I Just Need To Vent

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RagdollsApArt

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I have lost the trust in basically all vets after one of my Rainbow Bridge cats had a rare disease and none of them was able to spot and diagnose it. My cat risked her life because of the incompetence of many many vets. Only my stubborness allowed her to live longer.
The other cat had hyperthyroidism and the vets didn't want to treat her properly, until I took the situation in my hands.

Since then, my approach with the vets is to listen to them, then check it out on reliable web sources and read all there's to be read.

The cat with hyperthyroidism also suffered from bouts of pancreatitis and on one occasion she was given a shot of Tramadol, and I remember she was stoned for at least 36 hours...
Thanks for sharing your experience! Part of me feels we shouldn’t have to do the research ourselves, vets should be better trained and more responsible; it’s quite sad when you think about it. But your cats are lucky to have you looking after them. :)

but poor Mc looked miserable this first pic is 4 days later 30 th March 2019 the second pic is 4 days earlier 26th March 2019 . She didn't want to sit up just laid there on the table :sniffle:View attachment 281025 View attachment 281024
What a beautiful cat! She will be one of the prettiest angels over the rainbow bridge, free of pain and sorrow. I’m really sorry for your loss.
 

Antonio65

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Thanks for sharing your experience! Part of me feels we shouldn’t have to do the research ourselves, vets should be better trained and more responsible; it’s quite sad when you think about it. But your cats are lucky to have you looking after them. :)
Unfortunately it's not like that. On more than one occasion I had to tell a vet they were wrong...
And unfortunately, despite my efforts, both my cats are now two beautiful angels up there. I couldn't save them, they died from the incompetence of some shallow vets...
 

basschick

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Unfortunately it's not like that. On more than one occasion I had to tell a vet they were wrong...
And unfortunately, despite my efforts, both my cats are now two beautiful angels up there. I couldn't save them, they died from the incompetence of some shallow vets...
i'm so sorry for you and your cats :(

unfortunately i've not only experienced this with vets but with human doctors, as well, both pretty frequently.
 

JamesCalifornia

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I have lost the trust in basically all vets after one of my Rainbow Bridge cats had a rare disease and none of them was able to spot and diagnose it. My cat risked her life because of the incompetence of many many vets.
~ I am sorry this happens to us all to often. Welcome to the club - as sad as it is ... :sigh:
 

Margret

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are there things like cranberry extract that work for cats? i see cranberries in some dog urinary food. or maybe can acidifying the food help? maybe your vet knows...
I take Vitamin C whenever I feel a UTI coming on; since Vitamin C is excreted through the urine any time your body has too much it acidifies the urine and nips the infection in the bud. I'm sure there must be something for cats that works the same way.

You know what really annoys me? I work in (human) healthcare and if I even implied something along those lines for a patient, I would probably lose my licence. But somehow when a vet says it for a beloved pet, it’s OK. :argh:
No, it's never okay, and we need to say so any time a vet speaks that way to us!

4 days later i took MC back to the vet cause she still wasn't eating but drinking ,so i thought ok if she has bad teeth ill get her teeth done, when the other vet opened MC mouth on the saturday, she was surprised at what the previous vet had told me, because she had perfect teeth for a cat that is 19 years old, and there was no infection and antibiotic wasnt needed, and that my cat was dying from kidney failure.
I'm so sorry to hear it. Please see this thread; it may help, a little: Grieving

unfortunately i've not only experienced this with vets but with human doctors, as well, both pretty frequently.
Likewise. I lost an uncle to an undiagnosed ulcer that perforated, because his doctor repeatedly misdiagnosed the cause of his pain without running any tests. Hey, there was an obvious cause, no tests needed, right? Wrong!

Margret
 

danteshuman

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You guys are making me happy I have a vet’s office I can trust! The vet I love and her back up Dr. I liked to ..... though I wish we hadn’t met during Dante’s crisis.

I think everyone is right about following your instincts. My instincts told me something was wrong and that It was Dante’s time to let him go, and sadly it was.

I’m still trying to figure out if I should get pet insurance and if so, which one for my 7 month old kitten. (He is vaccinated and neutered and all taken care of for this year.) I think you guys should shop around for better vets, if you can. It sounds like it would be worth an hour drive to see a good doctor for our beloved family members.
 

