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- Oct 7, 2020
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Sorry in advance for the long post, I wanted to give as much detail as possible but you can skip to the bottom for a facts only breakdown. Can you tell I'm stressed about this?
To start, it's just my boyfriend and I living with our cat, Lolly. We don't have children or other pets. Lolly has always been a puker, a couple times a month or week was pretty normal. In the middle of September, we had some family visit for nine days. At the end of their visit, my cat started throwing up more frequently than normal(started on about 9/21). I thought it was because I let her eat some cat grass and shrugged it off, but it continued for a few days even after I took the grass away. I didn’t change her diet and I didn’t notice her eat anything else unusual. We spent most of their visit at our house and when I’m here, the cat is almost always near or on me.
I haven’t brought any new chemicals into the house (unless my family had something on their luggage we didn’t know/think about) and don’t really use a lot of chemicals in general. The vast majority of my cleaning and hygiene products are natural because I have sensitive skin, except for a few but they aren’t commonly used.
She has always been a clean cat, "good" at using the litter box and her box never smelled strong. After a few days of frequent vomiting, I noticed her potty habits were a little odd. She was taking a lot longer in the box, it smelled strong and then one day, she jumped out of the box, ran over to her scratcher, rolled/fell off of it on to her butt in a way that I thought she was having a seizure at first. Thankfully she did not. Instead, it turned out she was trying to violently scoot her butt on the carpet! When I lifted her tail to find out what was wrong, I noticed a little bit of blood on her..for lack of a better description... Anus... I was horrified for her!
The next morning we went to the vet (on 9/25). We live in a small town and with how things are because of COVID, it makes vet care tough to come by here. My cat has had a traumatic past, so getting her in a carrier and taking her somewhere is a challenge and really rough on her. We waited at the vet for a few hours. They took X-rays and blood work, gave her some fluids an antidiuretic under the skin, and sent me home with some medication. They said the X-rays were normal. We gave her the nausea pill, probiotic and antiulcer medication for a few days. The nausea pill helped, but she hated it. The antiulcer medication just made her throw up immediately and the probiotic didn’t seem to do anything, or if it did, I couldn’t tell.
Then I talked to the vet again, they said I can stop the ulcer medication (yay!) and told me her bloodwork came back “unremarkable”. They suspect that she may have irritable bowel disease or lymphoma but are not sure on what it is yet. They had me pick up some steroids to help with inflammation.
She has been taking the steroids for about a week now and is almost done with them but they seem to make her worse! Since starting them, her potty issues have gotten worse (now completely liquid diarrhea that looks orange/light brown), she has almost entirely lost interest in food (I have to cycle through many options just to get her to eat a little), has lost what is a considerable amount of weight (for her, she's pretty tiny to begin with), and is even more lethargic than she was at the start of this. To top it off she is vomiting just as much if not more! I heard from the vet this evening and they asked me to bring her back in for a B12 shot and some more fluids tomorrow morning but I still feel helpless! She is indoor only (I do take her out on the patio sometimes when I can watch her closely but not since she has been sick) and is 15 years old. While she loves people, she HATES other animals so she isn't around any other animals. I have had her almost all of her life except for four years when she lived with my grandparents (this is where the rough past part comes in, but thankfully, that was years ago and is treated like a princess now).
Wondering if anyone else has had this happen with their little kitty? Any ideas on how to help? Am I just stressing myself out or is this as serious as it feels to me? Thanks for reading!
Quick facts only breakdown of the issue:
Vomiting
To start, it's just my boyfriend and I living with our cat, Lolly. We don't have children or other pets. Lolly has always been a puker, a couple times a month or week was pretty normal. In the middle of September, we had some family visit for nine days. At the end of their visit, my cat started throwing up more frequently than normal(started on about 9/21). I thought it was because I let her eat some cat grass and shrugged it off, but it continued for a few days even after I took the grass away. I didn’t change her diet and I didn’t notice her eat anything else unusual. We spent most of their visit at our house and when I’m here, the cat is almost always near or on me.
I haven’t brought any new chemicals into the house (unless my family had something on their luggage we didn’t know/think about) and don’t really use a lot of chemicals in general. The vast majority of my cleaning and hygiene products are natural because I have sensitive skin, except for a few but they aren’t commonly used.
She has always been a clean cat, "good" at using the litter box and her box never smelled strong. After a few days of frequent vomiting, I noticed her potty habits were a little odd. She was taking a lot longer in the box, it smelled strong and then one day, she jumped out of the box, ran over to her scratcher, rolled/fell off of it on to her butt in a way that I thought she was having a seizure at first. Thankfully she did not. Instead, it turned out she was trying to violently scoot her butt on the carpet! When I lifted her tail to find out what was wrong, I noticed a little bit of blood on her..for lack of a better description... Anus... I was horrified for her!
