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I'm quite disastified with my vet and I wonder if anyone could tell me if this sounds normal. I have three cats. One is a regular domestic short hair with a history of having had expensive surgery to save his life from a rare stomach disorder.The other two are notoriously expensive pedigrees. The third cat is a 5 month old kitten that I've had for 5 weeks. This disclosure is here because I feel I've been offered some expensive diagnostics that were not neccessary. The vet is relatively new for them, in that I've been seeing them for a year. One of my cats has skin allergies that she's received steroid treatment for at a cost of $200 a shot in the past year from this vet, and which didn't really work and I've since found out that I can give her over the counter antihistamines for, which do work and don't cost $200. Two of my cats (the two older cats) have been ill for three weeks now. Not desperately ill, just down on appetite, requiring a heck of a lot of coaxing to be fed. This is not remotely normal for them as they are normally food obsessed. You can get food into them, it just takes a lot of work. Their energy levels are almost normal, they are sleeping too much but are not lethargic when awake. I have a cat wheel which they are still running on. It seems like a much more minor condition than when my older cat was obviously dying and needed stomach surgery. I've spent $900 so far on this seemingly minor condition which albeit not having severe symptoms, is not going away and is worrying the hell out of me. All the vet will prescribe is steroids. I do not have a diagnosis. Blood work came back normal. A fecal sample was refused, presumably because the white blood cells are normal, so the vet suspects a virus. But I've done some googling and articles on some veterinary sites suggest that normal white blood cell count does not preclude a bacterial infection in the stomach. One of the cats has a slight fever. The other does not. Both cats have stomach gas and are farting which is not normal for them and I mentioned it to the vet but it kinda got hand waved. I'm not sure why, at least one of the cats does not tolerate gas at all, has had it in the past and refused food from it before. The vet wanted to do x-Rays right away, to rule out blockages from dietary indiscretion on two cats with the same symptoms. I was pretty unhappy about this because I told them its unheard of for one cat to eat foreign objects and while the other most definitely does, that's why we always keep him in the same room as us and why the main room he's kept in is free of items he would eat. That's why he always boards with them while we away. If he did this, we would see it. I also didn't think it was likely at all for two cats to have the exact same symptoms and for it to be a blockage, because I felt that sheer common sense would make a transmittable disease more likely. I also have had experience with the symptoms of a blockage in the past (projectile vomiting. Crying, and not eating at all. Not "kinda off his food while one other cat is also kinda off her food.") This blockage is what almost killed him in the past, and was not caused by dietary indigestion, but severe pyloric stenosis. They did the X-rays anyway because it's the only thing they were offering besides the blood test so I thought, well, whatever. And they came back normal. The vet suspects a virus but I haven't been offered tests to discern which one exactly. No fecal tests, like I say they said they were unecessary which leaves me confused as hell. I figure they ruled out bacterial infection due to normal white blood cells. I keep going back in to see them, they keep giving them more steroids. The last time I was given steroids I was assured "this will make your cats eat normally for the next two weeks so you don't have to keep taking hours out to coax them." This turned out to not be true. It's not normal for one cat to not eat from stress due to a new cat introduction. He is 100% benign towards new cats. It is probably normal for the second cat, but she's the one with a fever. All the vet is offering me if this most recent steroid treatment does not work is ultrasounds on both cats, because it's all they have left as a diagnostic apparently. And it's really expensive and doesn't seem likely to show anything up besides organ damage, which if they have from some virus, I don't know how that can be treated without treating the actual virus first, and I don't know what the hell that is yet. It doesn't seem likely to be FIP because FIP would most likely show far more serious symptoms than "off their food, but still actually eating." The new kitten is 100% fine to date, and eats like a horse. Every vet I've had in the past, on being presented with a cat with poor appetite has offered antibiotics from the get go and sent me on my way. And they've always worked, which makes me want the antibiotics because nothing else is working, but it seems my vet has ruled out bacterial infections without even doing furthur tests to see if they might be there. I am aware that it isn't recommended these days to just offer antibiotics from day one, but I'm getting pretty drat desperate. Sing like a girl fucked around with this message at 07:52 on May 2, 2016 |
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May 2, 2016 07:48
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My 4 year old cat didn't eat yesterday and this morning also didn't eat even though I gave her many different food options. She only ate a little when I hand fed her a few small pieces of chicken, but she only ate about 4 or 5 bites, so today I took her to the vet. They did bloodwork and tested for some specific disease, I can't remember which, and did an x-ray. Couldn't find anything really wrong other than a slightly low white blood cell count and somewhat inflamed intestines. The vet sent me home with some probiotics and some high calorie nutrient paste for me to syringe feed her with. Tonight she vomited up the probiotics but also a giant hairball, like over twice as big as any I've seen her produce before. I'm hoping that was the cause of her loss of appetite, but who knows. Not really looking for advice I guess things are as under control right now as they can be, but this is very stressful for her and me as well. She really hates getting force fed, and I hate having to do it.