Antonio65

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You guys are making me happy I have a vet’s office I can trust! The vet I love and her back up Dr. I liked to ..... though I wish we hadn’t met during Dante’s crisis.
[...]
I think you guys should shop around for better vets, if you can. It sounds like it would be worth an hour drive to see a good doctor for our beloved family members.
I had the same vet for 15 years and 7 months (September 2000 to April 2016). I trusted her above anything, she was nearly to perfect to me.
Until the day my cat got sick and nobody could understand what it was. My vet was the first to visit my cat, of course, but when she couldn't find the cause I went elsewhere, and rang different doors, from simple surgeries, to high end clinics, and none of them was able to find the reason of the sickness of my poor cat.
When I had run out of clinics, I started it over and in one of them I had luck. One of the doctors at that clinic remembered that 6 years earlier he had attended a medical congress where a very rare disease was discussed, and he recognized the symptoms in my cat and he was right.

My cat was put in the list for a risky and costly surgery at a distant vet clinic. My original vet was informed, of course, and her words were "What did you expect from me when the disease was so rare that no vet has ever seen a case in their life? And the surgery is risky and with little post-surgery survival chances, wouldn't it better if you put your cat to sleep?"
No need to say that the vet that I trusted for over than 15 years was dumped there and then, and I had to change vet, I picked the clinic where that vet spotted the disease and he became MY vet.
But the lesson taught me much, several vets had failed, and I have never trusted a vet fully anymore since. Though he had been wonderful at diagnosing my cat, his words, and his collegues' were always weighed carefully.

My trust in vets has never been the same since that episode.
 
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RagdollsApArt

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Unfortunately it's not like that. On more than one occasion I had to tell a vet they were wrong...
And unfortunately, despite my efforts, both my cats are now two beautiful angels up there. I couldn't save them, they died from the incompetence of some shallow vets...
I’m so sorry for your loss. :hugs:
You didn’t save them in the end, but you really tried -and that’s all that matters. Your little angels were lucky to share their life with you.
Your experience has given me a lot to think about, so thank you for sharing. :heartshape:
 

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Just a thought. You said your male cat has chronic cystitis. I had to verify that cystitis is usually in female cats and in males is more like bladder crystals. Which you sort of confirmed by saying that you feared his bladder was blocked.

If you have a cat in which you fear a bladder blockage, have your vet show you how to palpitate your cat's bladder so you can check yourself if he is blocked. Also, he/she can show you how to check yourself for constipation. That will at least save you some ER bills.

I had an elderly male that I inherited which had a history of crystals and I had the ER tech show me how to tell if he was blocked. He was a kibble addict when I got him (he still is actually) and after cutting his kibble intake way down and feeding him mostly wet foods, he has not ever had a crystal problem with me.
 
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RagdollsApArt

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Just a thought. You said your male cat has chronic cystitis. I had to verify that cystitis is usually in female cats and in males is more like bladder crystals. Which you sort of confirmed by saying that you feared his bladder was blocked.
I thought it was just as common in males and females, but males have a narrower urethra, thus at greater risk of blockage. But I could be wrong, with so much information out there I’m confused, I must admit! Apollo had his urine extracted directly from his bladder and an ultrasound during a flare up of his cystitis and there were no crystals present, so I don’t know what to think. Maybe even tiny ones can irritate the bladder lining?

If you have a cat in which you fear a bladder blockage, have your vet show you how to palpitate your cat's bladder so you can check yourself if he is blocked. Also, he/she can show you how to check yourself for constipation. That will at least save you some ER bills.
That’s a good idea, thank you! He’s due his annual vaccinations in a couple of weeks, I’ll ask then.

