How to Bath a Cat Confined with a Broken Leg? And How to Survive Post-Sedation Chaos? And Poop Chao

[foxden]

One thing a lot of members have used for diarrhea is to add unsweetened canned pumpkin to the food. You do not want the "pie filling" because of all the spices, just plain pumpkin.

The dose I have seen most often is one teaspoon per day, but some members use one tablespoon per day.

Apparently, pumpkin is good for both diarrhea and constipation

 

[krisrath11]

He certainly looks like he has a nice setup! I know it's a pretty usual practice for us cat owners to do all day food for our animals, but maybe u could try giving the food when u r at home and have a sufficient amount of time to see if he has to potty. U can always watch and try to put him where he needs to go when he's done. Poor guy, all that diareah is not good, and thay med thing is scary! Trust me I know! U seem to be doing a wonderful job with him though, and he does have quite the living arrangement. I hope he gets better soon. I'm still a little lost as to y they didn't put 1 cast on and leave it for longer then change it. Had a dog that broke a leg and she had it changed just once and it was healed in like 6 or 8 weeks.

 

[Antonio65]

Antonio65.... probiotics? Well, I guess it should work in theory, so I'm glad that it did work for your cat.  Thanks for the suggestion.

But you never really know with cats, do you?  They're just so darn inscrutable, including biologically.

By the way, what size spoonful of apple vinegar should I use when mixing it with water?  Tea spoon, dessert spoon or table spoon?  Thanks.

Table spoon is the size I used, but I think that if you exceed a little it won't be a problem at all.
I do hope you find it effective. Also that probiotics will help.
The strains present in the kind I used are lactobacillus sporogenes; saccharomyces cerevisiae; streptococcusthermophilus; lactobacillus bulgaricus; bifidobacterium bifidum; lactobacillusacidophilus; 5 billions, vitamin B6; vitamin B2; vitamin B1; vitamin B12.

 

[Norachan]

We have an article here about giving probiotics to cats.

 [article="30671"]Should I Give My Cat Probiotics​[/article]  

 

[book him danno]

 

[Antonio65]

Do you mean, your cat has had repeated doses of Metacam over a 2-3 week period??! I sure hope you have talked to your vet about his diarrhea, AND talked with him/her about the fact that there are much safer pain killers for cats for longer term use, like buprenorphine.

Metacam/meloxicam is an NSAID drug, and normally only recommended for one-time use after a surgery... not continued use. If he is having severe diarrhea, please consult your vet (or another vet, for 2nd opinion!) and consider using a different pain med.

My cat has been put on Metacam since October and she's taking 0.3 ml drops every second day since then. The vets told me she had to take her drops for life.

She's been treated with radiations for a mouth cancer and the Metacam is helpful for reducing inflammation of the treated area and for pain.

My cat suffers from CKD since the age of 6, now she 16 and 10 months. I had blood works done to her every four months since the diagnosis and all the parameters have been perfect so far.

About two months since the beginning of this therapy we had a blood test and she was alright.

She has never shown any side effect from Metacam, what I see is that she's fine despite the condition she's in, so I think it is thanks to Metacam.

 

[PushPurrCatPaws]

PushPurrCatPaws, thanks for your concern and for posting the data you've provided.

Yes, my cat was indeed prescribed Metacam as an on-going painkiller (30 days' supply of it, to be added to his food once a day as a 0.5 ml squirt from a syringe).  Speaking as a person who himself  developed peptic ulcers after taking NSAIDs for twelve years, I tend to baulk at the very mention of 'em, but I wasn't initially too worried in this instance, because after all 30 days isn't exactly twelve years.  However, when the diarrhoea started I immediately assumed that Metacam must be the culprit.  Mercifully there was no blood in the diarrhoea though.  As for whether the vet gave my cat a Meloxicam injection when he first treated him, I don't know for certain  -  but I've a feeling the vet simply sedated him so he could be rehydrated, x-rayed and bandaged up. Unfortunately the bill wasn't an itemised one though.

I saw a different vet this time (at the same practice) and after she'd given him an injection of an alternative painkiller, she prescribed Robenacoxib tablets instead of Metacam suspension, as well as Pro-Kolin to combat the diarrhoea.  I'm glad to say that things are looking up as a result.
...

