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Our 18-year-old supersenior kitty has been sneezing and less active than normal for a while now. In the last 6 months she's had 2 'turns' where she's been very sick, but thankfully has bounced back twice now. The first time back in October she became super lethargic and just stayed in her little hidey cube all day for a day. On the rare occasions that she came out she was wobbling to the point where she would fall over occasionally. We took her to the vet, she got better after a few days, and the vet basically said that she either had a very transient infection, or else maybe actually had a little mini-stroke which is apparently not uncommon in cats and which can generally heal. She slowly got better and better, although it took a while for her to get as snuggly as she used to be (she practically lived on my partner's lap). They discovered that she has the beginnings of kidney disease, but other results from the bloods came back fine. The second time she was off her food for a couple of days and then one day she spent most of the day trying to drink water and immediately throwing up. She did it like five times in very brief succession, and one trip to the emergency vet later she needed intravenous hydration. It turns out that her weight dropped from 4.3 to 3.3 kilos since we last weighed her (a month or so before this happened), and her kidneys are slightly worse. As of weighing her today she's 3.75kg - still less than I'd like but goin gin the right direction. Since then she's better and she's more snuggly/active/acting a bit more like she normally does. However it's a real struggle to get her to eat, and while she's sneezing less she is still snotty. Both times she went to the vet they were only able to partially examine her. Even when she's really sick, and even when sedated beforehand, she will not peacefully let a vet examine her. They were only barely able to get enough blood for a sample the first time after we had given her an oral sedative that morning, and the second time they needed 3 people to burrito her and draw the blood even though she was almost completely out of it. I guess I'm wondering what we can do given how bad of a patient she is. Will a vet be able to prescribe antibiotics without the opportunity to thoroughly examine her? Can we collect a mucus sample and use that as the basis for working out if there's anything we can give her? The first time we took her in the vet basically said that it could be an infection, or it could be something like latent FIV coming out late in life, or it could even be something physically stuck in her sinuses that are causing the issue - but being able to examine her for that would probably necessitate general anaesthetic, the impact of which could potentially be worse for her than whatever is ailing her given her age. Also does anyone have any advice regarding of to get an already fussy cat with a increasing reluctance to eating to actually put on weight? We've gone from feeding her nutritionally-complete Kangaroo mince to trying her with Hills Kidney diet mousse (which she ate with gusto initially right after the second vet visit and then increasingly less) to a jag where she would only eat Temptations cat treats, to where we are now where we're doing a 50/50 mix of the kidney mousse and Whiskas Beef cat food that we've put through a food processor (as she would always very enthusiastically lick the gravy off the Whiskas but leave the meat chunks, so by pureeing it we've removed her ability to do so and then we can stir in the kidney food so she'll at least eat a 50/50 mix. But frankly we're running out of things to actually try feeding her. She's eating about 100g of the 50/50 mix a day plus a little bit of dry Kidney food (like, 5-10 grams a day) but from my calculations she's getting about 60% of the recommended caloric intake of a cat of her ideal weight (4.5kg) and while I'm guessing that's based on an active adult cat rather than a snoozy old indoor lapcat, I'm still panicking about her condition. Even mixing Churu (that kitty crack paste treat) into her food does not appear to encourage her. So we're out of the suggestions our vet gave us as well. I'm trying to be realistic - I know that 18 years is very much in the 'she's had a good run' territory and this might just be her edging towards end of life. And she's still a very happy kitty - she's snuggly and purry and still a funny little thing. I'm just wracking my brain as to whether there's anything else we can do for her because 2 different vets really haven't been able to discern what's wrong due to her being such a poor patient.
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Apr 2, 2024 08:33
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| # ¿ May 8, 2024 16:41 |
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Thanks to everyone who replied. Thankfully we've hit upon a combination of food that is seeing her weight slowly creep up, but it's good to know that there are some medicinal avenues that we can pursue in future.  She's a happy snoozy gremlin.
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May 7, 2024 03:11
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