My Cat Hasn't Eaten For 5 Days

[Ricker]

Thank you all for the advice and suggestions. I started by doing the easiest thing first, and that was to give her the foods she typically has little problem eating. However, she's one of those cats that doesn't have a favorite food or a food she is crazy about and will eat guaranteed. She does LOVE tuna and I tried giving her that last night and this afternoon. She barely looked at it. I tried to feed it to her using a fork, she just eyed me and the fork as if I were about to harm her with it. Then I attempted to place some on my finger and she closed her eyes and moved her head away. I tried the fork thing twice and the finger feeding three times. I got desperate and pretty much shoved it in her face and she fought to get away from it. It's as if I'm offering her poison.

She just woke up from a long nap and she's usually in a much better mood when she's groggy. I will take advantage of this and syringe feed her now. I will have to wrap her in a blanket and use my heavy duty gloves both of which terrify her because she has associated those two things with very unpleasant experiences but she is far more nervous and sensitive than most cats so causing trauma in her life is not difficult. This is why it's difficult for me to go about things using force because I know how much terror it causes her and it breaks my heart to know she thinks I'm trying to harm her. But can't worry about that now. I want her to recover from this and will just do it. She'll get over it even though she will freak the moment she sees the gloves and no amount of sweet talking or gentleness will calm her down. She's the type that is convinced that anything done by force is to harm her and she will fight for her life even if the person doing it is someone she likes or trusts.

Anyway, wish me luck and thanks again for all the advice all of which I will definitely go out and buy and / or try.

 

[Kieka]

I've used human meat baby food and put a little tiny door of the food on the nose. Just a smidgen. My cat licks the baby food and usually will start to lap up some food after that (I place the shallow dish with food right under their face).

 

[baxtersmom]

I understand what you mean completely. My Peanut was very skittish. If I even reached out to pet her she would immediately start backing away. I just kept trying until I found a food that she would eat from my hand. She loved the Hills Urgent Care for awhile. It was smoother than the other food and easier to lick. However, when she decided she wasn't going to eat any longer nothing I did worked. She just clamped her jaws shut and turned her head away. Good luck. I hope you can find something that works.

 

[golondrina]

Hi Ricker, how are things going on? Hoping you have succeeded in getting into Bebe the fluids and food ordered by the vet. My heart goes to you on these difficult days wishing you an improvement in her condition. Please send updates when you can.

 

[PushPurrCatPaws]

R Ricker , we are really pulling for you and your kitty!

I don't know if this will be a possibility with your vet, but I just want to relay an anecdote of my own that I experienced with my last cat.

Many cats get too stressed out at the vet's to even want to eat on their own when they get home. And after a period of not eating, it can be almost like a "brain lock" moment for them: they turn away from food because they are feeling so badly and sick and cannot get past that without some sort of relaxation aid. If it's already been several days of not eating, you simply don't want that to continue! They need to eat. My last cat had a 5-day hospitalization once and it really stressed her out. When we brought her home, she still wouldn't eat. It was like she went into a system-wide depression. What worked for her then was to take her back to the vet and do a short-term approach of a valium shot, which relaxed her brain, relaxed her muscles too... and the vet set a bowl of "stinky alley cat food" in front of her -- a very smelly, fishy, meaty combination of tuna and various stinky canned foods all slopped together, in a slurry. Luckily, in our case, she ate like a champ at the vet, and we felt confident enough to bring her back home again. I think the vet gave us one or two more doses of the valium to use, but we didn't need it. From that point forward, at home we were able to nurse her back to health after her hospital ordeal. I don't know if your vet will offer to do something like that? Some cats will not eat or attempt to eat if they cannot relax first.

 

[JamesCalifornia]

~ Ah - I remembered something my dear Mom used to do when sick dogs/cats will not eat : baby food . Those nice little jars of pureed meats and poultry. It seemed to always work !
Hope kitty is doing better ...

 

[Ricker]

Apologies for the delay in updating. Here's what happened.

Before I go on...Bebe is doing fine. She's back at her usual self; crunching through her dry food and daintily licking up her wet food.

I am glad about the antibiotic injection too, Golondrina, because I truly believe that's what made the difference. I believe it saved her because she almost immediately began to improve. The day after she looked worse for a few hours but she has been steadily improving since and all of the discharge from her mouth and nose, as well as the scratchy mewing, tight posture, and squinty "smiley" face are all gone.

But what has also gone is her being affectionate toward me. I must admit that I am depressed over it because I had wished and hoped for so long that she'd finally see me as someone safe and whom she can trust and she was so loving and cuddly when she was sick. I miss that dearly.

She is now back to her usual wary, "oh, it's you again. Ughh!" demeanor. And she has continued swatting and hissing at poor Boyo, who is by now so sick of her bitchiness, he takes revenge by eagerly and relentlessly eating up all of her food which has only given her a solid reason not to like him.

Kieka, at the time I didn't realize it but you're right, she was definitely making herself appear to be stronger than she was and it was mostly due to the threat of Boyo. The vet gave her 2 pain injections due to the severity of the pain she was apparently feeling yet I didn't notice anything other than the tight ball posture. I know now for next time not to wait just because "she seems to be OK."

