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- Jun 19, 2021
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Hi, my 13 year old cat was diagnosed with stage 3 kidney disease about 6 weeks ago. Since then (almost immediately it seems) we have been plagued with this terrible constipation that I can't seem to find a sustainable solution for. And I have Googled and checked tons of websites, articles, forums where people have posted web links and articles (including this forum) you name it and I have probably seen it. Unfortunately most of them have had repetitive information. Some things I have tried to help my cat with this constipation:
Wet food and treats only. I put out dry food just to have it there but she doesn't really do anything with it.
Pumpkin. She won't eat it, doesn't care for the taste. I have tried unsweetened canned and baby food. I have given it straight in a bowl and mixed it with food. Psyllium husk: I am currently trying this, she's been taking it for about 4 days and I have not seen any specific results.
Miralax: The magical remedy. She can't tolerate it, it gives her horrific stomach pain worse, even after several days it still does not produce any poo. I've tried starting with really small amounts and it doesn't make a difference. Still results in horrific stomach pain and I am not willing to try this again.
Cisapride: She has been taking .5 mL twice a day for three days, no poo
Lactulose: She has been taking .5 mL twice a for 2 days and then I bumped it up to 1 mg today because no poo
Enemas: She has had 3 in the last 6 weeks. This last one was on Wednesday and she bit the vet tech and is now on in-home quarantine lockdown per animal control for another week or so.
SQ fluids: She gets 100mL every night, sometimes 125-150. Her vet said don't give 125-150 every night, 100mL is the cut off for a 10 lb cat.
She got an enema on Wednesday like I said, she hadn't pooped for 4-5 days before that. The vet said she had very hard stool blocking the exit so the rest couldn't get out. That happened in 4-5 days, even with SQ fluids every night, even with wet food all day, a water fountain and a bowl of water out. She likes both. She eats a lot like 6-8 oz of food a day, and has mirtazipine every three days to help. She last pooped on Thursday and Friday but none today despite the laxatives and I am worried because apparently the stool dries up quickly in her, her vet wants to use gas on her next time she needs an enema (bringing total visit to $140) I really want to find an answer to this but I'm running out of money and I can't afford an enema every week. Plus, after that visit my sweet little snuggly kitty was jumpy and defensive and I really don't want to hand her over again cause it's so stressful.
I'm also thinking maybe this vet doesn't know what they're doing because my vet tech friend told me that gas is bad for kidney's and it's pretty obvious to me that they could have done more to avoid that bite. Yeah, accidents happen, but I have worked in environments that service animals and they should have used a cat muzzle, a plastic cone, or wrapped her up in a towel. Instead my cat ended up at risk of being confiscated and dissected by animal control, or being required to quarantine in their facility which owners are also charged for and god knows what would have happened to her, would she have even a smidgen of chance at surviving this ordeal.
Anyway, it's pretty hard to get a vet appointment around here these days, vets are overwhelmed with patients at the moment. I don't want to take her back to last one because I don't want to deal with the potential of her having a bad reputation there or risking them possibly being overreactive in future situations. I know that people say pets are forgiven for biting at the vet, but they actually weren't that pleased when I picked her up, and I get the feeling that the vet there is pretty much out of ideas.
So what I am looking for here (my apologies for the long post!) is any personal experiences that people may have had with a very stubborn case of constipation in a kidney disease cat. Has anyone had a cat that can't tolerate Miralax? What did you do?? I have not seen even one story using Google that said someone else's cat can't tolerate it. It's basically the magical answer. Everyone keeps saying pumpkin, how long is that supposed to take to work? I need this cat to poo NOW, like today, otherwise she is probably going to have to get an enema again and that is just not sustainable. Does anyone give their cat an enema at home? According to YouTube the "applicator" is inserted pretty far into the rectum, I'm worried that there will be a perforation if I tried that. No way. Unless there's an easier and better way? What do people feed their constipation cats? How long does it take Cisapride/Lactulose to work? I was under the impression that they were really strong laxatives, I'm stunned that the cat is not pooping. She is having extremely noxious gas pretty frequently and she is extremely nauseated today. Maybe getting used to the laxatives, but maybe because of the laxative driven expelling that is being cut off by hard stool. She is also really restless and just wants to do weird things like get into places that she was never interested in before. I'm just at a total loss here, what to do if these laxatives don't work at all??? I called a few ER vets to ask them if I could put a little olive oil in her bum with a syringe to hopefully help things slide out but they said not to and that it wouldn't have the effect I'm looking for. They said put it in her food. Is that going to help some already backed up stool? I have no idea where to go with this next.