You are welcome, book him danno , and I hope your cat is doing much better! I'm happy to post the information link for the drug, metacam, and I just simply hope that people see the concerns that I and many others have. (You can search this site even and find a lot of people who have had negative experiences with metacam usage on their cats, and have told their vets to make a note in their cats' health files to not use metacam with their cats. The FDA approved it, but under certain conditions, and with warnings and contraindications, etc. Some people have lost their cats due to metacam use! I guess I can just say that I feel relieved your cat is no longer on Metacam. Maybe the vets in Europe do things differently & have different concerns or experiences with some drugs -- I see a handful of instances of British English in your posts, so I assume you are from Britain? and Antonio is from Italy... I am from the west coast of the USA.)

 

[PushPurrCatPaws]

My cat has been put on Metacam since October and she's taking 0.3 ml drops every second day since then. The vets told me she had to take her drops for life.
She's been treated with radiations for a mouth cancer and the Metacam is helpful for reducing inflammation of the treated area and for pain.
My cat suffers from CKD since the age of 6, now she 16 and 10 months. I had blood works done to her every four months since the diagnosis and all the parameters have been perfect so far.
About two months since the beginning of this therapy we had a blood test and she was alright.
She has never shown any side effect from Metacam, what I see is that she's fine despite the condition she's in, so I think it is thanks to Metacam.

Reading the story of you and your cat here in this thread has certainly been eye opening; I hope your cat is feeling as well as can be! Sending loving thoughts to her - hugs and good wishes

She has been through a lot! So very sad her tongue was removed from cancer -- I thankfully have never heard of such a thing before, and I hope she is doing ok.
Like many of us, I have had my own experiences with beloved cats in declining health, and it can be very difficult when their quality of life decreases. We must each decide what is best for our situation.
:heart3:

On the subject of metacam, she has had so many side effects in general from her experiences (from what you describe above in your posts), I guess I would just suggest it might be hard to tell from all of that if the metacam is not affecting her in additional negative ways.

Sending my best wishes to you.

 

[krisrath11]

Adorable kitty! I'm glad u r still hanging in there and that the diareah has subsided. Yes, do watch for constipation as that (I feel) is even worse! Hopefully it will just become regular poop and stop free flowing. The wipes making the smell sounds a little alarming to me. If they r approved for animal use then I would assume they r ok but if not idk if I would use them. If it is a front leg (what I believe I read) idk if u have someone there with u to perhaps get a bowl of water or take him to the tub with a larger bowl and see if u can accomplish any sort of real bath only on the rear. It would be tougher being he weighs much more than bob, but he gets a rear end sink bath (two person job for u as well). I do worry about all the chemicals affecting our poor animals later, but sometimes we just can't avoid it. Just make sure there's a daily poo, if it goes over 2 u r likely to have to do the enema (dreadful in my opinion) and it will be even more nasty than the poop.

 

[PushPurrCatPaws]

One thing a lot of members have used for diarrhea is to add unsweetened canned pumpkin to the food. You do not want the "pie filling" because of all the spices, just plain pumpkin.

The dose I have seen most often is one teaspoon per day, but some members use one tablespoon per day.

Apparently, pumpkin is good for both diarrhea and constipation

I agree about adding the fiber, pumpkin, to help with diarrhea. Good info, foxden ! My experience with this has been that pumpkin is great for diarrhea in cats as it is a soluble fiber, and tends to slow down the travel time of food through the GI system. It also has a lot of potassium, which is often lost when diarrhea is prevalent. (Insoluble fiber helps more with constipation, also in my experience with cats.)

 

[PushPurrCatPaws]

...

As for the cat himself, things ain't so great.  He's been in more pain this week rather than less; he keeps wailing piteously and shaking his leg violently and very quickly, like cats do if they've just been stung.
...

Sometimes this can just be a sign that the cast or bandage was simply fitted a little too tight and the cat is feeling a bit of numbness and tingling in that limb. Just a thought. Maybe the last time they fitted the most recent cast on his leg they got it just a little tighter? In any case, I think you are a few days away from getting the cast off, right?


Hope things continue to improve!

