All seems perfectly fine but...

[jhona107]

My 4 year old female rescue came to me on the heavy side. Has not gained more weight, healthy appetite, consumes water and outputs urine, just the past 2 weeks I have seen a decline in stool production. Not blocked, has passed stools but it seems to have become more random, for instance, so far today no stool. Shows no signs of discomfort or distress, I am on SSI and have limited funds this month, is there a safe thing to give her for mild constipation before I panic and rush to vet cause it is just recent and may have to do with change in dry food? Have read that small amount of Vasiline mixed into wet may be tried, or a pinch of ground Flaxseed, can anyone advise. Problem is I owe $60 to vet's office that I am trying to pay off and lost Food Stamps this month. None of that matters, she comes first, but it does not seem very problematic so far..been parenting rescues for over 37 years and never had a constipated female cat as yet. Please advise ASAP, if possible. Online chat sites for cats require big upfront cost.
Any advice is greatly appreciated
jhona

[Kay]

as this is a UK based site, I don't think any product recommendations would be of much use

all I can say is a constipated cat is likely to keep trying to go, and it sounds as if your girl isn't doing this, so I wouldn't worry - if she is eating more dry food than she used to she is likely to produce less stools, especially if wet food used to be her main source of liquid - make sure you provide plenty of fresh clean water for her to encourage her to drink

[Lilith]

Hi Jhona, I wouldn't worry too much over one day without a motion appearing; like humans, cats can all be different in this respect, but for a cat with mild chronic constipation, I give milk every other day if they'll drink it, and also add a small amount of oil (olive if you have it but nothing wrong with ordinary cooking oil) to their wet food - say half a teaspoonful. If they'll eat it. The oil was recommended to me by my very good vet surgery - and of course tuna or any fish in oil as an occasional treat, say once a week. My lot don't like tuna in oil but they'll eat tinned mackerel, which is an oily fish (I found a special offer and stocked up.)

But don't overdo it. My Mouse (silly name for a cat) is mildly constipated and adores tinned evaporated milk. So I gave her some as a treat...in the middle of the night, going to the loo, walked past the bathroom tray and put my bare foot in a puddle of Mousey diarrohea! Lovely!

But I hope that by now your cat has visited her tray and succeeded! As I've said, they're all different - one of mine sometimes misses a day and she's not constipated - at least not judging by what she leaves me to deal with lol.

All the very best

[lilynmitz]

I don't know if you can get lactulose in the US, but we can get it from any pharmacy in the UK. if you can, put half a teaspoonful on her wet food, once a day. My sister's cat has megacolon (which for months meant daily enemas - eeuuw!), but will only eat dried food, so harder to dose with laxative, but she finds putting a teaspoonful of liquid paraffin even on her dried food keeps her regular (this is the stuff from the pharmacy, NOT the stuff you put in heaters!).

But if it's just a one off, there's no need to do this every day. I'd leave it another day or so, and if she still hasn't "performed", try one of the above. If it becomes a regular occurrence though, there could e an underlying problem that needs treatment, and she'd need to see the vet for that.