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May 2, 2016 17:22
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15 year old sweet as pie black kitty at the humane society that I have visited every week for the last month just had his adoption fee waived. He has the cutest little meow, and is a total little gentleman  But where will I put a little box in my house?
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May 2, 2016 20:35
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fart simpson posted:My 4 year old cat didn't eat yesterday and this morning also didn't eat even though I gave her many different food options. She only ate a little when I hand fed her a few small pieces of chicken, but she only ate about 4 or 5 bites, so today I took her to the vet. They did bloodwork and tested for some specific disease, I can't remember which, and did an x-ray. Couldn't find anything really wrong other than a slightly low white blood cell count and somewhat inflamed intestines. The vet sent me home with some probiotics and some high calorie nutrient paste for me to syringe feed her with. Tonight she vomited up the probiotics but also a giant hairball, like over twice as big as any I've seen her produce before. I'm hoping that was the cause of her loss of appetite, but who knows. Without a giant wad of hair in her intestines she should probably be feeling hungry at one point. Hang in there.
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May 2, 2016 22:12
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Mocking Bird posted:15 year old sweet as pie black kitty at the humane society that I have visited every week for the last month just had his adoption fee waived. He has the cutest little meow, and is a total little gentleman Bathroom! I keep mine at the top of the stairs over an office chair mat for east cleanup!
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May 3, 2016 01:39
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Mocking Bird posted:15 year old sweet as pie black kitty at the humane society that I have visited every week for the last month just had his adoption fee waived. He has the cutest little meow, and is a total little gentleman  Congrats! I keep the box in the bathroom, but anywhere private is good. I used to keep another one under a table in my room draped with a little privacy curtain for another one of the cats who was a bit of a nervous guy.
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May 3, 2016 01:49
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I have a question for anyone who has had a cat in kidney failure: what were some of the final signs you saw that made you start considering the difficult decision whether or not to have them put to sleep? I adopted my Siamese when she was about 10 and I've had her for 6 or 7 years, so that puts her at ~17 years old. About a year and a half ago I took her to the vet and she was diagnosed to be in renal failure, so I've been giving her fluids every day since then. She has also had a long history of bladder stones. Recently I have been adding .3mL of Cerenia into her daily 100mL fluid line to prevent her from vomiting as her kidney toxicity increases. Her previous owner was an elderly lady that thought my cat was a cartoon character, so literally all she was fed for the first part of her life was milk and tuna. When I first brought her home, she didn't eat for like the first three weeks and actually went into the early stages of fatty liver syndrome until the shelter I adopted her from figured out what was going on. Luckily it was caught early enough and treated, so she was fine. I add all this to the background because I know there are some special diets that can treat bladder stones and slow the progression of renal failure, but her previous owner quite literally broke her brain and all my cat will eat is wet tuna-flavored cat food (which I feed her 2-3 times a day). I managed to get her off of the straight tuna and I have tried on multiple different occasions to wean her to dry and/or special food in some form or another, but she will eventually stop eating all together again and make herself sick. Needless to say, she has always been overweight except for the past couple of years. So I am at a point with my cat where I can't really get her to eat a special diet and she has lost over half her body weight since she was diagnosed to be in kidney failure. Over the past couple of days she has had difficulty urinating; she still goes, but it's just a little here and there and I think she has bladder stones again. I don't think her body could handle another surgery to get rid of the stones. With all of that said, she actually seems to be in good spirits. She's still up and moving around, and doesn't seem to be overly lethargic or anything. I am taking her to the vet tomorrow to see what his recommendations moving forward are, but I am just looking for some additional advice here. I know there is no one thing to look for, but I have a feeling with as skinny as she is now that if she starts to go downhill it's going to be very fast. Stupid Dick fucked around with this message at 02:12 on May 3, 2016 |
