I Don't Know What To Do - 15+yo Cat

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FeebysOwner

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Can feeby take mirtazepine?
I don't think her issue is lack of appetite, as she would eat all the deli turkey I could offer her. She has just decided that she doesn't much care for dry food, which is fine IF she would eat more canned food. She is a grazer by nature, so a little bit of canned here and there would be her preference (maybe about 1/12 of a can at a time).
 
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FeebysOwner

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Here is one for all of you - Feeby threw up a lot this morning. It consisted of the dry food she had eaten earlier, as well as tuna (she gets that at least weekly), and some of her usual canned food. BUT, there was also some Gerber Baby Meat (ground chicken and cornstarch only) - which would have been from yesterday evening! She had a total on one little baby jar of food over the course of maybe 12 - 18 hours. I can only conclude her system cannot handle the baby meat? Or, it is another 'fluke' in her series of recent flukes?

I think I am staying away from the baby food meat. I just gave her some more of her canned food, along with some canned chicken in water - which she has had many times before. So far, so good. :crossfingers::crossfingers::crossfingers::crossfingers:
 

rubysmama

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Strange. I would have thought the food she ate hours earlier would have been out of her stomach. :dunno: Poor Feeby really is trying to stress her mom out, isn't she. :sigh: Fingers crossed for a good day today. :crossfingers: :hearthrob: :catrub:
 
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FeebysOwner

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Feeby just continues to puzzle me. Whenever I eat cottage cheese, I always smash up some for her to eat, and she gladly does. This week, my normal brand was out of Low Fat (1%), so I just went ahead and bought 'regular' (4%). I really didn't notice any significant taste difference, but apparently she did. She ate a little bit and decided she didn't want anymore - never happens with the Low Fat.
Both are made from nonfat milk, but the 4% contains cream. All other ingredients are the same.

So, she doesn't like the overall taste due to the cream? Or, her digestive tract is still off from the vomiting yesterday? Her stool is fine, and she has eaten pretty much normally after her throw up session yesterday morning. Go figure.
 
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Feeby is using the coffee table a fair amount. Hasn't slept with me for the past 3 nights - sits in a spot against the wall, where she used to go from time to time months and months and months ago. Not hanging out with me on the recliner either; she would rather sit on the bottom shelf of an end table next to me. :dunno:

She did go onto the patio and hang out this morning for a bit, and then again this afternoon on the one perch she's been going to for a while now (overcast, so less heat).

She has eaten 3/4 of a can of cat food (3 separate meals) with some canned chicken in water added to it. But, she has probably only eaten a handful of dry food. However, she was more than happy to eat a slice of low sodium deli turkey earlier. Oh, and yeah, some hairball treats - and her Glyco Flex Plus, which I had to add most of it to her last canned food meal. So, as it stands right now, she maybe has had 225 calories today? I think I am rounding up a bit. Even if I weren't, and this would be a normal day for her - assuming I can get that other 1/4 can down her later, she would still only be consuming around 270 calories in a day. That's like for a 13.5 pound cat!! The last accurate weight I have for her is 15.9 when last at the vets (mid August). That was when she had only lost .10 pound in a month's time. When I weighed her on my scale, she was somewhere between 15 and 16 - I am guessing, it is just too hard to tell.

Can't wait for the scale to show up (due Monday), to see where she is really at, since I can't seem to get a realistic reading while holding her on our scale. I am scared to death how bad it might be. :sweat:

She seems fine otherwise - not very active, but then she hasn't been for years, really.
 

rubysmama

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Feeby sounds like she's doing, for her age. Kinda like a senior human, with good days and not so good days. The roller coaster ride is hard on the caregiver, though, regardless if the senior is human or feline. :alright:

Here's hoping for more good days. :crossfingers:
 
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The scale came yesterday, and although it is not as accurate as they claim (supposed to be precision within .02 lbs) - calculating in the 'variance' I identified, Feeby still weighs right around 16 lbs. How she is maintaining her weight on around 225 calories is above and beyond me (vs. 16 lbs x 20 calories per lb = 320 calories).

