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So, before I go any further, I just wanted to let you guys know that I called the vet first thing at 9AM this morning and Jackie, my cat, has an appointment for 2:40. I described the symptoms, and the vet didn't say "bring her to the emergency vet ASAP or something" so I guess that's not the worst. Ok, so anyway, here's the situation. This started... yesterday (Thursday) more or less, but there were some signs the day before I maybe should have paid more attention to? So anyway, starting Wednesday night (in retrospect) she wasn't quite acting like herself. She threw up, which isn't entirely uncommon and just happens every few months, so I did not think much of it. But her appetite also (in retrospect) went down. She also was acting strangely - spent the night in a little nest she made in a dark corner, which worried me a bit when I saw it, and she seemed unusually irritable. But she was eating and behaving fairly normally - still walking around and rubbing her face on things and purring appropriately and bothering me for attention and just being fairly normal. The other odd thing she did though, was pee in an odd place - Jackie *never* does that. She is fastidious about using the litter box usually and this should have clued me in if I was paying more attention and I'm really beating myself up about it. So, this was all basically yesterday early morning now. I left thinking Jackie was more or less fine (she always has been really healthy before) but things got really bad last night/early this morning. I noticed that while yes, she was "grooming", what she was actually doing was just licking her genital area repeatedly. Jackie is not usually the sort of cat who sticks her butt in your face (like some do) so I don't get a direct view of it every hour like some cat-owners - more like every few days for me. But I saw that her genital area looked red and inflamed and painful!  Poor, poor cat. So shes basically stopped eating in the last 12-20-ish hours (except for a bit I can get her to eat out of my hand) and isn't even using the litter box at all when she pees now - she's just walking over to this one spot in the living room and peeing on the hardwood and I'm just immediately cleaning up after her. She is *obviously* not healthy so I'm not mad, just incredibly worried. These most worrying symptoms have all started in, like, the last 6-8 hours (and I called the vet 3 hours ago as soon as they opened and the appointment is in 2.5 hours. Her genital area getting inflamed, the incontinence... all of that only started as far as I know in the last 24 hours, before then nothing was noticeably that bad, but things have started to look and smell *really* bad in that area of hers really really fast, so that freaked me out and I just don't know what else to do but leave it alone and bring her in. I'm sort of assuming/hoping/thinking this is like a UTI or something and can just be treated with antibiotics and she'll be OK. I mean.. It's not like she's at death's door here, or anything, at least I really really hope not She still purrs and will act happy and engaged when I pet her, and she can walk around and whatever, she's just obviously in pain, at least, it looks that way to me. She's sleeping right now which is very very good I think because she's not licking obsessively down there and probably making things worse... I am just *terrified* something might be really wrong with her. I've never had to deal with her having any sort of serious health issue. So I'm a bit scared.  Anyway, sorry for the.. rambling, and whatnot. I just thought maybe making a thread about this might at least help me feel better in the interim. I mean... The appointment is at 2:40 Eastern time so I really just have to wait it out, I guess.
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Oct 31, 2014 17:36
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| # ? May 22, 2024 05:23 |
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Poor cat. I'm thinking UTI too. I hope it's something relatively simple like that. Good luck!
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Oct 31, 2014 18:28
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I agree that is sounds like a UTI so with some antibiotics she will be ok. Most of the cats I had growing up would pass away from kidney issues so keeping an eye on this kind of thing is for the best.
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Oct 31, 2014 19:21
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Thanks guys.  Cats all packed up and my mom is driving us there now, which is nice of her since even though I'm mostly an adult it's also nice not to have to do this stuff alone, and this way I can talk to Jack on the ride over and keep her calm, she doesn't take too many car rides. She's doing OK though so far. Really hoping this goes well and they can do something, it's an awful feeling when your cat is obviously in pain and meowing and looking at you imploringly like "Please do something!" and all you can do is wait for the appointment, well, it's hard.
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Oct 31, 2014 19:35
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OK, whew, Jackie should be fine. Turns out it is, in fact, a bad UTI (at least I was right) and they said she was in a lot of pain. poor poor kitty. Anyway, they gave her a shot of antibiotics and cut away a lot of fur on her butt (Jackie is sort short-medium length with a particularly thick undercoat like a lot of randomly bred New England cats) as well as put some stuff on there that is probably some antibiotic cream. I'll have to give Jackie painkillers and nurse her a bit, but she should be OK.. I feel a little silly making a thread for this now, but whatever. I was *seriously* worried. I adore my kitty and seeing her in pain with an obvious affliction and not being able to do a drat thing about it isn't easy
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Oct 31, 2014 21:07
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Yay! I'm glad your buddy is going to be ok. I learned one year the hard way that one of my cats eats ribbon. She was puking foam, so I freaked at took her to the vet. Intestinal blockage! They decided to keep her overnight for observation, with the intention of doing surgery in the morning. We got really loving lucky. She barfed up the blockage, somehow, and was free to go. They said it was huge and sloppy and full of ribbon.
