My cat has been active and playful, but sometimes looks a bit off. Should I take her in?

[ColoradoCat]

Hello everyone. My sweet girl Cassie has been acting a bit strangely lately. We've witnessed her running up and down her cat trees and playing with my other cat as recently as last night, and she was rolling around on one of her trees this morning. However, I've also noticed that she's just seemed a bit off these past few days. She is currently sitting in her bed next to me and just seems a bit uncomfortable. Her whole head sometimes moves when she's breathing, I'm often seeing her third eyelids, and I've seen her lick her lips a few times like cats sometimes do when they're in distress. We've had family visiting for Christmas and a new house guest turned up Monday, so I'm hoping she's just a bit stressed. What really concerns me, though, is the fact that she suffered what we believe to be lily toxicity last September and spent five days in hospital. We're still not sure what the long term effects of that are going to be. She's supposed to go in for blood work on the 23rd, but I'm wondering if I should just take her in now.

 

[Furballsmom]

Hi, you know your baby best, and what I get through the text in your post is that you are really quite concerned. I know on the one hand it's only 20 more days, but if this were me I'd call them and have a chat -- depending on the relationship you have with your vet, but maybe on the other hand just go ahead and take her in.

 

[ColoradoCat]

Hi, you know your baby best, and what I get through the text in your post is that you are really quite concerned. I know on the one hand it's only 20 more days, but if this were me I'd call them and have a chat -- depending on the relationship you have with your vet, but maybe on the other hand just go ahead and take her in.

I think it probably would be best to take her in, just to be safe. She's really just not quite her normal self. I actually ended up making an appointment for tomorrow for her. Hopefully she's just stressed with all the additional chaos in the house, but I'd really rather be safe than sorry.

 

[Furballsmom]

 

[ColoradoCat]

The more I watch Cassie, the more I'm starting to think she may just be very, very stressed. I've noticed in the roughly 2.5 years I've had her that she doesn't seem to handle change very well. She was completely frazzled when we got back from Maui last February and the house sitter said she'd never even seen her, and I recall bringing her with me one time I was house sitting (with permission from the house owner—I wasn't able to leave her at home at this time) and she barely ate anything while she was there. She doesn't really know one of our house guests well, and a couple of them are a bit on the loud side to the point where I myself am often a bit stressed. To add to that, my other cat also looks a bit frazzled whenever there's any commotion going on. I'm still thinking I'll take her in tomorrow, but I think the focus will be on managing her stress. She has also thrown up small amounts of partially digested kibble on a couple occasions, so that will be mentioned as well.

 

[Furballsmom]

 

[ColoradoCat]

So Cassie did go to the vet today. They weren't concerned about her kidneys, and they said she looked healthy. Given the circumstances, the current diagnosis is simply that she's incredibly stressed with the massive change to her routine as a result of the Christmas chaos and a couple very noisy house guests she doesn't know well. We put her on gabapentin and I gave her her first does today. She's already looking better, which has me hugely relieved, and she did a big purr for me about five minutes ago. Things will start to quiet down in a couple of days, and hopefully she'll be completely back to her old self shortly after that.