6 year old Morty isn't doing so well

[kittenmittens84]

Ok I have to say this...
OP if you’re hurting for money, please don’t spend your limited cash on homeopathy.

Homeopathic “remedies” are not harmful because they have no active ingredients. You are paying for a bottle of water and/or alcohol. Water has no “memory”, and homeopathy, a “science” invented in 1800 (a time when many doctors believed disease were caused by an imbalance of humors) by a German man who also believed that coffee was possibly the cause of most diseases, has never been proved to be an effective treatment for anything in dozens and dozens of studies over the last 200 years. It is probably the best example of a pseudoscience one could find.

I think often there’s confusion between homeopathy and natural or herbal treatments in general, but they’re absolutely not the same thing. Taking some nasty tasting echinacea drops is very different from a homeopathic mixture that “contains” echinacea.
To create a homeopathic remedy, one drop of whatever they’re saying the active ingredient is is added to 10-100 drops of water or alcohol. Then one drop of that dilute mix is added to another 10-100 drops of water or alcohol. Then one drop of that even MORE dilute mix is added to 10-100 drops of water or alcohol...and this is repeated over and over again. The final product is so dilute that it generally will not have even a single atom of the “active” ingredient present in it. It has no side effects because it has no effects at all!

Please don’t feed garlic to your cat either. It doesn’t “boost” immune systems and can cause stomach upset which is the last thing you want for a sick cat. I hope he feels better soon and you get to the bottom of his illness! He’s very cute

 

[Beholder]

Ok I have to say this...
OP if you’re hurting for money, please don’t spend your limited cash on homeopathy.

Homeopathic “remedies” are not harmful because they have no active ingredients. You are paying for a bottle of water and/or alcohol. Water has no “memory”, and homeopathy, a “science” invented in 1800 (a time when many doctors believed disease were caused by an imbalance of humors) by a German man who also believed that coffee was possibly the cause of most diseases, has never been proved to be an effective treatment for anything in dozens and dozens of studies over the last 200 years. It is probably the best example of a pseudoscience one could find.

I think often there’s confusion between homeopathy and natural or herbal treatments in general, but they’re absolutely not the same thing. Taking some nasty tasting echinacea drops is very different from a homeopathic mixture that “contains” echinacea.
To create a homeopathic remedy, one drop of whatever they’re saying the active ingredient is is added to 10-100 drops of water or alcohol. Then one drop of that dilute mix is added to another 10-100 drops of water or alcohol. Then one drop of that even MORE dilute mix is added to 10-100 drops of water or alcohol...and this is repeated over and over again. The final product is so dilute that it generally will not have even a single atom of the “active” ingredient present in it.

Please don’t feed garlic to your cat either. It doesn’t “boost” immune systems and can cause stomach upset which is the last thing you want for a sick cat. I hope he feels better soon and you get to the bottom of his illness! He’s very cute

Yes, I am quite aware of the dilution. 7 dollars wasn't too expensive for me so I figured it could be worth a try because of all the positive reviews. The nose and cough one actually did seem to help him. I gave him the nose one when I saw him sleeping with his mouth open and he cough one after milder asthmatic symptoms and they seemed to help. It obviously very well could be circumstancial, but luckily they did not cost too much and caused no harm. The digestive one did not work, but I am hopeful in probiotics or possibly prebiotics.

And no garlic, don't worry. I don't judge what helps other people's cats but I don't think any vegetables except maybe a bit of pumpkin is right for mine. And thank you!

 

[kittenmittens84]

Yes, I am quite aware of the dilution. 7 dollars wasn't too expensive for me so I figured it could be worth a try because of all the positive reviews. The nose and cough one actually did seem to help him. I gave him the nose one when I saw him sleeping with his mouth open and he cough one after milder asthmatic symptoms and they seemed to help. It obviously very well could be circumstancial, but luckily they did not cost too much and caused no harm. The digestive one did not work, but I am hopeful in probiotics or possibly prebiotics.

And no garlic, don't worry. I don't judge what helps other people's cats but I don't think any vegetables except maybe a bit of pumpkin is right for mine. And thank you!

A bonus about probiotics is that cats often LOVE the taste of probiotics (the ones made for pets, that is) - some people use fortiflora just to tempt their picky cats to eat more food!

 

[Beholder]

Morty update:

This came a little sooner than expected, by my regular vet called to check up on him. I should have called her from the beginning but I was hesitant because they do sell the traditional Hills food and I didn't want another raw food lecture. She did an amazing job on Morty's teeth last August though and I've always really liked her, so much so that I drive 50 min to another city.