 

[book him danno]

PushPurr, Antonio & krisrath, thanks for your very supportive posts.

PushPurr, call me ignorant but I had no idea Metacam was such a dubious medication.  Probably this is because it's been very rare for my cat to go to the vet for anything except his annual booster jabs.  In six years, the only other things he's seen the vet about have been (a) an eye infection and (b) an infected wound in one of his forelegs, probably inflicted by a mouse who bit back.  So eyedrops and antibiotics are all I've ever had from the vet.  But from now on I'll certainly bear in mind your advice about Metacam being best avoided.  The cat's doing fine on the alternative painkillers, so if ever he needs painkillers again I'll ask for those.

Antonio, your poor long-suffering cat is even more of a project than I'd imagined. CKD as well as cancer  -  and from the age of six?  You're evidently utterly devoted to her.  I dread to think how much of your annual income is spent on vet care.  Do give her my regards.

Yes, my cat and I are British.  Well spotted.  We live in Derby in the north of the English Midlands.  But in true EU style, the two vets I've been seeing are Italian and Romanian, so maybe the Italian one has a preference for Metacam and the Romanian one has the hots for Robenacoxib.  Everything's very multicultural here these days.

By the way, do cats actually enjoy eating pumpkin or do they take some persuading?

Yes krisrath, the diarrhoea has indeed subsided.  Glory hallelujah. As for the antibacterial wipes, they appear to have been a sound investment. I think I just took a while to get used to the smell of them, whereas the cat doesn't appear to have been bothered at all.  And yes, they're cat-specific wipes, bought from the British pet superstore chain Pets At Home.  For some reason the smell of them reminds me of handicraft lessons at school when I was 11 years old.  A bit like wet plaster of paris.  But exasperatingly I've found that the poop-related bacteria have travelled through the faux-fur cover of the mat my cat's been lying on and into the interior cushion (not washable, apparently), so I'm now using the antibacterial wipes on that too, with my fingers crossed.  I hate having to throw new things in the dustbin.

The good news is that, four weeks after the leg injury, the vet's now said the cat can come out of his bandagings as long as he stays in the crate for another month  -  so in theory he'll be able to poop into his box with more precision and won't be painting the walls, floor and furnishings of the crate with fresh poop.  What a relief.  Trouble is, the plaintive wailing is even worse than ever now that he feels a bit more able-bodied and it goes on and on and on and on and on until I begin to fear for my sanity.  Cats  -  don't you just love 'em?

But I do worry about how bored he must be.  Okay, so cats like to sleep and thank heaven for that.  But if he knew he'd got to endure another month in the crate, he'd go straight into meltdown.  Should I be leaving a radio on when I go out?  If so, what kind of channel would be best for a cat? Classical music? Talk radio? Or is silence the best medicine for a recuperating cat?

Here's a picture of him in happier days.

mouse9.5.jpg

• book him danno
• Mar 16, 2017

 

[Antonio65]

Book Him Danno,

I was going to post a message for asking updates when I saw your last message pop under my eyes

Glad to read that your cat (any name?) can get rid of the bandages and walk around in his crate with less restrictions. One month is a long time, but keep in mind that one month has just gone.

Just in case you might need it in the future, another thing that apparently might stop the diarrhoea are the courgettes. Boil them sliced in some hot water then mesh them with a fork into a bowl and add his usual food. I reminded of them when I have read of the pumpkins. I never used them as a treatment, though, but people that I know told me they worked fine.

My cat Lola loves them, she would eat them straight from the pan when my wife would cook them. She had a crush for many other vegetables like French beans, aubergines and green peppers

Unfortunately she can't eat them any longer due to her very sad and bad mouth condition, and it breaks my heart when my wife cook something that she loved to have and now she can't...

Yes, my poor Lola has been very unlucky in her life. Her CKD developed when she was still young and I was terrified to lose her early because I knew that CKD is a fatal disease and gives very few years ahead, but we managed to keep it under control, and over 10 year later it was still as when it was diagnosed. Some vets were doubtful that my cat had ever had such a disease but the SDMA test told no lies.

And yes, the vet cares for my two cats take much money from my income, but because I chose to be responsible for their lives when I took them home, I think  I must be fully responsible and not turn my back to them when they need my help. If this means that I have to forsake something else, well, be it.

