Cat Not Eating - Been To Vet

[aprilc]

One of our cats stopped eating gradually over a few days until Friday he wouldn't touch food or water at all. He went to the vet, and then was transferred to the emergency clinic. They can't find anything really wrong with him, there is nothing in his blood, x-rays or other tests that show anything. Glucose is slightly elevated, potassium is slightly low but this could be because he isn't eating and was dehydrated.

He was in hospital for a day and half on supportive fluids. He started eating on his own, vet says he practically dove into the bowl. They sent him home.

He won't eat again (I even tried baby food). He tried to take a treat (he always takes treats) chewed it up and spit it out. Hasn't even tried since then, just sleeping.

He was sent home with Cerenia 1x daily for 4 days. He gets it in the morning. He was vomiting bile when we took him in (at least I think it was him, multicat home).

He came home this afternoon, now he is sitting on the couch in a crouched position sleeping now I think. He is obviously uncomfortable or in pain.

I am not sure what to do at this point. We have no diagnosis, my guess is pancreatitis. He lost 2 lbs (he was 12 lbs so that is pretty significant), he is lethargic, vomiting (we think) and he won't eat. But blood doesn't show much. This is a little frustrating when his vet bill for the past two days has been close to $2000 and we know nothing and he is still sick.

I am not sure what else to do. We need to get him drinking. Can I syringe force water on him? Is that safe. Do I take him back to the vet or give it a day?

We don't free feed, they are fed on a schedule. He is usually very vocal and irritating at food time, pushing everyone away to get at the first bowl. Now he doesn't even look up when he hears the food.

Could it be pancreatitis if it isn't showing up in bloodwork? There is another test they can run but they said it would have to wait until Monday. Why do they always get sick on the weekend?

*Edited to add - The emergency clinic we went to is the best in the city. It is the place where your vet sends you when they don't have an answer or you need special treatment. So I feel confident that they wouldn't have sent him home if they didn't think he was ready, but that the same time things may have gotten worse since he got home.

 

[Antonio65]

Could it be pancreatitis if it isn't showing up in bloodwork? There is another test they can run but they said it would have to wait until Monday. Why do they always get sick on the weekend?

My cat had pancreatitis and the blood works done in the weeks before weren't telling us that she had it.
I had to insist (and we almost argued) with my vets to have the pancreatitis test done. They were telling me that I was going to waste my money on a test that would have been negative for sure.
Well, I was right, and with the right antibiotic the issue went away.

My cat wasn't eating much and was vomiting every other day. Apart from this, she hadn't any of the usual symptoms for pancreatitis.

 

[aprilc]

Ok, back to vet this morning. They gave him some subcutaneous fluids to buy us another 24 hours, took blood for pancreatitis test (will have results tomorrow), and gave us some buponepherine.

Please cross your fingers for us that he starts eating and drinking.

 

[Antonio65]

took blood for pancreatitis test (will have results tomorrow)

That soon?
My sample was sent to A&M University of Texas and took about a week to get the results.

Fingers and tails crossed!

 

[aprilc]

Yes, she said it only takes about 24 hours.

If it is positive and we can get him eating and drinking then he won’t need to go back in. If we can’t get him eating he will need to be readmitted.

Right now he is very happily stoned out of his gourd and curled up between my legs. We have been force feeding him some water, he hates it.

I am hoping he doesn’t need to go back in because we are out of money! We will do what we need to do but he is quickly making a play for most expensive cat in the house.

Come on you stinker, eat!

 

[aprilc]

Still not eating!
Since starting the pain meds he seemed more comfortable but now he is just a bump on a log. He is so lethargic that I was concerned he had too much medication. My daughter found him sitting in the litter box leaning up against the side with his eyes closed.

I spoke with the vet this evening, she said if he doesn’t start eating by morning that we should bring him back in. She is confused. She suggested feline leukaemia test - which we will do if the pancreatitis test comes back negative. It seems unlikely though. He got out once in summer 2016 and was gone for about 24 hours, but hasn’t been out since.

I am dreadfully afraid that he won’t be with us in the morning.

 

[Antonio65]

I am dreadfully afraid that he won’t be with us in the morning.

I am afraid I haven't understood this line, or I have (I hope I have) understood it wrong...

FeLV can show up some time later. If a cat got infected by a bite the symptoms might be visible even a year later.
But I think that something had to be seen in the CBC if he has done it.

 

[aprilc]

No, you understood it right. But he is here. Worse. Headed back to vet. He is drooling now. I think his liver is involved.

If anyone is reading this . . . We have been to the vet twice since Saturday, this is the third time, we have been to the emergency vet where he was admitted. Still he is declining. Please don’t ever hesitate to your cat to the vet.

 

[Antonio65]

Praying for you and your kitty.
Please, keep us posted!!!

 

[aprilc]

He is gone.

Still no answers. Pancreatitis teat came back negative.

I will post later. He is at peace now.

 

[Shar371]

April, I'm so sorry. I wish I had some answers to offer you. For now, I just know that you did well by him, and you fought so hard for him.