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May 3, 2016 02:03
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MrSlam posted:Without a giant wad of hair in her intestines she should probably be feeling hungry at one point. Hang in there. I hope so but it's been 11 hours and she's still not interested in food 
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May 3, 2016 02:23
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My kitty was a craigslist special, i got her when she was 8 weeks old and she seems healthy, I've taken her to the vet a few times and she's getting spayed in a month or so, but at 5 months old, she's still super clingy and cuddly, which is about 90% awesome, except at night if I let her sleep in the bed with me/under the blankets close, she won't sleep just lick nonstop, it drives me mad to the point that I have to give her the boot. The hell is going on? Is there a way to get her to chill out?
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May 3, 2016 03:27
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She's just super happy to be with you. Does she ever tire herself out licking? See if you can get a soft toy for her to snuggle to sleep.
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May 3, 2016 03:33
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Loving Life Partner posted:My kitty was a craigslist special, i got her when she was 8 weeks old and she seems healthy, I've taken her to the vet a few times and she's getting spayed in a month or so, but at 5 months old, she's still super clingy and cuddly, which is about 90% awesome, except at night if I let her sleep in the bed with me/under the blankets close, she won't sleep just lick nonstop, it drives me mad to the point that I have to give her the boot. The hell is going on? Is there a way to get her to chill out? Is it woolsucking behavior? It's pretty common. You might have to wait it out, but I had a cat that just progressed to good old fashioned pica later on. Which was also manageable, but sort of a pain.
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May 3, 2016 05:13
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fart simpson posted:I hope so but it's been 11 hours and she's still not interested in food She threw up all the nutrient paste I gave her for breakfast, so now the vet's keeping her for the rest of the day to monitor her and give her nutrient injections I hope she gets better really soon
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May 3, 2016 06:24
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Stupid Dick posted:I have a question for anyone who has had a cat in kidney failure: what were some of the final signs you saw that made you start considering the difficult decision whether or not to have them put to sleep? There aren't really universal signs, but generally if you're paying her this much attention, you'll know. It's basically when her quality of life is so poor that the happy moments aren't really worth the suffering. For mine it was she could barely muster up the energy to eat or use the litter. She couldn't jump at all anymore and could barely walk up to the bed to sleep even with a ramp we put up at the end for her she was so weak. She just slept 23 hours a day and it was obvious she was in pain. Even so, it was such a gradual process eventually we just had to pick a date since she wasn't getting any worse but she wasn't going to get better either and we didn't want her to live in pain anymore. You may get to the point where the decision will essentially be made for you, or you may just have to decide that threshold for yourself.
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May 3, 2016 06:29
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So spring is here, and the not-so-small Ville here has a tick in the neck.  Problem 1: Ville is not exactly touch friendly cat. So even getting close is a challenge Problem 2: Ville is not small and weak cat. Especially the back claws could rip phonebooks to shreds. Problem 3: Ville REALLY hates being confined (to anything else than the carrier for some reason?). After 2 tries, the end result is a sulking cat hiding somewhere, lots of (my) blood and the tick is still in the neck. Next time: Full personal protection in the form of motorcycle leathers. Which leads to problem 4: Ville is not a stupid cat and is also extremely paranoid on anything suspicious. I need to plan this well..