Anyway, she called to tell me that she knew the vet that had been helping Morty and that he was good, but he's also a specialist. She said he can be kinda pushy with unnecessary treatments and while she agreed with everything Morty is getting done, she wanted me to know it wasn't as serious as he was saying. She said she saw the x-rays and ultrasound herself and they looked normal. This made me break down crying because honestly it's been pretty hard keeping all this in, especially when I feel like I'm getting blamed for it. She told me that cats frequently get high ALT levels simply from vomiting, and that it doesn't have to be an underlying condition. She said she once saw a perfectly healthy cat with levels at 1500 that went back to normal once the vomiting stopped. Now I do still believe there is a good chance he has IBD, but maybe it's not as bad as we thought.

I mentioned to her about the raw food and how they were telling me this probably happened because of what I fed him and she pretty much said that was completely wrong. She told me that while she's not completely on board with raw food she understands why people want to feed cats what they were made to eat and suggested I continue. She even gave me a ton of good options for freeze dried. Anyway, I asked her if we could do a consultation at some point after Morty is feeling a bit better so hopefully I can FINALLY stop using google and get answers from a vet. So this for me is really good news, although slightly unsettling as I'm now about 4k in the hole and questioning if it was necessary.

Hopefully we have more good news in the morning.

 

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Morty Update:

The vet called this morning and said he's been eating quite a bit more but still a little less than the amount they would like. I have a feeling this is a combination of stress and the meds, as well as having already been adjusted to raw. On raw he wouldn't need to eat as much volume for the same calories, and in addition to that who knows if he even likes the food they're giving him. I wouldn't doubt it if it has fish oil (which I repeatedly told them not to unless they could be sure it was pharmaceutical grade).

Anyway, apparently he's meowing at them like crazy and acting very social. They've taken him off the IV and he is on oral medication now. They're going to recheck his liver to see if he's still improving and if that's the case he should be home by late afternoon today!

My plan going forward so far is going to go in these steps (as well as a consultation with my regular vet now that I know she's more open-minded):

1) Continue him on whatever hydrolyzed crap they've been giving him.
2) Further rid my house of all plug in air fresheners and candles (there's a few left)
3) Switch him to Rawz Turkey once the shipment comes in. Probably gradually depending on how he's doing with their food. If he won't eat their food (which is a possibility because he wants variety) I may just put him back on the Instinct limited turkey with/before the Rawz. At least I can buy that locally.
4) Move him to cooked ground turkey/heart/liver with alnutrin, no bone. If this goes okay then I may introduce the same but with duck and venison. His only previous allergy that we were aware of was fish but I'm going to avoid chicken for now.
5) Move him to raw boneless above.
6) Move him back to raw bone/organ/meat grinds supplemented and potentially reintroduce other foods.

Obviously any part of this list could change depending on his tastes and how he is doing. As I mentioned before, my regular vet actually thinks he can go back to raw/freeze dried and there is a possibility he never had an infection at all and that his levels were simply raised from vomiting. We can't know that without a biopsy though so I think this is probably the safest route to go for him right now. I plan to also include probotics with every meal as well and I'm still looking into prebiotics.

 

[daftcat75]

That sounds like a good plan. Except I question number six. If you still suspect IBD, you would do well to avoid bone. Even healthy cats can sometimes have issues with raw food because of the bone content. As for #4, you can use pre-ground meat and organs without bone as long as you're buying a product that was ground and frozen. If you are buying refrigerated ground meat from the butcher, that's the riskiest from a bacteria point of view. It has more surface area than other turkey cuts. And it is the surface that attracts bacteria growth (not so much inside.) If you wanted to use ground meat from the butcher, I would suggest to partially bake it to kill the surface bacteria. One of the recipe links I posted above likely covers this.

Really it's not much effort to buy turkey thighs, a good pair of poultry shearers, and a manual grinder. And, of course, make friends with the butcher to get a steady supply of giblets. The way I did it was to cut the meat off the bones and cube the meat before freezing it. Then put it in the freezer for a few hours. (Mostly) frozen meat is easier to grind than refrigerated meat. You'll also get a better grind. If you try to grind thawed meat, you'll end up with pink slime spinning around the auger rather than pushing through the grind plate. It's gross and wasteful and you can't really use it for making food.

Here's the grinder I bought:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000BQSW44/?tag=thecatsite

And a photo collage of the process:


I always reserved a small amount of the meat before making food and cut it into small pieces for my toothless cat. This was her turkey sashimi portion. Sometimes I would top it with a little powdered up freeze-dried treat.

 

[Beholder]

Thank you, that's good to know that IBD cats don't do well with bone. At this point we're just going to assume that's what he has until he sees his regular vet, although I think she may even disagree with that as she thinks his levels were only elevated from the vomiting. Either way, I'll do more research on IBD cats with bones. I know that they say it's healthier to use bone than to supplement for it, but honestly it's already so much better than regular cat food I can't complain if we can't go all the way.