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Nov 1, 2014 02:50
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Cats do some really, really stupid things. They said this was likely a result of fecal matter getting somewhere it shouldn't have, and they seemed to be accusing me of not keeping up to date on cleaning the litter box (which I scoop 2-3 times a goddamn day since I live in a pretty small apartment and one needs to contain the smell imperatively) but then I realized this was almost certainly the result of a *really* bad habit Jackie has of scraping her butt on the floor (any kind of floor) to clean it, which they seemed to agree. Or who knows how it happened. Cats are weird/gross but we love them! The hard thing now is properly squirting the little oral syringes of painkillers into her mouth (they said to go towards her cheek) without spilling. Any tips? Jackie does *not* like having her mouth open, but she would never in a million years bite or scratch me for any reason. She just squirms a lot.
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Nov 1, 2014 12:03
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Kitty burrito. Grab a towel, tuck her arms down, and wrap her up tight. Tighter than you think or her legs will escape and you'll have this awkward cat mess.
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Nov 1, 2014 16:20
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kaworu posted:OK, whew, Jackie should be fine. Turns out it is, in fact, a bad UTI (at least I was right) and they said she was in a lot of pain. Truthfully, I'm glad you made the thread because it's always nice to have good news! Glad to hear Miss Jackie is going to be OK. My girl Mona just got diagnosed with a minor UTI, so I'm feeling your pain. In my case it's also good news because the UTI might have been artificially inflating her bloodwork levels (kidney disease), so she may actually be early stage II instead of mid-late.  Seconding the Purrito (TM). We had to do that to administer subcutaneous fluids last night, and it worked very well. Nudge the tip of the dropper into the corner of her jaw, it makes it reflectively open. Have some smelly food or treats on hand (unless your doc said not to feed her after, which I don't think is typical), so she learns to associate meds with treats. Mine forgives me immediately for her meds if I feed her yummy food after. Weird how a UTI is a good thing. Glad she's going to be OK!
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Nov 6, 2014 04:35
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Glad she is on the mend! If it wasn't a UTI I was going to suggest she might be constipated. I thought my cat had a UTI when she was peeing in weird places, but she was just having trouble pooping!  She's on Miralax now and poops much better.
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Nov 7, 2014 14:56
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Thanks for all the kind thoughts guys It actually turned into... kind of an ongoing drama recently! She had been on the mend and doing much better - I knew she was doing better when she stopped peeing in weird places after a few days and went back to her litter box. As it was explained it to me, if a cat has like a UTI (or something where it hurts when they pee/poop) they will associate the pain with the place where it happened (the litter box) and avoid that place. Which does make sense in cat logic! But she wasn't eating quite normally or behaving quite like herself and her skin still looked irritated on her rear end and there wasn't a whole lot I could do to help, though it was clearing up slowly, but not fast enough I though But by then it was the two week point (this past Friday, a few days ago) and I was bringing her in again to the vet for another examination to make sure the infection had cleared up and everything which was already scheduled - I would have brought her in again anyway. However, this involved Jackie having to pee to see if the UTI cleared up, and cats do not necessarily pee on command. We ended up leaving her there for the day since it was like 11AM and she was bound to pee eventually, right? It's a nice vet though and they love her there (she never scratches and is a far easier patient than most) and she had her own space with plenty of room so it seemed fine. But she still hadn't peed by 6PM when the normal shift was closing and they felt like it probably wasn't cleared up and they had to know how much, so they said they would just keep her overnight (which made me feel worried) and I could get her Saturday morning. Didn't cost a ton or anything. So that's what I did and it was... Strange. When you have a cat around who is very clingy and you live alone and never used to being *totally* alone in your apartment... Well, it's odd. Anyway the UTI was mostly but not all the way gone and she's on a round of weaker antibiotics, plus I have a spray for her skin irritation, so things have been going much better. But Jackie was a *wreck* after being left at the Vet for 24 hours, I feel kind of awful in retrospect since I thought she'd be... less freaked about it. She was just totally weird and restless for a while after we got home and has been clingier than ever since. It's sort of adorable but also slightly annoying since she has picked up old habits she stopped doing years ago. Like I kept waking up with her sleeping *on* my stomach or legs, and she's not only been sleeping on her cat bed for months but usually only sleeps next to me, not *on* me which is what she did way back in the day. She doesn't really believe in "personal space" per se. Anyway. She's a very ridiculous cat. I'm just glad I found an effective way to fool her into taking the pills they gave me, and that she's still on the mend. This really is the first time she has *ever* been actually sick in any real way, and she's nearly 8 years old now, I believe.
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Nov 17, 2014 07:15
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Just to clarify... They waited for her to pee into a litter pan with (I assume) non-absorbable litter and then took that urine from the pan and tested it for a UTI? And they had the results back within a day?
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Nov 17, 2014 18:11
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I've found my cats are pretty clingy if they or I am away for longer than a day. They'll get a little whiny, too. That behavior has become more pronounced over time in my older cat--how old is Jackie? That might explain why she's being a little weird. They cope with change and stress in weird cat-ways, as you've seen with the maladaptive peeing.
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Nov 17, 2014 18:33
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| # ? May 22, 2024 05:23 |
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Braki posted:Just to clarify... Yep, this was the case exactly. Is that unusually fast? And to the above poster, that sounds pretty spot-on. Jackie is sort of finally getting older (she's actually turning 9 soon I think) so yeah. She has definitely got a little more whiny and apt to meow annoyingly as she's gotten older, but it's nothing too annoying. It's more annoying when she purrs super-loudly to get my attention, oddly enough, heh.
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Nov 18, 2014 00:40
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