 

[aprilc]

I needed to have a lay down and a bucket of Advil. What a headache, hurt so much I was pretty sure I was going to throw up. Crying will do that!

We got there this morning before the vet and the tech looked at Pootie. His temperature was 93 - WAY low. She said if we were going to do anything that we needed to take him to emergency right away. Then she got the vet on the phone and I spoke to her for a bit and we decided that it was in Pootie's best interests to let him go as peacefully as possible. His body was shutting down and we still had no idea why. He is a young cat, which makes it that much harder.

The vet had a look inside after he passed. She said there was some mild bruising of his intestines but nothing that would indicate any kind of blockage or explain the bloody diarrhea he passed just after he died. She said that was evidence of a foreign body in his stomach that had just entered into his small intestine. She believes, based on the placement, that he ate this AFTER everything else began. She said that sometimes when cats are sick with intestinal issues they eat things they shouldn't to compensate and she thinks that is what happened. She thinks he probably ate it when he got home from the emergency vet on Sunday, she doesn't believe it was in there the whole time.

Also, his stomach was HUGE. She said it was extremely dilated. Which is also unexplainable. If there was a blockage leading out of his stomach he would have thrown up. She said they have cats with foreign objects that come in and out of clinic for a week before they can figure out what is wrong and that Pootie deteriorated too quickly for it to simply be that. Also, he has never been a cat that eats weird things so it would be strange behaviour for him to suddenly, at just under 5 years old, to start eating foreign objects. Typically there is a pattern of this kind of behaviour.

His white blood cell count was very high, and the particular white blood cells that were high could indicate infection, but there were no other signs of infection (no fever) so it could also be cancer. She didn't see that inside but she said there could be precancerous lesions in his intestines that she couldn't see.

She doesn't believe that he would have survived surgery and even if he did, we still wouldn't have answers. She doesn't believe that anything was missed by the emergency vets and I trust her implicitly. I have had the "what would you do" conversation with her before (which is, by the way, a terrible positions to put your vet in - I know that, but there is a story there that I won't go into here).

She conferred with the other vet in the clinic who has been practicing over 25 years - neither of them have any answers, the puzzle pieces just don't fit right. He didn't eat anything that would have made him sick either, we have no plants, cleaning products are away where he can't get them.

So we still have no idea what happened but she says we did the right thing, because she is 99% sure there would have been no other outcome.

He was a great cat. Tolerant, sweet, purry, warm, under the covers cuddling perfection. He had the loudest purr, sounded like a pigeon cooing.

We will miss him terribly.

Thank you for your help getting through this.

 

[Antonio65]

I have no words, this was so unexpected to me, I was still hoping he was going to bounce back...
I'm really sorry

 

[aprilc]

Thank you.

Me too

It is helpful that the vet doesn't think there was anything else that we could have done, but it doesn't make it right. He was too young.

 

[aprilc]

 

[Furballsmom]

Oh honey I'm so sorry for all of you.

 

[Antonio65]

He was a wonderful and elegant snowflake, and like a snowflake he stayed with you for too a short time

 

[aprilc]

I had to go out to the vet today to pick up some dog food (he has allergies so hideously expensive vet food while we figure it out) and the vet who treated Pootie was in. She spent some time talking to me, she is really wonderful.

Pooties stomach was about three times the normal size with no real reason for it. She said it was like a flaccid bag of water so she is wondering if he lost motility but she still doesn’t know why. She again told me that there was nothing more we could have done for him, which both eases my heart and makes me terribly frustrated.

I asked her if it could be FIP. She said she hadn’t thought of that because he wasn’t presenting with classic signs - he had not presented with fever at any point but had a high white blood cell count. She said the she would have expected to find his abdomen full of fluid but it was dry, but there was a little bit of plaque which she had dismissed but now that we were talking about it that it could be because of FIP.

He was also outside the age range, most cats who develop FIP are under 3 or seniors.

She again expressed shock at how rapidly he deteriorated on Monday evening, she said after taking his blood Monday morning he was walking around and alert. Less than 24 hours later he had a very low body temperature and was dying.

So let’s assume that he didn’t read the textbooks and had non-classic FIP.

We have a multi cat home. All cats are in the 3-6 year range roughly and they have all lived together for a long time - the last one to enter the house was 1.5 years ago. They don’t go outside.

I don’t know much about FIP but I do know it is a mutation of the Coronavirus. It is probable that Pootie was infected as a kitten before we got him (he was a stray) and that the virus mutated years later. Anything he had, the other cats have been exposed to for years.

Is this a danger to them? Or was Pootie just the unlucky cat that the virus mutated in?

I wish I had thought to ask the vet this. She knows we have other cats so I think she would have mentioned it and I am just being paranoid, right?

 

[Furballsmom]

I think your vet would be happy to address your concerns regarding your other cats. If I were you, send an email, or a quick call. You'll feel a little better with the knowledge.

 

[aprilc]

I will do that Monday they are closed on Sunday.

She did say that she didn’t think there was any threat to my other cats when I spoke to her Tuesday after she had a look inside him, but she wasn’t thinking FIP at that time.

Still seems unlikely, but at least it is an answer.