Sometines I leave the radio or the TV on when I leave for a few hours. I also leave the lights on when we leave at dark hours. I think that as long as the music isn't too hard or loud it doesn't matter what channel you tune in. I think that a background noise and human voices could keep your cat busy and make him feel less lonely.

I hadn't spotted that you are British, glad to read that. I had visited most of your country many years ago, a whole month in Great Britain from to John O'Groats to Land's End to Wales What a wonderful memories I have!

Hopefull your Italian vet is doing a good job

You're doing a great job yourselves, be proud of that!

P.S.: your boy is gorgeous indeed!

 

[PushPurrCatPaws]

PushPurr, Antonio & krisrath, thanks for your very supportive posts.

PushPurr, ...  The cat's doing fine on the alternative painkillers, so if ever he needs painkillers again I'll ask for those.

That's great news!

~~~

Yes, my cat and I are British.  Well spotted.  We live in Derby in the north of the English Midlands.  But in true EU style, the two vets I've been seeing are Italian and Romanian, so maybe the Italian one has a preference for Metacam and the Romanian one has the hots for Robenacoxib.  Everything's very multicultural here these days.

:catguy:

~~~

By the way, do cats actually enjoy eating pumpkin or do they take some persuading?

Most take some persuading. Introducing small amounts at first, diluted with water or "hidden" in their food somehow, usually helps with the persuading :rolleyes2

~~~

The good news is that, four weeks after the leg injury, the vet's now said the cat can come out of his bandagings as long as he stays in the crate for another month  -  so in theory he'll be able to poop into his box with more precision and won't be painting the walls, floor and furnishings of the crate with fresh poop.  What a relief.  Trouble is, the plaintive wailing is even worse than ever now that he feels a bit more able-bodied and it goes on and on and on and on and on until I begin to fear for my sanity.  Cats  -  don't you just love 'em?

So glad to hear he can soon be bandage-free!

I think other posters mentioned that a litter box with a shorter side height can help the cat with an injured leg step over the side and use the litter box more easily. I had to do that when my cat was crate-bound for 8 or 9 weeks last year after a knee surgery. It was my cat's back leg that had had surgery, and with your cat, it's the front leg. So maybe the side height on the box for a front leg is not as much of an issue, I'm not sure.

~~~

But I do worry about how bored he must be.  Okay, so cats like to sleep and thank heaven for that.  But if he knew he'd got to endure another month in the crate, he'd go straight into meltdown.  Should I be leaving a radio on when I go out?  If so, what kind of channel would be best for a cat? Classical music? Talk radio? Or is silence the best medicine for a recuperating cat?

