I am so happy she is doing better. My cat liked the Dr. elsey's dry for a while but now doesn't seem to care for it. I didn't get a wet sample but their food only comes in the 5.5 oz can and my cat will rarely eat left overs. Best of luck with your tests!Hi! Sorry for being so MIA for so long. School is back in session and my first tests for all of my classes are next week (I have a test almost every day of the week). I'm essentially in all science classes this semester which is forcing me to study way more than I normally would so that I'm prepared and on top of my game. Gotta make those grades so I can get a good job to support Mika, haha!
Mika is doing really well actually! We unfortunately had to scrap the raw diet completely because she refused to eat it. We were doing so well and then she decided that it just wasn't for her. Her wet food preferences have been so spotty too that it made feeding her a really big challenge. I decided that eating was the biggest priority over everything and got samples from Dr. Elsey for their dry food. They sent me the same flavor in wet too, which was nice. Mika went nuts for the salmon flavored dry food but I didn't feel comfortable having her on a fish flavored food so we made the switch to the chicken food. She LOVES it. She's back to running to her food bowl and my roommates have been making comments that she definitely looks like she's gaining weight. Her fur is sort of coming back in. She looks like she has some odd shading around her belly and front leg. Her back legs lost all the hair down them but we've switched back to Tidy Cats so we'll see how that works out. I have a shipment of Yesterday's News in pellets coming in. My roommate with the new kitten has a pellet litter and Mika has apparently been using it with no troubles, so we'll be making the switch to that since we have another cat in the apartment that is MESSY when he goes to the litter box. He throws the litter everywhere, tracks all over the place and even gets wet litter on the walls.
I just ran out of the Dr. Elsey's food a few days ago (I only got a 2 lb bag when I actually ordered food) and Mika is VERY upset with me. It's really hard to get the food here quickly. All of the retailers (Dr. Elsey, Chewy, Petco) take a very long time for the food to deliver. Amazon is actually out of stock for it. In the mean time, I'm been trying to supplement with the Weruva Slip 'n Serve wet foods. I bought the variety pack. A lot of them aren't a big hit but she seems to be liking the chicken flavors. They don't seem to hold her over very long. My roommate is going to give me some of her kitten's food since Mika has been stealing it. I'll be using that as well to hold her over till Dr. Elsey's arrives.
With her previous medical issues Mika seems to be doing really well! Her jaundice is now completely isolated to her ears and nipples again. She's completely off of the prednisolone. I have some sneaking suspicions that Mika might have become diabetic from being on the pred. Her water consumption on pred. was always VERY high as was her appetite. But that was what we had wanted in hopes that the lowering of the inflammation and eating more would cause her to gain weight. Instead, it caused her to appear worse (we didn't do blood work) with her jaundice and overall personality. Now that Mika is off of the pred. she is still drinking (and peeing) large amounts of water. She's also constantly hungry. Part of my issue right now is that Mika wakes me up every 3 hours during the night to be fed. But because I don't have the Dr. Elsey's (the food she REALLY wants to eat) its really frustrating because she will refuse food and then become increasingly more aggravating (I will admit I have cried the last two nights at 4:30 am from frustration and lack of sleep at Mika). She will get in my face, tap me multiple times, cry loudly and scratch on the door frames and wall corners to wake me up to feed her. If I ignore her (because I do feed her, but again, not what she wants), she will jump up on my desk and chew on my papers, folders and anything else she can get her mouth around. This includes cardboard boxes. She doesn't EAT them, just chews them. But she's destroyed important notes for classes, homework and other things in the process of chewing all over stuff. It forces me to get up, find something she WILL eat, and then this process repeats in 3 more hours.
Now granted, I was being woken up (ever so slightly because I could roll over and go right back to bed) even when I had the Dr. Elsey's food available. But I would simply move her to the bowl or drop her on the floor and she'd immediately go eat. I also don't recall being woken up so often -- maybe once a night? Where as this has been the last 3 nights, going to bed at 11 after feeding her and being woken up every 3 hours after. We'll see if the kitten chow my roommate has will appease Mika during the night tonight. I can't afford to be sleep deprived this week since I have so many tests. The Dr. Elsey's is arriving Friday.
Another thing to note is that I have noticed some interesting things going on with Mika's skin. I have two separate things occurring on her that I'm not sure about. I plan to take her to the vet in a few weeks when I get paid. The first thing I have noticed is around her mouth: I believe this is from her medication. It is only focused around her mouth on one side (the side I give her medication on). If you feel it with your fingers, it feels crunchy? Like a scab or food collected there. I have scratched it when she rubs her face on my fingers and what normally happens is it flakes off in large chunks with fur attached. Like the fur mats to the flaky skin? It's a bit hard to describe but I have gone in before and gotten tweezers and removed chunks. It isn't painful for her it seems but rather, relieving? I think it might itch because she will press into the flat side of the tweezers when I run them over the area. When the flakey fur/mat is scratched/removed there is skin below but as said, all the hair in that area is falling out when scratched or removed. It isn't spreading and the other cats haven't had any issues (Mika rubs on them) so it doesn't seem contagious. The other skin issue I've noticed is on her belly/legs: This isn't concerning to me but I don't have any idea what could be causing it. Black and pink patches have started develop on Mika's underside and legs. Some of the black patches are flaky and look dry (the skin) but they don't bother her in anyway. I don't ever see her licking them or anything along those lines. When I rubbed one of the black dry spots it flaked like dandruff. I read that dry skin like that in cats is associated with being dehydrated but as mentioned before she drinks A LOT of water. Another suspicion for diabetes.
Lastly, the only other update with Mika is in regards to the new kitten. My roommate was a little ignorant in believing that because the kitten grew up originally in a vet's clinic, surrounded by many other new animals all the time (and did really well with the transition to her parents home) that she wouldn't need to be transitioned here. When she got here with the new kitten, she let her out directly into the kitchen when Mika was hanging out. Of course the new kitten got frightened and Mika got curious about the new animal. I, of course, separated the two and then helped my roommate transition the new kitten in her room and bathroom. Every time the male cat in the apartment meowed (or went to the door) or Mika went to the door, the new kitten would hiss and swat under the door. My roommate was shocked. Regardless, it took the new kitten a week to transition to the new room and then we slowly let her out. She's now fully transitioned and comfortable around the whole apartment. My issue is that the new kitten (Stassi) has gotten along BEAUTIFULLY with the male cat (Oliver). They play all day long, sleep together and groom each other. But Stassi and Mika? Nope. Stassi will consistently hiss at Mika, even if she approaches Mika first. Mika never reacts and it has never escalated beyond that but it really bothers all of us in the apartment that Stassi can't be around Mika without hissing. Mika has tried to play with Stassi, like chasing after her or play batting a few times and EVERY TIME Stassi shuts her down with a hiss. The weird thing is that they can sleep near each other and be in the same general area/room with no trouble. But as soon as they get to a certain distance from each other, Stassi hisses. I thought it might have had to do with the bad first introduction but I'm not sure. It breaks my heart because Mika clearly does want to be around Stassi but the feeling isn't reciprocated so Mika often gets dejected and will go sit in a corner or a perch to watch Oliver and Stassi play. I don't know how to fix the problem..
Again, SO sorry for the long delay (and as a result a long long update). I will try to be more proactive about updating with Mika, but they may be every weekend rather than every day like they use to be.