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May 3, 2016 09:09
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Letmebefrank posted:So spring is here, and the not-so-small Ville here has a tick in the neck. welcome to burritoville, population: furious cat with your blood on it
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May 3, 2016 10:09
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My vet sent me this clickbait article. It's about how cats vomiting twice in a month means you need to take your cat into the vet immediately. Something about the study seems off but I'm not smart enough to put my finger on it. Maybe it's because it's an article written by a veterinarian based on a study done by veterinarian on a veterinarian website sent to my e-mail account by my veterinarian. I guess there's no smarter person to talk about this sort of thing, but it feels kind of fear-mongering. 1 cat was normal. 49 cats had chronic IBS. 50 cats had cancer. I wonder if all these cats were strays or if it's like the Yerba Mate studies where they study exclusively sick people who drink Yerba Mate without a control group, therefore 100% of Yerba Mate drinkers get sick.
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May 3, 2016 23:13
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MrSlam posted:My vet sent me this clickbait article. It's about how cats vomiting twice in a month means you need to take your cat into the vet immediately. Something about the study seems off but I'm not smart enough to put my finger on it. Maybe it's because it's an article written by a veterinarian based on a study done by veterinarian on a veterinarian website sent to my e-mail account by my veterinarian. I guess there's no smarter person to talk about this sort of thing, but it feels kind of fear-mongering. Your vet is late on his boat payment.
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May 3, 2016 23:16
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The study itself has several limitations: 1) It's retrospective, meaning they examined previous cases that presented to the hospital, and did not enroll patients themselves. 2) Their sampling method is not "all cats who vomit twice in one month ever". They looked at cases where cats had at least 1 of 3 signs: chronic vomiting (meaning at least 2x/month for 3 consecutive months), small bowel diarrhea lasting for several weeks, and weight loss of at least 1.1 lbs over the past 6 months. But it doesn't stop there; they had to have at least 1 of those 3 signs AND abnormal ultrasound findings where the small intestinal walls appeared thick. They also excluded cats who consistently vomited plant material. So basically, they're saying that cats with chronic gastrointestinal signs who have abnormal ultrasound findings generally have either IBD or small cell lymphoma, which... is really not a surprise at all. It does NOT mean that if your cat vomits twice in one month, that it has a 99% chance of having IBD or lymphoma. I would say... if your cat normally vomits like, once or twice a year, and suddenly you notice that they've been vomiting more frequently for the past couple months, then it's worth additional diagnostics like an abdominal ultrasound. I think why the article wants to be more proactive about diagnostics is that in that study (as biased as it is), a quarter of their cases came from incidental annual exams, and owners frequently didn't think the vomiting was a concern, when actually their cat did have a significant medical problem. Downside of this is they have no data where cats underwent testing and abdominal ultrasound was normal, and then pursued a surgical biopsy and what those results were. Braki fucked around with this message at 01:55 on May 4, 2016 |
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May 4, 2016 01:50
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I have a question. (Which I think kind of ties in with the previous conversation oddly enough). We have a cat that got sick this weekend (Like really sick and it was fast). She has diarrhea and was pooping everywhere even with clean litter (About 2 weeks), so I knew something was wrong, and we were working on getting her to the vet (times, etc). Well, she went downhill fast this weekend and stopped eating, so I took yesterday off and got her to the vet. She was dehydrated and was drooling heavily (Which I didn't see until Monday morning). Vet kept her overnight. She vomited up pills that were given, so they gave her a shot to stop that, fluids, and some pills to treat parasites and bacterial infections (Just incase). As of her report today she doesn't have any bodily function failures (liver, kidneys), no heartworms, no diabetes. The vet still isn't sure what it is, he said it could be an intestinal parasite (She got out a few weeks back), something toxic or lymphoma. However, that's an aside. My question is really this. She's still not eating on her own (As of yet) and they were syringe feeding her. I have to do that once a day for 5 days to give her a powder with her other meds. However, I think there were some miscommunication between the techs and the vet, and the vet glossed over it with me: Should I be attempting to syringe feed her more than once a day with the powder if she's not eating? I'm heavily debating just taking her to the vet hospital that keeps them for a while so they can deal with it, because the syringe feeding is a huge loving mess, and a huge pain in the rear end to do. I really can't afford it (I'm not even sure how much they charge right now), but I want to make sure she is getting the proper care and treatment.