The next morning we went to the vet (on 9/25). We live in a small town and with how things are because of COVID, it makes vet care tough to come by here. My cat has had a traumatic past, so getting her in a carrier and taking her somewhere is a challenge and really rough on her. We waited at the vet for a few hours. They took X-rays and blood work, gave her some fluids an antidiuretic under the skin, and sent me home with some medication. They said the X-rays were normal. We gave her the nausea pill, probiotic and antiulcer medication for a few days. The nausea pill helped, but she hated it. The antiulcer medication just made her throw up immediately and the probiotic didn’t seem to do anything, or if it did, I couldn’t tell.
Then I talked to the vet again, they said I can stop the ulcer medication (yay!) and told me her bloodwork came back “unremarkable”. They suspect that she may have irritable bowel disease or lymphoma but are not sure on what it is yet. They had me pick up some steroids to help with inflammation.
She has been taking the steroids for about a week now and is almost done with them but they seem to make her worse! Since starting them, her potty issues have gotten worse (now completely liquid diarrhea that looks orange/light brown), she has almost entirely lost interest in food (I have to cycle through many options just to get her to eat a little), has lost what is a considerable amount of weight (for her, she's pretty tiny to begin with), and is even more lethargic than she was at the start of this. To top it off she is vomiting just as much if not more! I heard from the vet this evening and they asked me to bring her back in for a B12 shot and some more fluids tomorrow morning but I still feel helpless! She is indoor only (I do take her out on the patio sometimes when I can watch her closely but not since she has been sick) and is 15 years old. While she loves people, she HATES other animals so she isn't around any other animals. I have had her almost all of her life except for four years when she lived with my grandparents (this is where the rough past part comes in, but thankfully, that was years ago and is treated like a princess now).
Wondering if anyone else has had this happen with their little kitty? Any ideas on how to help? Am I just stressing myself out or is this as serious as it feels to me? Thanks for reading!
Quick facts only breakdown of the issue:
Vomiting
- About 3 - 6 times per day on average. She had a couple days where she only puked once or twice and a couple where she threw up more than 6 times. It seems to just depend on the day
- Throwing up partially digested food or white foamy spit/stomach acid
- Drools a lot before vomiting (not a normal thing for her)
- When she is not sick and throws up, it is usually hairballs or completely undigested food like she ate too fast or too much, very different than it is now
- Started out as solid but soft (like peanut butter ), after taking the steroids it on has become a liquid
- Is an unusual orange color. May be blood, may be from diet change since getting sick, or from the medication?
- Scooting after going potty each time
- Seems to be in pain when going potty and has small amounts of blood on anus after (blood may be from going potty or from scooting, I’m not sure what’s causing it).
- Little to no interest in food
- Won't eat for a day or two, then eats very little
- Seems/acts hungry even though she won’t eat
- I hardly see her drinking water recently but I can get her to drink tuna water sometimes
- Lethargic
- Sleeps more than normal
- Grumpy (she growled at me for the first time ever when I had to move her today. She is usually a very happy loving energetic cat)
- Weird/loud sounds coming from tummy
- Uninterested when I talk to her (normally she loves to be talked to and sometimes even talks back!)
- No new chemicals
- Didn't see her eat anything weird/bad
- No change in pet food until she got sick, now I'll feed her anything(safe) that she will actually eat
- Has easy access to fresh clean filtered water
- Indoor only
- Not around other pets/animals
- Not around kids
- Had family visiting when she got sick no other stressors
- Didn't seem to get to/eat any plants besides cat grass from the store
- Xrays were normal
- Bloodwork was normal
- Looked visually fine
- Some weight loss (down to 6.5 lbs from 7.8 may be less now)
- “Pro-Pectalin Anti-Diarrhea Oral Gel”
- 1cc a day
- “Ondansetron” (nausea pill)
- ½ pill 2-3 times a day (only lasted a few days)
- “Sucralfate Suspension” (used to treat ulcers. It is also used to prevent drug-induced ulcers of the stomach. Only gave this for two days)
- “Prednisolone” (Steroid)
- 0.5 ml 2 times a day for 3 days then 0.5 ml once a day for 7 days then 0.5 ml every other day till gone
Little miss Lolly-Pop:
- 0.5 ml 2 times a day for 3 days then 0.5 ml once a day for 7 days then 0.5 ml every other day till gone