I guess her lack of activity makes up for why she can maintain her weight on so much less?

I know the level of fat/protein/carbohydrates can play a role, but at this juncture is she is eating a less level of fat/carbos and higher level protein than when she was ingesting more dry food.
 
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Here we are, nearly two weeks later and it looks like Feeby has lost 0.2 lb since Oct. 1. Not a horrible amount, and most likely due to her minimal amount of food intake. I decided to take this new scale at 'face value' and not factor in a possible variance - on that basis, she has lost 0.4 lb since her August 13 vet visit (15.9 then to 15.5 now).

She is barely eating one 5.5 oz can of food per day, with some canned chicken in water added to it. Yesterday, I decided to try tuna canned in water, just to see if that would encourage her to eat more. There was a bit of a change, but not enough to consider it a success.

She still gladly eats human turkey, fish, and cottage cheese when offered it - although not in quantities comparable to her canned food - but, I guess she is just sick and tired of her canned food? She seeks out human food most of the time when she knows it is being prepared, but almost never goes to her feeding stations for her own food. I am not sure if this is because after all these months, she has become accustomed to getting served her canned food on the coffee table. So, I never know for sure if that is why she gets on the table, or what. If it is near her feeding times and she gets on the table, I offer her the canned food which most of the time she will eat - even if it takes her 1/2 to 1 hour to eat 1/4 of a can. If not on the table, I feed her where ever she is, but she ends up on the table to finish eating. So, I am guessing she just expects to be fed her food on the table now.

She is only eating about 5 - 10 pieces of dry food a day, if that - which is kept solely at her feeding stations. But, she has to be at those stations to drink water, so she is aware the dry food is there.

I am looking into Purina Pro Plan Focus Urinary Care canned food (there is a RX one as well by Purina). Although comparing its ingredients against the Hills C/D and RC SO is nearly like trying to compare apples and oranges. Anyway, I will try that, and if that doesn't help to get her to eat more, I might see about Wysong Uretic or resort to 'regular' foods for her and hope that doesn't cause any issues with her 10 year streak of being stone-free. I would like to test this out before her geriatric check-up due this month, but am running out of time.
 
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Have you tried RC urinary so wet morsals in gravy. It is the only one Buzz will eat. I sometimes mix some Hills C/D dry with it.
I was feeding RC SO to her, interchanging it with Hills C/D. I don't have access to the one you are talking about - at least not at PetSmart where they allow me to buy prescription without an 'actual' prescription. Then, for what ever reason, I couldn't find Hills in stock and resorted to nothing but the RC SO. After 4 straight days of that, she started having loose stools with blood in them. I could only think that she can't handle a constant diet of RC SO. I stopped it altogether, and the loose, bloody stools stopped. I have been s-l-o-w-l-y reintegrating that with the Hills C/D, hoping that she can tolerate it if not fed to her exclusively. The thing is, she doesn't eat it any better than the Hills C/D when she does get it now.

It's like she is rejecting ALL of her old standby food (Hills C/D and RC SO dry for the past 10 years, then added the canned of both about 3 years ago). How does a cat do that after all these years?
 

verna davies

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I will never understand them. It's a shame you cant get the wet morsals, its not chicken as the other SO is. You must be pulling your hair out trying to find something that Feeby will eat and suits her digestive system.
 
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Feeby ate an extra 1/4 can of food yesterday (on top of her traditional 1 can)!! Fluke? Maybe, but if so, I'll take as many fluke eating days as I can!! She really didn't eat any more than her usual 10 or so pieces of dry food, though.

I do believe that she is getting on the coffee table to announce she is ready for breakfast. This morning, after sleeping with me all night, she got up before me and sat on a footstool looking out our screen door to the front yard. (Weather is slightly cooler, so the inside door was open. This used to be one of her favorite things to do on the weekends when my husband is home.) However, the minute she heard me getting up, she promptly left the footstool and got onto the coffee table and squawked at me for breakfast!