The ground I would be feeding him comes frozen from HT. I also like to keep it frozen for 30 days in my own freezer (below 0 degrees F) after preparing it just in case, because I know this can beneficial with pork.

 

[daftcat75]

More power to you. Krista never cared for HT grinds. It was only when I started grinding my own that I discovered she was a thigh girl. If it wasn't thigh meat, she didn't want it. This was fine for turkey. But it got super-expensive when we had to switch to rabbit.

 

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Morty update:

So the vet called back and said his ALT levels have gone down from the 500's to the 300's. She said she is worried about his kidneys potentially now. She said his levels are in the normal range, but they're on the high end of normal. She also said she didn't run the test while he was fasting like they're supposed to do, so these "elevated" levels simply could be because he wasn't fasted. At this point I've had enough with this vet. From telling me humans cook their foods so cats also have to, that my cat might have died, to now this. If it's in the normal range and only slightly elevated because you did the test wrong idk why I'm paying for it.

Anyway, Morty can be picked up in 2 hours. She wants to schedule a follow up in a week to check his ALT and kidney levels, but at this point I would rather just transfer the information to my regular vet. If my regular vet is correct in that all of this testing was likely unecessary, I don't want to do any more. He's 6 years old and otherwise in good health and I'm starting to feel like I'm getting taken advantage of. I'll update the running total when I pick him up, hopefully it's not too far past 4k. I don't mean to rant and I understand they they're just being extra cautious, the last part about the kidney test just really annoyed me.

 

[Beholder]

More power to you. Krista never cared for HT grinds. It was only when I started grinding my own that I discovered she was a thigh girl. If it wasn't thigh meat, she didn't want it. This was fine for turkey. But it got super-expensive when we had to switch to rabbit.

HT as a boneless turkey thigh grind. Did she not like that one either?

 

[daftcat75]

HT as a boneless turkey thigh grind. Did she not like that one either?

Nope. But she was a 15/16 year old with a fussy gut. Also I think Rad Cat, back when that was still available, spoiled her for HT. That was her favorite! That's how I discovered her fondness of thigh meat. I looked at one of the empty tubs I have to see what I was missing in my own efforts to make something she wanted.

 

[Beholder]

Nope. But she was a 15/16 year old with a fussy gut. Also I think Rad Cat, back when that was still available, spoiled her for HT. That was her favorite!

Wow! Well I hope for my credit card's sake Morty doesn't get like that, at least not before I can pay off this current debt lol. For now he'll eat anything...once. It's after the first time where we sometimes have trouble. The only thing he's never been picky about was raw pork and I have absolutely no idea why.

 

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Morty Update:

Morty is home! And man is he on a cocktail of drugs. He's a bit out of it and probably will be for a while, but here's a few new pictures of him. I'll make a post below of everything new we have learned and the 4 drugs they are having me give him.

 

[daftcat75]

Welcome home, Morty!

Such a handsome fellow!

Good luck with that bandage. Krista violently hated those stretch wraps. She was the sweetest cat ever. But try to take one of those off her, and she changed over to, "I will cut you!" I always made the vet office go through that with her after the one or two times I tried to remove it at home. Scissors work better than trying to unwind it.

 

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Morty Update:

Morty is very tired and out of it. He peed himself on the car ride home as well. He came back with a shaved belly and bandaged arm and a loss of 1.2 POUNDS. I only know this because I had weighed him before we took him in.

Anyway, they surprisingly did not send me home with any food or tell me a type of food to feed him (other than no raw/freeze dried/dehydrated). They said to give him his normal canned food, which was a bit shocking to me. The drugs they have him on are: Clavamox (antibiotic), Orbax (antibiotic), Denamarin (liver protectant?), and Cerenia (anti-nausea). They didn't mention anything about giving him probiotics but with this amount of antibiotics, once he's finished with them I definitely think it would be a good idea. Even in the past when I've taken antibiotics I've had bad reactions (like yeast) if I didn't also take a probiotic so I imagine it will be worse for him.

His results:

-Elevated liver enzymes and biblirubin with moderately increased white blood cell count suggestive of inflammation or infection. (Which have since come down)
-Normal liver/gallbladder from ultrasound.
-Mildly thickened segments of intestine and mildly prominent lymph nodes associated with intestines suggesting inflammatory reaction.
-Mild inflammation in lungs (suggestive of feline lower airway disease)
-Suspected (but not confirmed) cholangiohepatits affecting liver and gallbladder.
-Urine didn't show infection but it was taken after antibiotics were started
-Awaiting B12, folic and fPL results.

Total Bill: 3,757.75
It went down slightly after they eliminated the resuscitation charge potential.