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May 4, 2016 02:41
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Gothmog1065 posted:I have a question. (Which I think kind of ties in with the previous conversation oddly enough). I would recommend calling your vet and getting the instructions straight. No one here is going to know what he meant and what the proper dosage is. And the huge loving mess and the huge pain in the rear end is what you sign up for when you adopt a pet.
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May 4, 2016 02:57
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Deteriorata posted:I would recommend calling your vet and getting the instructions straight. No one here is going to know what he meant and what the proper dosage is. And the huge loving mess and the huge pain in the rear end is what you sign up for when you adopt a pet. If I was unclear, it was just feeding her food, not the food/medicine mix. The medicine part was clear. And yes, I understand it's what I signed up for, I've had her for 9 years. It's just going to make things a huge pain in the morning to add 30 minutes of having her spit cat food where both my wife and I are occupied by that, as well as preparing my toddler and infant for daycare. That is only if she doesn't eat by herself.
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May 4, 2016 03:19
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I don't know if you know this already, but as I'm syringe feeding my cat right now I've figured out you should hold her head by the zygomatic arches and tilt it upward slightly, and syringe a small amount at a time into the back of her mouth. She's much less likely to spit it out.
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May 4, 2016 03:23
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fart simpson posted:I don't know if you know this already, but as I'm syringe feeding my cat right now I've figured out you should hold her head by the zygomatic arches and tilt it upward slightly, and syringe a small amount at a time into the back of her mouth. She's much less likely to spit it out. So basically hold her skull kind of between the jaw hinge and eye socket and gently pry her mouth open? But not fully straight up? They had her basically nose pointed up, was that too far?
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May 4, 2016 04:05
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Yes, that's the right spot to be holding her head. It gives you good control over her head. I don't know if it's too far, but you shouldn't really need to specifically pry her jaw open. If you gently push the syringe into her mouth at the side-back of her mouth instead of coming in from the front, her mouth will naturally pop open and give you access. She'll still probably be struggling but this is the easiest you can make it.
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May 4, 2016 04:29
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Apparently Foam ear plugs trump all other cat toys for batting around the living room like a lunatic!
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May 4, 2016 13:26
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Ferremit posted:Apparently Foam ear plugs trump all other cat toys for batting around the living room like a lunatic! Yeahhhh, take care to make sure they don't eat them though because those seem like bad news if they do
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May 4, 2016 13:36
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Ferremit posted:Apparently Foam ear plugs trump all other cat toys for batting around the living room like a lunatic! A d20 works really well too!
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May 4, 2016 13:39
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duckfarts posted:Yeahhhh, take care to make sure they don't eat them though because those seem like bad news if they do Iron Crowned posted:A d20 works really well too!
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May 4, 2016 16:00
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So a few months back I noticed one of my cats had runny poops, but it was a bit strange, he pooped 3 different times in 3 different places(he's an outdoors cat during the day), it was runny and it was very little and then he was back to himself, after that nothing, it didn't happen again for months, but it only ever lasted a day. Today I noticed it again but neither did he poop very frequently, he just went once and it was a bit runny but had very slight consistency, these runny poop episodes seem to be very infrequent, months or weeks will go by with perfectly solid poops, then runny for a day, I'm gonna take him to the vet when I get paid and go for a full work-up but should I be highly concerned here? Why only a day of runny poops? I don't feed him canned stuff and his dry food is free of by-products and other junk, for treats I give him Tuna and supplement him with several vitamins like Lysine, urinary tract health and a general all around vitamin, is he just eating poo poo outside he shouldn't?
