Giardia hell, part 1

Super trooper Styx during Giardia, trying to keep warm 

So, there are a few parasites than can affect your pedigree cat that are tricky to spot, but are more common and spread than you - and probably your veterinary - know.
Giardia is one of those parasites.
So why will I write about this parasite? Because my new pedigree Bengal kittens are affected and I thought I would document some of the journey to recovery.
The short version is that our Bengals got Giardia, in this post I will write the hellish road to get a diagnosis. About the utter helplessness, frustration and anger when you see your loved kitty is unwell and you feel like noone is listening to you.
Be warned - a wall of text is coming up!

The backstory and road to get a diagnosis.

Styx came to us and immediately the morning after we brought him home thought he was a bit low on energy for a kitten. The breeder made and provided all the things, vaccinations and checkups expected and we got a certificate from the veterinary about their health. It is a standard paper that registered breeders give the customer at the time of kitten hand over. It only covers very obvious and noticeable things, parasites are not included.
Styx quite quickly developed diarrhea during the first few days we had him. We assumed it was due to stress of moving to us and/or the fact that we gave the kittens a wet-food they had not eaten at the breeder. What we did have difficulties to understand though, was the fact that little Styx had so little energy compared to his sister. He slept most of his day preferably in our lap or where it was warm. Kittens naturally sleep for a big portion of the day, that is perfectly normal, and we were fully aware of this - but this was different. Whilst Skadi could happily sleep for very long periods, she still had periods when she would be mental, playful, groom, explore and interact. Styx however, did not. We could not make him play with anything, he did not want to, he did not want to explore his surroundings nor was he much interested in food.

I have grown up with cats, dogs and other animals, maybe I am flattering myself but I believe to know the difference between a naturally low energy or temporarily ill animal and a sickly animal. To me, Styx was acting as a sickly, lethargic, animal and not like a kitten - especially not a Bengal kitten.
I did searches on the internet for "my kitten does not want to play", "my kitten only sleep" etc and after some digging I came across the parasites that are actually quite common in pedigree cats, catteries or multi-cat households but still very unknown even to veterinarians.

So 6 days after we collected the kittens I went to the veterinary. It was the same veterinary that cleared the kittens before delivery, she did a physical examination and got to the conclusion that he was not dehydrated (which I already said when booking the appointment, you can pinch the skin of the neck of your cat to see if it is dehydrated: If the skin quickly bounce back the kitten is not dehydrated, if the skin slowly goes back after gently pinched the kitten is suffering from dehydration) and weighed him to 950g. The veterinary also weighed Skadi at 1050g but nothing else. I got told he got an "upset stomach" probably because of the stress of moving home, or food, or bladiblah and told me to buy Royal Canin Gastro Intestinal wet-food sachets and Purina FortiFlora. So I did. She would not have any of my questions about Giardia and waved my questions away with it being very unlikely and very uncommon. I felt like the veterinary did not take my concerns seriously enough and sort of dismissed me with some food with lower quality than I was feeding my kittens. She probably thought I was a hysterical first-time kitten owner who freaked out over nothing.

We gave Styx his special food and 2 packets of FortiFlora every day. For a few days he was better and ate, then get diarrhea get worse again and refuse to eat. It was a horrible roller-coaster ride where we were thrown between seeing some improvement and then steep decline. After little over a week on the Gastro Intestinal I frankly took Styx off it because it did not help, his problems where still coming and going. I also admit I did not particularly like the contents of the sachets, high in glucose. I have to admit though, the FortiFlora is probably a great pro-biotic supplement if your cat or kitten is experiencing temporary problems with their stomach from change of diet or such however, it did not help Styx.

On one of his high periods we saw him weigh 980g, just to drop down to 915g a few days later, all whilst his sister steadily went from 1150g to 1250g.
I did further search about lethargic kittens, weight loss, cyclic diarrhea and smelly feces. It all lead to Giardia. All symptoms matched, just like I thought before going to the veterinary it was all matching up. It also said that this is often ignored by veterinarians due to lack of knowledge about new research and just labeled and dismissed as a "upset stomach" or "stress".
I will go though more in detail in another post what Giardia is.

So, filled with rage, I booked another appointment. I specifically said that I know the difference between a sick and healthy animal and that I want to have a second opinion. So I got another veterinary. When I arrived, she was also dismissive about my insistive questions about Giardia claiming it is very rare. She wanted me to continue with the gastro intestinal and FortiFlora, but started to sound less sure about it when I wanted a progress plan for Styx recovery and not settling with the floaty answers. How much should we expect him to gain per week on this? How long should it take before we could go back to a normal diet?
And then she weighed him, that day he was at 940g almost 2 weeks after the first appointment and Skadi weighed in at 1350g. Suddenly I felt like I got some attention to what I had been saying all along. The veterinary now decided that maybe it was time to take this further after all, took Styx's temperature, blood samples and asked us to collect feces during 3 days to ship off to test for salmonella, TF and Giardia. She continously repeated that it was "very unlikely" with Giardia, and the testing was "just to be sure" it wasn't Giardia.
Well, we got the results after a few days - Giardia positive.
To know my little trooper has been suffering unnecessarily makes me so sad, and angry...