So I don't entirely understand what most of these results mean, but the intestine changes and all of the inflammatory responses suggest to me that he likely does have IBD. Obviously we won't know what caused the infection (or whether there was ever one at all...) but the document says it's likely it was the dehydrated treat because....."this can happen with dehydrated, freeze dried or raw meat/poultry or fish treats." I've already stated my own feelings on that. So next steps are to make an appointment with my current vet and go from there because I don't really want to go back to them. I have a feeling she won't see it necessary to retest his ALP, but hearing her opinion would be really comforting. It's unfortunate that she's a 50 min drive (without traffic) so I might try and see if she can set up a zoom or phone appointment to go over some things if she doesn't believe we need to do anymore testing.

Morty is currently back under the dresser likely tramatized by the last few days, but hopefully once we stop the meds he will be back to his old self. It looks like they gave me 4 of the Cerenia (.5 per day), 20 days worth of Orbax, 14 days of the liver med, and 15 (3/day) of the clavamox, and they all have a refill available. I'm hoping that they will tell me he won't need 3 weeks worth of antibiotics...that seems insane. All they have told me for now is what to give him today.

 

[Beholder]

Okay I had to add something. the Cerenia literally says "For Dogs Only". Is this stuff not made for cats or something? I checked the mg on the paper and they line up (1/2 24mg).

 

[daftcat75]

Two kinds of antibiotics seems excessive and could absolutely affect mood and appetite, in addition to giving diarrhea.

What caused it could be IBD or early IBD. Or it could have been a laceration from the turkey stick if you say it had sharp edges. I wouldn't expect a barium contrast study to confirm that. That's where the patient (a person) drinks a radioactive barium milkshake and the radiologist takes a few X-rays over a few hours to see if the barium is leaking out of the gut. I have not heard of this procedure used with cats.

I would ask your vet to review the meds and the med schedule. I'd also ask about a check-up visit in a week or two to make sure all his blood levels are still going in the right direction.


Some helpful stuff I just posted to another thread....

Forgot to post the link to the s. boulardii (better than probiotics while he's taking antibiotics)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NW49TC7/?tag=thecatsite

And a discussion of how it works, how much to give, and how often:
https://www.foodfurlife.com/my-cat-has-diarrhea---what-do-i-do.html#/

Here's a link to the Proviable:
Nutramax Proviable - Free shipping | Chewy

Your vet probably also has this or can recommend which one to order.

 

[daftcat75]

Okay I had to add something. the Cerenia literally says "For Dogs Only". Is this stuff not made for cats or something? I checked the mg on the paper and they line up (1/2 24mg).

Cats are difficult research study participants. Medicine often gets approved for dogs with an off-label use in cats (with the proper adjustment of dose.)

Cerenia can affect some cats' appetite. So can antibiotics and infections. You can ask about Zofran instead. Or you can ask your vet if you can skip the Cerenia altogether if he's not vomiting anymore.

 

[Beholder]

Two kinds of antibiotics seems excessive and could absolutely affect mood and appetite, in addition to giving diarrhea.

What caused it could be IBD or early IBD. Or it could have been a laceration from the turkey stick if you say it had sharp edges. I wouldn't expect a barium contrast study to confirm that. That's where the patient (a person) drinks a radioactive barium milkshake and the radiologist takes a few X-rays over a few hours to see if the barium is leaking out of the gut. I have not heard of this procedure used with cats.

I would ask your vet to review the meds and the med schedule. I'd also ask about a check-up visit in a week or two to make sure all his blood levels are still going in the right direction.


Some helpful stuff I just posted to another thread....

Forgot to post the link to the s. boulardii (better than probiotics while he's taking antibiotics)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NW49TC7/?tag=thecatsite

And a discussion of how it works, how much to give, and how often:
https://www.foodfurlife.com/my-cat-has-diarrhea---what-do-i-do.html#/

Here's a link to the Proviable:
Nutramax Proviable - Free shipping | Chewy

Your vet probably also has this or can recommend which one to order.

Thank you! I just made an appintment with his regular vet for next week and I'm hoping she'll be able to give me a call tonight so we can go over his med schedule.

 

[daftcat75]

Google has proven me wrong. Barium studies can be performed in cats. Sometimes it's done as a meal with barium added to it since the milkshake would be a hard sell. In other cases, especially if the cat isn't eating or is otherwise being uncooperative, they insert a esophageal tube solely for the purpose of injecting the barium liquid directly into the cat's stomach. Then they would take X-rays as the barium "lights up" the insides. I imagine a barium study on a cat would easily add another $1000 to the bill.

But you would get pretty pictures like this:

This is a dog. First one is the stomach and small intestines. The second one shows the small and large intestine.