Diarrhea two nights before dental, should we cancel?

[baztien]

Hi!

I've been posting about my anxieties before my cat's scheduled dental for tomorrow morning. I was feeling a little better but then last night at 1am, my cat had diarrhea. And a little more this morning at 5am. She had a month long diarrhea issue last summer and it cleared up so this is the first time in a long time. I'm feeling pretty defeated and I don't know whether we should keep the dental for tomorrow or postpone it.

I'm wondering if this is food allergies related. The only thing different in her diet is sometimes I've been giving her half of a can of her usual Fancy Feast, mixed with Weruva Glam N Punk, because I've wanted to get her on higher quality wet food. She's been itching more and losing hair around her temples but this is the first stomach related symptom I've seen, and she's been having the Weruva food not every day, but for the past few days here and there. And her stool yesterday afternoon was very solid. So really unsure about what's going on.

I've asked my vet already but they haven't gotten back to me yet. Just curious about anyone's opinions.

 

[stephanietx]

Stop the Weruva and see if her poops firm back up. Sometimes "good" food isn't tolerated well. I wouldn't cancel her procedure.

 

[baztien]

Yeah, no more Weruva but I guess my concern is that tomorrow morning won't really be enough time to see if it was the food. Our vet did get back to us and also said if the diarrhea is mild, self-limiting, and likely due to a diet change, then the anesthesia should not be a significant problem.

I guess it's hard to say because I'm not sure if it's the diet change seeing that she's had it off and on for a few days and only last night did the diarrhea start.

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

You have to fast her before the dental anyway, don't you. So I'm thinking if she had diarrhea already, then you feed her early today and evening, then nothing say after 9 p.m., if no more diarrhea or it stops,you should be good (per Vet)

 

[baztien]

Yes no food after midnight. Back when she had it for a month, it was once a day or maybe 2-3 times a day when it first started, so I guess I just have to wait til tonight to see how it's going.

 

[baztien]

Alright looks like we're going in soon. No diarrhea since the last episode yesterday morning but she hasn't passed any stool at all. Really hope the dental goes well. It's been on my mind for months now but put off due to nerves.

 

[Alldara]

for a smooth dental!

 

[baztien]

Well, it looks like the dental is cancelled. They did pre-op x-rays of the chest and there is "increased tissue space between the lung lobe in front of the heart" which is suspicious for a mass. It could be why she had been lightly coughing, even though it was only twice in the past 2 weeks.

Not the news I wanted to hear It seems like we try to get one issue addressed and another one always pops up, and this one seems to be the worst yet. We had done chest x-rays last summer and those vets didn't see anything out of the ordinary aside from subtle signs of asthma, but I had our new vet compare now that we have this new info, and he said he could make out the same thing if he looked closely.

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

So what are the next steps?

 

[baztien]

So my vet also did an ultrasound in that area and was able to get a clearer picture. He said most likely, given the location and look, that it's a benign cyst, but he can't be 100% sure. We have a few options, we can wait it out and come back for another ultrasound in ~2 months to see if it's growing. He also said as long as her bloodwork from today comes back clear enough, the cyst wouldn't be a hinderance in doing a dental.

Other thing we could do would be to get an MRI or CT scan, but that requires anesthesia. And we could also get a sample from the cyst via needle. Risk for that is very low, however if anything were to go wrong, the chances of it being severe are high

I'm not sure what the right thing to do is. Go ahead with the idea that it's benign and have another look later? But if it's malignant, what if those 2 months we could've been doing something for her? This is all new to me so it's a lot to take in.

 

[stephanietx]

I don't remember, was the reason for scheduling the dental today because the kitty had issues with her teeth? Or did you just want to have them cleaned?

 

[baztien]

Hm well she's never had a dental before and we've never brushed her teeth (she was an outside neighborhood cat up until the pandemic when we took her in). She became diabetic last fall but was able to eventually get off insulin after ~3 weeks and from what I read, one of the biggest reasons for relapses comes from teeth issues. So trying to give her the best chance of staying off of those shots again. She also may have early CKD and I know diseased teeth can make that and other organ function worse.