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Quick history-
I am caring for a 16 year old longhair male cat who lives outside but is friendly but sometimes comes inside in the basement during bad weather.
In the last three years his health declined rapidly. He had 7 very rotten teeth pulled three years ago and nearly died from starvation due to that. After he recovered well and put weight back on. I had to switch vets due to the old vet limiting hours. Until the end of last year, when he developed chronic diarrhea and vomiting he was doing good.
He slowly was losing weight this year and was peeing all over the house when he was the kind of cat that always went in the litter box.
Due to being on disability I have very limited funds, I cannot do any credit or loans on vet bills nor can I start any go fund me accounts, so pretty much if I don’t have the funds my cats can’t get vet care. Last year I had enough money to bring my cat in for blood/urine testing and get a teeth cleaning, but could not afford the x ray. The vet said everything was normal and his teeth are fine. However this vet is very money hungry and I also brought up mysterious lumps under his skin on his neck and the vet refused to take a biopsy of it and couldn’t wait to discharge my cat, acted like he was a monster or something.
So this year with his severe weight loss (16 pounds to 6 pounds!) and not eating plus vomiting and diarrhea I managed to get an ultrasound done and the vet said it’s either severe IBD or lymphoma of the lower bowel as there is a mass that showed up, I cannot afford a biopsy or chemotherapy so the official diagnosis is questionable but lymphoma is most likely. I asked to check his teeth and the vet insisted everything looks good, but then mentioned without an x ray there could be something hidden, and they never mentioned this last year when I had the money and he got a cleaning which upset me a lot! The vet said to give steroids to possibly shrink the lymphoma, but after reading the possible side effects and knowing I cannot keep up with vet visits if the steroids create new health issues we decided to not do them. I do give cerenia for nausea which had gotten him from not eating at all to wanting to eat and he has put some weight on. I’m just trying to keep him as comfortable as I can and give extra canned food mashed up as it’s easier to digest.
The newest issue is my cat always is hungry, but as soon as he eats he’ll scream, paw his mouth, growl and run away from the food and not eat. But sometimes he will eat very fast but doesn’t chew his food that good. After all this we feed him on plates and he reuses to go near food on a plate, if the food is dumped on the ground he tries to eat it but bugs get it and it spoils rather quickly and in winter it won’t be edible.
I can’t tell if this is severe nausea making him unable to eat, or bad teeth? Not having an updated x ray and a history of bad teeth has me suspicious it could be a bad tooth, or something to do with those mysterious lumps by his neck/jaw. On the other hand, with the stomach diagnosis this could be nausea or sickness induced food avoidance from remembering when he used to vomit after eating. A certain flavor or texture can bring on this fear of food I read.
The problem is I have no money for any further testing, two possible reasons he won’t eat, lumps nobody knows what they are, and a vet I don’t trust. I’m at a loss what to do at this point I was hoping other cat owners could chime in that had these symptoms and maybe I could figure out what’s going on, in hopes I could save up money if it could be bad teeth, but I don’t know how long he can go again not eating normally.
I am caring for a 16 year old longhair male cat who lives outside but is friendly but sometimes comes inside in the basement during bad weather.
In the last three years his health declined rapidly. He had 7 very rotten teeth pulled three years ago and nearly died from starvation due to that. After he recovered well and put weight back on. I had to switch vets due to the old vet limiting hours. Until the end of last year, when he developed chronic diarrhea and vomiting he was doing good.
He slowly was losing weight this year and was peeing all over the house when he was the kind of cat that always went in the litter box.
Due to being on disability I have very limited funds, I cannot do any credit or loans on vet bills nor can I start any go fund me accounts, so pretty much if I don’t have the funds my cats can’t get vet care. Last year I had enough money to bring my cat in for blood/urine testing and get a teeth cleaning, but could not afford the x ray. The vet said everything was normal and his teeth are fine. However this vet is very money hungry and I also brought up mysterious lumps under his skin on his neck and the vet refused to take a biopsy of it and couldn’t wait to discharge my cat, acted like he was a monster or something.
So this year with his severe weight loss (16 pounds to 6 pounds!) and not eating plus vomiting and diarrhea I managed to get an ultrasound done and the vet said it’s either severe IBD or lymphoma of the lower bowel as there is a mass that showed up, I cannot afford a biopsy or chemotherapy so the official diagnosis is questionable but lymphoma is most likely. I asked to check his teeth and the vet insisted everything looks good, but then mentioned without an x ray there could be something hidden, and they never mentioned this last year when I had the money and he got a cleaning which upset me a lot! The vet said to give steroids to possibly shrink the lymphoma, but after reading the possible side effects and knowing I cannot keep up with vet visits if the steroids create new health issues we decided to not do them. I do give cerenia for nausea which had gotten him from not eating at all to wanting to eat and he has put some weight on. I’m just trying to keep him as comfortable as I can and give extra canned food mashed up as it’s easier to digest.
The newest issue is my cat always is hungry, but as soon as he eats he’ll scream, paw his mouth, growl and run away from the food and not eat. But sometimes he will eat very fast but doesn’t chew his food that good. After all this we feed him on plates and he reuses to go near food on a plate, if the food is dumped on the ground he tries to eat it but bugs get it and it spoils rather quickly and in winter it won’t be edible.
I can’t tell if this is severe nausea making him unable to eat, or bad teeth? Not having an updated x ray and a history of bad teeth has me suspicious it could be a bad tooth, or something to do with those mysterious lumps by his neck/jaw. On the other hand, with the stomach diagnosis this could be nausea or sickness induced food avoidance from remembering when he used to vomit after eating. A certain flavor or texture can bring on this fear of food I read.
The problem is I have no money for any further testing, two possible reasons he won’t eat, lumps nobody knows what they are, and a vet I don’t trust. I’m at a loss what to do at this point I was hoping other cat owners could chime in that had these symptoms and maybe I could figure out what’s going on, in hopes I could save up money if it could be bad teeth, but I don’t know how long he can go again not eating normally.