Went out and got some Nutri-Cal as DaftCat75 had recommended. I gave her some the day after the vet when she was still looking awful and she was extremely scared of mostly the syringe but was feeling so bad she miraculously didn't put up a fight. She just laid there with a very mistrusting and cautious glare but she quickly lapped up the Nutri-Cal and appeared to like it. That was a small success and so I decided to go all out and continue with the prescription diet.

Cheeser, yes, it is the Hill's a/d Urgent Care canned food and it is so soft it was easily drawn up into the syringe right out of the can. I put on my big, scary gloves and she did not give me the usual doom glare and "doooon't kill meeeee" reaction. Took me about 5 minutes just to get her to open her mouth a little. When she did, I pushed some in her mouth and she freaked a bit but she liked the taste and ate a little bit. It was day 6 so I was praising the Lord even if she had dropped most of it. I continued to give her food and she dropped less and less until by the 5th syringeful, she ate it all.

Maybe the Nutri-cal sort of stimulated her taste buds and allowed for syringe feeding. Thank you for this recommendation DaftCat75. It seems to have helped kick off things as far as her eating.

She didn't eat again until late at night so I was still worried but I had noticed some of her dry food missing and on the floor around her bowl the next morning and that helped me relax a bit. She did not start eating normally again until the following morning so in total she went almost a whole week without eating.

Blood panel showed nothing abnormal, which made me so happy I hugged her for the first time in almost a year (cause she won't let me) and she just had this completely unimpressed look which made me laugh from joy as she was herself again.

JamesCalifornia, she used to be crazy about chicken and she'd always gobble it up when she was a kitten. Now, she slaps it around with an air of mistrust and eventually just leaves it there. She's a really bitchy cat, but I love her. =)

PushPurrCatPaws, I have had Bebe for more than a year now and I'm amazed by how much I'm still learning about cats in general and you're right, a part of what was happening with her had to do with the stress brought upon by the introduction of Boyo to the household. I can tell because it turns out both I and everyone who had advised to take her to the vet were all right to some extent. She definitely needed to be taken urgently to the vet and a lot of it was her acting out in protest over Boyo. It just got kind of vague there for awhile and it was easy for me to assume the best. Since getting better it has been eaier for me to see which behaviors were due to Boyo and which were due to illness and the stiff jumping onto my lap as if ready to attack was definitely Boyo because she actually attacked me yesterday by jumping on my lap then bring out her claws. I was wearing boxers only so you could imagine how painful that was to my poor legs. She's not too pleased with me right now but I'm just hoping she will someday accept the Boyo and at least enjoy some of her time here with me. I do love her and I hope she at least knows that because I don't know what I would have done had she left me.

Thanks again to all for all the fantastic advice and support. I appreciate it deeply.

 

[Kieka]

So glad to hear she is improving.

As to her and Boyo, it can take time. My Mom's cat took a good four months to accept my girl. As long as you don't have fur or blood they are coexisting okay. You might want to watch some my cat from hell espisodes on interactions. They have some great advice and examples you can watch.

 

[golondrina]

Thank you Ricker for your update. I'm so happy that Bebe is improving. You are a marvellous mom to her. The treatment has been important but without your patience, care and dedication she would have never made it.

 

[Katiekat412]

I know it's probably too late for my response to be useful. No one could diagnose my cat's liver disease (we eventually though cholangeohepatitis, but it was likely small cell lypmhpoma). Anyway, the ONLY reason I almost put her down is that she wasn't eating. I almost had an NG tube placed. My lifesaver was an internal medicine doc and a friend who is a vet:
1. A nauseous cat won't eat- ask for an injection of antinausea meds.
2. We started prednisolone- it quiets inflammatory diseases.
3. Like you- antibiotics were started.
24 hours later, eating. Then she'd have intermttent bouts of not eating. There is a drug called "mirtazipine". It increases cat's appetites. It's very important to dose correctly or conservatively, but it works most times (sometimes it takes 12 hours). It last 2-3 days.
Best of luck.

 

[Margret]

What worked for her then was to take her back to the vet and do a short-term approach of a valium shot, which relaxed her brain, relaxed her muscles too... and the vet set a bowl of "stinky alley cat food" in front of her

The explanation I got when my vet gave Valium to my Sweet Thing after she'd stopped eating during her final illness (~30 years ago) was that, for cats, Valium works like marijuana on humans - it gives them the munchies. However, unlike humans and pot, the cat will build up a tolerance for it fairly quickly, so the trick can only be used a few times and then it stops working.

How accurate this is I don't know; looking back on it I have some doubts about that particular vet.

Margret

 

[PushPurrCatPaws]

The explanation I got when my vet gave Valium to my Sweet Thing after she'd stopped eating during her final illness (~30 years ago) was that, for cats, Valium works like marijuana on humans - it gives them the munchies. However, unlike humans and pot, the cat will build up a tolerance for it fairly quickly, so the trick can only be used a few times and then it stops working.

How accurate this is I don't know; looking back on it I have some doubts about that particular vet.

Margret

Exactly so, Margret. Muscle relaxer plus the munchies - a good short-term combo for cats, for sure!