to add, as is psyllium husk.
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3 – Offer plenty of water, ice, and other clear fluids (such as low sodium chicken broth) to ensure that the pet remains hydrated.

4 - Provide probiotics to replenish the natural bacteria that are being flushed out of the tract by the diarrhea. Probiotics are safe for all animals. Some people give them daily at a low dose; during times of digestive upset double the daily dose. There are many probiotic sources, and they vary widely in quality and number of live active bacteria. I like Aunt Jeni’s Digestive Aid for everyday use. When there is severe diarrhea I will use the human products of PrescriptAssist, VSL 3, or HLC Mindlinx. There are many other high quality probiotics.

5 – Ensure that parasites are not a major complicating factor by having a stool checked.

6 – Use homeopathic remedies appropriate to the individual’s signs described in this post. I give a dose of the chosen homeopathic medicine in a 6 X, 6 C, or 12 X potency after each diarrheic stool. There should be significant improvement within a few hours, if not, the remedy is probably not correct, and the case should be re-evaluated. You can mix the medicine in a little water and give to the dog, or you can put a few granules on a spoon and add a few drops of non-chlorinated water to it; most dogs readily lick it off the spoon. Homeopathic medicines appear to work best dissolved in water.

7 – If the diarrhea persists, or if at any time the patient’s condition deteriorates, consult your local holistic vet.