I had an elderly male that I inherited which had a history of crystals and I had the ER tech show me how to tell if he was blocked. He was a kibble addict when I got him (he still is actually) and after cutting his kibble intake way down and feeding him mostly wet foods, he has not ever had a crystal problem with me.
I have reduced the amount of kibble Apollo eats, but I think it’s time to completely eliminate it. Did you give your cat special urinary care food or just the normal stuff?
 

dan32

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I ended up adding a 3rd cat with a history of crystals to my brood after a friend died. He came with special UTI kibble which he hated, but he loved the non-UTI kibble his two room mates were getting. Plus he is a bowl stealer, so I thought the special food was not going to work. I had heard that he was free feeding all the kibble he wanted with his former owner, plus being a bowl stealer - was probably eating his previous room mate's bowls as well as his own. He was very fat when I got him.

It seemed like my research at the time indicated that kibble addicts are the most likely to get UTI problems, so I upped his wet intake and I dole out his kibble very sparingly throughout the day. That was 5 years ago and he has never had a UTI problem since. He came with a huge medical folder and had had two major crystal operations before I got him.

At the beginning, I took him in to the ER hospital twice thinking he was blocked - and so asked for them to show me how to tell myself if he blocked or not.

PS. I also had two females many years ago that had the classic cystitis with the bloody peeing on the wall. They just took meds for a week and never re-occurred again.
 
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RagdollsApArt

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I ended up adding a 3rd cat with a history of crystals to my brood after a friend died. He came with special UTI kibble which he hated, but he loved the non-UTI kibble his two room mates were getting. Plus he is a bowl stealer, so I thought the special food was not going to work. I had heard that he was free feeding all the kibble he wanted with his former owner, plus being a bowl stealer - was probably eating his previous room mate's bowls as well as his own. He was very fat when I got him.

It seemed like my research at the time indicated that kibble addicts are the most likely to get UTI problems, so I upped his wet intake and I dole out his kibble very sparingly throughout the day. That was 5 years ago and he has never had a UTI problem since. He came with a huge medical folder and had had two major crystal operations before I got him.
Amazing that his problem basically disappeared once he was on wet food! Can I ask a question? I’ve read that fish flavoured wet food can cause UTIs, kidney damage, hyperthyroidism and all sorts of problems. In your experience is this accurate? Because Apollo loves anything fish flavoured but I’ve been holding off since I did some research.
 

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Amazing that his problem basically disappeared once he was on wet food! Can I ask a question? I’ve read that fish flavoured wet food can cause UTIs, kidney damage, hyperthyroidism and all sorts of problems. In your experience is this accurate? Because Apollo loves anything fish flavoured but I’ve been holding off since I did some research.
When my cat Lola was diagnosed with a kidney disease at the age of 5 or 6, I did some researches and found out that some wet foods were told to be the culprits for this damage, and they all were tuna wet food.
Some sources also said these foods and even the tin cans that contain them (the inner coating of those cans) could be responsible for the hypothyroidism.
 

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sometimes i wonder if i made my MC sicker with the canned food. For 10 of her early years she was always fed human cooked food chicken etc. And then for some reason i started to feed her canned food. Leo was always eating Purina one dry food, and he was literally addicted to it, he would see the bag, and push his head into it like a mad cat begging me to give him more even though he just had two large handfuls of dry food already. He wasnt too big on canned food. And both of them would turn up their nose at canned food. MC never liked dry food at all.
 
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RagdollsApArt

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sometimes i wonder if i made my MC sicker with the canned food. For 10 of her early years she was always fed human cooked food chicken etc. And then for some reason i started to feed her canned food. Leo was always eating Purina one dry food, and he was literally addicted to it, he would see the bag, and push his head into it like a mad cat begging me to give him more even though he just had two large handfuls of dry food already. He wasnt too big on canned food. And both of them would turn up their nose at canned food. MC never liked dry food at all.
Interesting, my cats are also big fans of dry food. I won’t lie, my two have had some gastrointestinal issues since I upped their wet food and while they still happily eat the few biscuits I put down every other day, they are very picky with their wet food. But I know that dry food is like human junk food, it can be addicting. Plus it stays fresh longer and it satisfies their natural tendency to graze throughout the day. So I’m sticking with the wet food, as unfortunately I don’t have the time or the knowledge to prepare home made food that has all the nutrients they need.
I’m sure you didn’t make MC sicker with the canned food, you shouldn’t blame yourself. Canned food is formulated with all the nutrients cats require and the evidence so far shows that it’s healthier than dry.
 
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