She seems to be reverting back to other 'old ways', in that she has spent less time on the coffee table yesterday and today so far. She went back to hanging out on her back bedroom window perch - which she abandoned months ago. I don't know if this is because I weighed her the other day on this perch, and that helped her recall the 'good old days' of spending time there, or what. She was also eyeballing our spider plants to chomp on that my husband sets down closer to the floor for extra sun in the morning on the patio - also an old favorite of hers!

Or, perhaps this extra activity of hers is also a fluke - in that she is having a good day or two ( or three, four, or dozens & dozens!!) before she has some more bad days. If it is a fluke, I just want it to last long enough that it can stop being considered a fluke!!
 
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So far, Feeby is still being a bit more mobile and hanging out a bit less on the coffee table!! :jive:

The food/calories is still a struggle. She did eat 1 1/2 cans of cat food yesterday (233 calories) . Add in the 'miscellaneous' calories (bite of human food, hairball treats, Glyco Flex Plus) - which I am averaging to be at about 45 calories, and she should have gotten in around 278 calories for the day. Probably the highest she has had since I started trying to better monitor it.

But, even at 20 calories per pound that would theoretically sustain a 13.9 pound cat. So, we have some work to do. She weighed 15.3 this AM, which means she still has lost about 2 oz since a week ago. I will get a more accurate reading when she sees the vet next Tuesday - and, if need be, I will tare the scale I have to match that weight. Hope it is very close!!! :crossfingers: If it is, that is still 6 oz weight loss since 8/13. But, since her caloric intake is low, it should mean the weight loss is due to lack of calories, and not something else...

I am trying to add some other canned foods to her canned Hill's C/D and RC SO - mostly for the gravy and/or different flavoring. She seemed to like Fancy Feast beef in gravy - but, like all other foods ONLY if I smash the protein into "mincemeat". Ditto with the FF Salmon in gravy - although I think she likes the beef one better. I also have FF turkey in gravy to try. I will continue to switch the 'additives' with the ones I have used in the past - canned tuna in water and canned chicken in water as well. All these foods are 3 oz cans, but each one can last her nearly 3 days - so the best I can hope to increase her total calorie count per day is by a ballpark of 20 extra calories. And, I am not even going to try to factor in the less than 10 morsels of dry she might (or might not) eat each day!! 😖
 
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UPDATE: Feeby just returned from her semi-annual check up, and the vet says he is happy with where she is at.

He didn't even want to run new blood tests, given that the one that was run in July showed everything within normal ranges. When I asked about the elevation in some of her WBC numbers between July and the ones ran in April - he said fluctuations happen and the type of counts that had fluctuated at that time were most likely due to her flea infestation.

She weighed 15.6 (vs. 15.9 in August), so he was not worried about that either considering what I told him she is eating right now. He said her muscle mass is in line with a cat her age - and he did note to me that "she is still overweight"! I didn't even think to ask what he thought she ought to weigh - DUH! Anyway, he is OK with her losing some weight at the rate she is. But, he also wants her to like her food and enjoy eating - and "if it means finding some food that she likes/enjoys outside the urinary care food she is currently eating, go ahead and try adding some" - one at a time, of course!

Initially, when I said she was no longer into dry food, he wanted to take a more extensive look at her teeth and gums, but said he thinks they are in pretty good shape. I asked about junior vets' previous remark about some gingivitis on some of her back teeth, and he said "there isn't enough there to consider it an issue. Actually her teeth/gums are pretty impressive for her age".

Funny thing is - I guess out of long standing habit on her part - the minute she got home, she ran to her dry food bowl and ate from it!! She has done that 'routine' for years, I guess it is her 'consolation food' after a vet visit. LOL!!

Not everything is 'back to normal' (as in from where she was before the flea infestation), but perhaps this is her new norm - the vet agreed. For the most part, as long as I can control her weight, I guess I am OK with that. As her vet and I discussed, age/life/illness/circumstances change people, so why would that not apply to cats too?
 
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