From: young@sasquatch.serum.kodak.com (Rich Young (x37176))
Subject: Re: Help my cat is skinny!
Organization: Clinical Products Division, Eastman Kodak Company
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 22:03:07 GMT

amo@cbnews.cb.att.com (arlene.m.osborne) writes:

>young@sasquatch.serum.kodak.com (Rich Young (x37176)) writes:

[...]

>> 	Check for worms, especially tapeworms.  Ascarids (roundworms) are
>> 	spaghetti-like white-ish things of various lengths in the stool and
>> 	may or may not be moving right after defecation, or they may not be
>> 	visible at all.  Hookworms are practically impossible to see unless
>> 	you KNOW what you're looking for.  Tapeworms shed egg cases which look
>> 	like pieces of rice (that may be moving) in the stool.  My guess
>> 	would be tapeworms, but IT IS ONLY A GUESS!!!!  Take a fresh stool
>> 	sample (from your cat, of course) to your friendly vet and let
>> 	him/her give you "the straight poop" (pun definitely intended).
>
>Tapeworms   DO NOT show up in a stool sample!  I had two animals that
>got them and I took a sample to my regular vet who tested it and said
>they were fine.  Mortified, and knowing they had some kind of worms,
>I went to another vet with another sample.  She asked if what I was seeing 
>was rice-looking eggs, and tossed the samples saying they wouldn't show
>anything.  She gave me a single pill for each animal (the pill makes
>the parasite become digestable by the animal!), and poof, no more
>tapeworms!

	How about if we modify that first shout to "...do not ALWAYS show
	up in a stool sample."  A tapeworm consists of a head which is
	VERY firmly attached to the intestinal wall, and a bunch of
	reproductive segments which may extend for many, many inches inside
	the bowel.  These segments sometimes break off as feces pass through
	the intestine, and are deposited with the dung.  The segments can also
	break off independently and migrate to the outside world through
	the anus, looking like little pieces of rice sticking to the skin
	or fur in the area.  The actual number of segments which are shed at
	any given time depends a great deal on the severity of the infestation
	and the maturity of the available segments, among other things.  This
	imparts a fair degree of chance to the search for visual symptoms,
	but if you look often enough, you'll see segments in some stool,
	sometime, but perhaps NOT the one you bring to the vet, especially
	if the infestation is recent and fairly light.

	The following is, perhaps, a reasonable compromise: IF you see rice-
	like pieces in your pet's stool, or hanging onto skin or fur near
	the anus (they move if they're fresh), your pet most assuredly has
	tapeworms, so get thee to a vet.  IF your pet is losing weight
	regardless of a giant appetite and apparent good health otherwise,
	tapeworms are certainly suspect (but not the only possibility), so
	get thee to a vet!

	The pill kills the head, which is the part that absorbs the nutrients
	from the animal's system for the purpose of continued segment
	creation.  Heaven only knows what happens to the now-defunct heads,
	but I would imagine that their exact fate is probably determined by
	which end of the gut to which they were attached...some may be
	digested and absorbed, some may be excreted.

-Rich (young@serum.kodak.com)

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