Wet food and treats only. I put out dry food just to have it there but she doesn't really do anything with it.
Pumpkin. She won't eat it, doesn't care for the taste. I have tried unsweetened canned and baby food. I have given it straight in a bowl and mixed it with food. Psyllium husk: I am currently trying this, she's been taking it for about 4 days and I have not seen any specific results.
Miralax: The magical remedy. She can't tolerate it, it gives her horrific stomach pain worse, even after several days it still does not produce any poo. I've tried starting with really small amounts and it doesn't make a difference. Still results in horrific stomach pain and I am not willing to try this again.
Cisapride: She has been taking .5 mL twice a day for three days, no poo
Lactulose: She has been taking .5 mL twice a for 2 days and then I bumped it up to 1 mg today because no poo
Enemas: She has had 3 in the last 6 weeks. This last one was on Wednesday and she bit the vet tech and is now on in-home quarantine lockdown per animal control for another week or so.
SQ fluids: She gets 100mL every night, sometimes 125-150. Her vet said don't give 125-150 every night, 100mL is the cut off for a 10 lb cat.
She got an enema on Wednesday like I said, she hadn't pooped for 4-5 days before that. The vet said she had very hard stool blocking the exit so the rest couldn't get out. That happened in 4-5 days, even with SQ fluids every night, even with wet food all day, a water fountain and a bowl of water out. She likes both. She eats a lot like 6-8 oz of food a day, and has mirtazipine every three days to help. She last pooped on Thursday and Friday but none today despite the laxatives and I am worried because apparently the stool dries up quickly in her, her vet wants to use gas on her next time she needs an enema (bringing total visit to $140) I really want to find an answer to this but I'm running out of money and I can't afford an enema every week. Plus, after that visit my sweet little snuggly kitty was jumpy and defensive and I really don't want to hand her over again cause it's so stressful.
I'm also thinking maybe this vet doesn't know what they're doing because my vet tech friend told me that gas is bad for kidney's and it's pretty obvious to me that they could have done more to avoid that bite. Yeah, accidents happen, but I have worked in environments that service animals and they should have used a cat muzzle, a plastic cone, or wrapped her up in a towel. Instead my cat ended up at risk of being confiscated and dissected by animal control, or being required to quarantine in their facility which owners are also charged for and god knows what would have happened to her, would she have even a smidgen of chance at surviving this ordeal.
Anyway, it's pretty hard to get a vet appointment around here these days, vets are overwhelmed with patients at the moment. I don't want to take her back to last one because I don't want to deal with the potential of her having a bad reputation there or risking them possibly being overreactive in future situations. I know that people say pets are forgiven for biting at the vet, but they actually weren't that pleased when I picked her up, and I get the feeling that the vet there is pretty much out of ideas.
So what I am looking for here (my apologies for the long post!) is any personal experiences that people may have had with a very stubborn case of constipation in a kidney disease cat. Has anyone had a cat that can't tolerate Miralax? What did you do?? I have not seen even one story using Google that said someone else's cat can't tolerate it. It's basically the magical answer. Everyone keeps saying pumpkin, how long is that supposed to take to work? I need this cat to poo NOW, like today, otherwise she is probably going to have to get an enema again and that is just not sustainable. Does anyone give their cat an enema at home? According to YouTube the "applicator" is inserted pretty far into the rectum, I'm worried that there will be a perforation if I tried that. No way. Unless there's an easier and better way? What do people feed their constipation cats? How long does it take Cisapride/Lactulose to work? I was under the impression that they were really strong laxatives, I'm stunned that the cat is not pooping. She is having extremely noxious gas pretty frequently and she is extremely nauseated today. Maybe getting used to the laxatives, but maybe because of the laxative driven expelling that is being cut off by hard stool. She is also really restless and just wants to do weird things like get into places that she was never interested in before. I'm just at a total loss here, what to do if these laxatives don't work at all??? I called a few ER vets to ask them if I could put a little olive oil in her bum with a syringe to hopefully help things slide out but they said not to and that it wouldn't have the effect I'm looking for. They said put it in her food. Is that going to help some already backed up stool? I have no idea where to go with this next.