During the appointment when the bandage comes off, you could ask the vet what kinds of movements or play will be allowed for your cat for the next 4-6 weeks. It's not easy. I feel for you! When my cat had to be crated for two months, we put a small scratch post inside of her crate for her to scratch on, and we were allowed to put a few toys inside the crate, as long as she didn't get too rambunctious. If she got too wild with the toys, they came right back out. But maybe 5-10 minute toy sessions with your cat will help with his boredom! As Antonio also said, background music or noise and human voices helps too.

~~~

Here's a picture of him in happier days.

mouse9.5.jpg

• book him danno
• Mar 16, 2017

Love that photo, thanks for sharing it! My cat is a tuxedo as well. They certainly are special, aren't they!

 

[Norachan]

What a handsome boy! I love tuxedo cats. A lot of the semi feral cats I care for are black and white. Your cat looks a lot like the grand father of the clan, Hige San (Mr Mustache)

Some cats really like pumpkin. Offer him a tiny bit on a spoon first. You might be lucky and have one of the sort of cats who regard it as a treat.

 

[book him danno]

Antonio, PushPurr & Norachan, thanks for the kind things you said about the picture of my cat. His name is Mouse and he was formerly a stray, but we had very hard winter weather here in late 2010 and one day he spent all day sitting curled up in a tight ball on my yard wall, surrounded by snow and ice, almost completely motionless except for when he hunched himself up even tighter against the cold.  He didn't move at all in the whole day and he appeared to have given up trying to keep himself alive.  At 10.00 p.m. he was still sitting on the wall and the temperature was ¯4°C,   so I was very worried he might die if I didn't do something.  I Googled the words 'Do cats die of hypothermia?' and the answer proved to be a resounding Yes, so I tried taking food out to him, but he was terrified of me (and of all other humans) and he immediately ran away and hid in some bushes, so I put the food on the ground and came back indoors.  He came creeping back out from the bushes, crept up to the bowl, took one mouthful of food and then jumped back about six feet, then crept up again, took another mouthful and jumped back six feet again, on and on, like he thought it was a trap and didn't dare remain near the bowl.  This went on for days, until I had to go away for 24 hours.  When I came back, he was so glad to see me that he came much, much closer when I took his food out to him.

After that, I began leaning out of my window at 5.30 a.m. each day and placing the food on the ground beneath it, so he would think of my window as a place where good things came from.  I would then leave the window wide open for the next couple of hours while I had my breakfast and got ready to go out, because I wanted him to sit on the yard wall and see into the lit-up room, so he would know what it was like in there without actually having to venture inside.  But he was still very wary of me indeed and the slightest little thing would panic him.  After about a month of this, he hopped up onto my window sill, looked in, then fled in terror.  But the next day, he took a couple of steps further before fleeing  -  then the day after that he took one step further, onto the desk underneath the window, before fleeing  -  and so on.  One morning at the usual time, instead of putting his food outside under the window, I put it on the living-room carpet and waited for him to come in in search of it.  As you'd imagine, he took a couple of mouthfuls and then fled, then returned for another couple of mouthfuls, and so forth.  I never went anywhere near him, never spoke to him, never made eye contact.  Eventually the day came when he finished his food and then sat there grooming himself before leaving; then the day came when he hopped up onto an armchair to groom himself before leaving; and eventually the day came when something frightened him but instead of fleeing out of the window, he fled up into the armchair, which was a major breakthrough. Then came the day when he slept for half an hour on the armchair.  Then the day when he slept for an hour...

After five months, countless panic attacks and many freezing breakfasts times (due to my window always being open), Mouse had decided he trusted me and I was able to get him to the vet for his first check-up.  The vet said he was aged between one and two, so I treated him as being 18 months old on that day, 05 May 2011.  I called him Mouse because of the famous poem about the mouse by Robert Burns that begins 'Wee sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie.'   He has grown up to be a stunningly intelligent companion, as willing and biddable as a Border Collie and so very, very quick to understand anything I need him to understand.  Even after six years, my jaw continues to drop when I speak to him in plain English and he reacts as if he's understood every word.  When I hear cat-owners trot out platitudes like "You don't own a cat, a cat owns you" or "When a cat moves into a house, it immediately becomes the head of the household, because everyone else has to arrange their lives around the cat" or "If you give a dog food, warmth and shelter, it thinks you're God  - but if you give a cat food, warmth and shelter, it thinks that it's God", I just shake my head in bafflement.  Mouse is just a quiet, thoughtful, gentle, polite, inoffensive, charming little gentleman who's been on best behaviour ever since the day he first came in from the snow through my living-room window. I have no bad word to say about him, even after six years.  And as my friend Anna observed, his whiskers make him look very wise, like a cat from a storybook.