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May 4, 2016 21:53
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Alteisen posted:I don't feed him canned stuff and his dry food is free of by-products and other junk, for treats I give him Tuna and supplement him with several vitamins like Lysine, urinary tract health and a general all around vitamin, is he just eating poo poo outside he shouldn't? The answer to this question is almost certainly yes.
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May 4, 2016 22:35
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Any tips on cat hair removal from furniture? How about one of these? http://www.amazon.com/Sticky-Buddy-Reusable-Cleaner-Remover/dp/B00ESYZNR4 The reviews are inconclusive so I'm wondering if anyone has any real experience they can share. Thanks!
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May 5, 2016 00:33
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themongol posted:Any tips on cat hair removal from furniture? How about one of these? I've had similar products marketed as lint rollers. After about 50ish washes (if you're lucky) the glue isn't really sticky anymore. A rolling brush attachment on my Shark vacuum works really well for getting rid of cat hair. So does tossing the slipcover in the washer. (All of my furniture has slipcovers or blankets on; there's just no way to stop the hair.)
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May 5, 2016 00:44
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I just use lint brushes. Too much hassle with the other stuff where you have to stop to unroll.
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May 5, 2016 01:20
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themongol posted:Any tips on cat hair removal from furniture? How about one of these? i have a dyson hand vacuum, and it has some attachment that has a tiny strip of that one way lint brush material stuck on the bottom of it and it works great. i think i saw a review (wirecutter?) for a black and decker hand vacuum that has this weird attachment which is a rubber pad with a hole in the middle
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May 5, 2016 03:06
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themongol posted:Any tips on cat hair removal from furniture? How about one of these? Use a shower squeegee. Run it over the surface and all the fur will end up in a pile. http://www.spotlightstores.com/home/cleaning/sabco-shower-glass-squeegee/p/80269838?gclid=CLft8PvpwswCFQ8AvAod6c0JAg
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May 5, 2016 12:29
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Can anyone recommend a self-cleaning litterbox? If I don't scoop every 8 hours my 2 cats will use the floor instead.
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May 5, 2016 16:20
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ConorT posted:Can anyone recommend a self-cleaning litterbox? If I don't scoop every 8 hours my 2 cats will use the floor instead. cat genies are good, albeit pricey and some cats wont use them. They also take up a good amount of space. I have 2 myself
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May 5, 2016 16:48
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ConorT posted:Can anyone recommend a self-cleaning litterbox? If I don't scoop every 8 hours my 2 cats will use the floor instead. litter robot is considered to be The Best, though 1) they're expensive, even for refurbs/secondhand 2) some cats may be freaked out by it if not introduced properly or just because cats the littermaid is dogshit and should be avoided at all costs, same with most any other rake-based clones. cat genie gets a pass for this because it doesn't use clumping litter
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May 5, 2016 17:15
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ConorT posted:Can anyone recommend a self-cleaning litterbox? If I don't scoop every 8 hours my 2 cats will use the floor instead. How many litter boxes do you have?
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May 5, 2016 19:56
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Stupid Dick posted:I have a question for anyone who has had a cat in kidney failure: what were some of the final signs you saw that made you start considering the difficult decision whether or not to have them put to sleep? Everything I've read for renal failure says don't go low protein, but keep it around like 50-60% and try and drop phosphorous as much as you can. Tiki Cat "Hawaiian Grill" flavor is all tuna and is at 196 mg/100 calories. Weruva Cats-in-the-Kitchen "La Isla Bonita" flavor has Mackerel and Tuna as the number 1 and 2 non-broth ingredients and it has 166 mg per 100 calories. I feed my cats La Isla Bonita. If your cat is willing to try other fish flavors Tiki Cat Gourmet Carnivore Tilapia and Seabass have 172 and 161 mg respectively. Here's a huge list of cat foods and their phosphorous you can check through if those don't work http://www.catinfo.org/docs/FoodChartPublic9-22-12.pdf I hope she starts eating more. How did the vet visit go? Reik fucked around with this message at 21:02 on May 5, 2016 |
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May 5, 2016 20:35
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