Thank god he survived his close encounter with a speeding car, say I.  He's a truly life-enhancing companion animal and I'm very lucky indeed that he lives with me.

('Hige san'?  I like that a lot. Massive respect to the Grandfather.)

P8207036.JPG

• book him danno
• Mar 19, 2017

 

[Norachan]

I've managed to lure in a few feral kittens with the "Food bowl by the open window" technique. It's worth putting up with the cold if you know you're going to have them safely indoors soon.

heidi1.jpg

• Norachan
• Mar 20, 2017
• 3

Heidi2.jpg

• Norachan
• Mar 20, 2017

Heidi Corkscrew when she first started coming in.

Henry1.jpg

• Norachan
• Mar 20, 2017
• 2

Henry Lee peeping through the door.

They both turn 4 next month.

This is Hige San, the Grand Daddy of them all.

HigeSan1.jpg

• Norachan
• Mar 20, 2017

 

[book him danno]

Norachan, please accept my apologies for the delay in responding.

Hige San is very dignified indeed  -  every inch the pater familias.

Is Heidi's corkscrew tail broken or is it a birth malformity?  Or is it hereditary in the local cat community?

And why is Henry Lee called Henry Lee?

They are, of course, all beautiful.

 

[Norachan]

 
Norachan, please accept my apologies for the delay in responding.

Hige San is very dignified indeed  -  every inch the pater familias.

Is Heidi's corkscrew tail broken or is it a birth malformity?  Or is it hereditary in the local cat community?

And why is Henry Lee called Henry Lee?

They are, of course, all beautiful.

Thank you.

A lot of my cats have short of twisted tails. I think it's partly to do with having the Japanese Bob-tail gene, most street cats in Japan carry it, and partly to do with being a bit inbred. I don't have a picture that shows Hige San's tail. It was only about 10 cm long.

Henry Lee is named after a Nick Cave song. I'm a big Nick Cave fan.

 

[book him danno]

Update:

Well, old Mouse is now excused from wearing strapping and bandages, but his most recent x-ray revealed that the splintered pieces of his ulna aren't joining back together as swiftly as we'd hoped.  There's some faint grey on the x-ray photo which represents new bone growth around the edges of the splinters, but there's still a lot of blackness too.  Mouse has been sentenced to another month in his crate, followed by another x-ray.  Only time will tell what happens next.  He continues to take one Robenacoxib tablet per day for pain relief.

As for Mouse himself, he has acclimatised to life in the crate to a certain extent and doesn't yowl as much as he did, but he's still pretty fed up.  The weather here has been very mild for several weeks now, with the sun shining and the birds twittering very loudly as they go about building their nests etc., so Mouse is sporadically rather frustrated about not even being able to see out of the window.  He was shut in his cell when it was still winter and he definitely won't be getting to go out of doors until it's summer.  But broadly speaking he's managing to take each day in his stride.  I regularly put a laptop on the floor by his crate and leave a DVD playing for him, preferably one with animals in it.  His favourite appears to be Cats & Dogs, though as you'd imagine he doesn't watch the whole thing right through.  He did seem to watch quite a lot of Furry Vengeance yesterday though.  He also seemed quite caught up in The Water Horse,  Ghostbusters, Gulliver's Travels and even Shutter Island, but Pan's Labyrinth and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians  appeared to distress him, so I switched them off.  He was okay with Life of Pi until the sea storm became too ferocious, after which he yowled until I intervened and brought the screening to a close.  I'd been hoping he'd be fascinated by the tiger, but no  -  sea storms are evidently beyond the pale, tiger or no tiger.

As for grappling with poop, I'd have to say that things have understandably improved since the bandages were removed, but I still face major poop crises.  A couple of weeks ago, Mouse started mounting 'dirty protests' which involved trashing the inside of his crate: throwing his bedding around, flinging cat litter in all directions, pooping in the litter box and then throwing his bedding on top of the poop.  Day after day I was having to spend anything up to one-and-a-half hours clearing up all the mess first thing in the morning, but then I had the idea of buying some very strong bulldog clips and using them to fasten the edges of his bedding to the bars of the crate, which has proved a successful tactic.  But his aim is sometimes not very good when he poops in the litter box (it's a large box, but he's a big cat), so I'm still finding poop on the floor of the crate sometimes, which gets itself transferred to the bedding if I'm unlucky.

Roll on the end of this ordeal.  I'm told that when Mouse is eventually allowed out of the crate, he'll still have to remain indoors for another three weeks, and I can envisage only too well how that'll be:  he'll spend half the day sitting on the window sill, yowling at me increasingly loudly to let him out  -  and when that has no effect, he'll spend the other half of the day attempting to gain access to my lap when I'm trying to work. Cats, eh?

PS:  Does anyone have experience of a cat's tooth being knocked out?  Mouse has lost one of his two upper fangs, yet there was no blood and no swelling, so the vet says it couldn't have happened when he was hit by the car.  However, the tooth-hole was still clearly visible in his gum, which suggests he'd only lost the tooth recently or the gum would've smoothed over, leaving no tooth-hole visible.  All rather baffling.

PPS:  Norachan, I sincerely hope that a little bird never lights down on Henry Lee.