My kitty cat had abdominal surgery. How long until he doesn't need pain meds?

[Meowmee]

I'm so sorry for your Wizard. I will definitely keep his pain in mind going forward. Does lymphoma cause pain? We should get the results today (Monday), I'm told. I will definitely let you know. I'm really nervous about it, and I'm pretty sure it's lymphoma. Do you have any advice about that? I haven't spoken with an oncologist yet since we don't have results yet, but I've done a bit of research, and I'm struggling with if chemo is even the right thing to do.

I got a call a couple days ago, and the doctor said we should be out of the woods now for risk of any complications, such as with intestinal leakage. She said the 10-day mark is a pretty safe distance out that he should continue to heal and not have any complications. We're at 14 days post-op now, and he seems to be doing well. We're doing daily Cerenia for nausea/vomiting and giving Mirataz occasionally to help with his decreased appetite. The Mirataz irritates his ears, so I have to use it sparingly. I did get an oral mirtazapine yesterday that I can give if needed, but he is very hard to pill.

Thank you was he was an amazing boy.

Wizard had intestinal lymphoma but he did not have obvious tumors like your kitty. Wizard did have pain towards the end. Sometimes he would sort of lean forward and cry. I called DVM, but I don’t think they ever gave me a painkiller for him because it would pass very quickly. I can’t remember what they said. I think it was getting worse and it was causing pain. I asked the doctor about pain meds a few times and he said that he didn’t want him on a lot of medication. He might’ve been given gabapentin. I can’t remember now. Now I think he really should’ve been on something more for pain, he was on prednisilone and the chemo drug which help, but I think he needed something specifically for pain as well.

It was something that passed quickly, but I don’t know why else he would’ve been doing that unless he was in pain, maybe anxiety. We never did a biopsy because he was too old, and he had trouble with sedation, his doctor could tell from bw, from x-ray, ultrasound and examining him that this was what was going on and he was fiv plus and had a history of ibd. He was on various things to help constipation too which was supposed to help the pain also.

Looking back on it he should have been given a pk. Most of the time he did well, it was only towards the very end, but then he had a period where he got better for a while, and then he had a tooth infection in… everything started to deteriorate with his blood work 2-3 weeks later. I could tell it was the end not long after, and we let him go at that point, he wasn’t in pain then as far as I could tell.

There are several things that can help the pain of intestinal lymphoma. The treatment with prednisilone can help their pain because it shrinks the tumors and reduces inflammation. The other main treatment is usually chlorambucil and it can help the pain if it’s effective againts the cancer.

If they receive radiation treatment that can help the pain too. I can’t find anything about surgery or radiation treatment for intestinal lymphoma, but I think some cats get that if they have tumors like your kitty It depends on which type of lymphoma they have.

Other drugs used could be gabapentin, buprenorphine, cerenia, amantadine, and amytryptiline. I’m sure there are other medication‘s that are used now for pain…a lot of people use CBD oil although I don’t know how well that would work.

Other treatments, which are not specifically for pain, but which can help include B12 shots, anti nausea medication’s and appetite stimulants, anti diarrhea meds- probiotics and metronidazole.

Cats that have intestinal lymphoma don’t usually have isolated tumors. It’s usually spread throughout the lymph nodes. So surgery is not always used. Chemotherapy with chlorambucil, and prednisilone or common treatments, but sometimes surgery is done and radiation. If they have an isolated tumor or tumors.

treating them can definitely make their quality of life better no matter how long they live. And if they respond well to the treatment, they could live a few months to even a year and a half for some cats depending on the stage and the type of lymphoma. I think for Wizard, dvm said that he had, the worst kind, which is what you think your cat has I believe. He already had CRD at that point and was being treated for kidney disease and anemia.

He responded very well to chlorambucil at first, but unfortunately, after a couple of months he took a turn for the worse and it stopped working. There’s no way to predict how well your cat will respond to the treatment. But it would cut down on his pain to have it anyway up until whenever he passes, and it will improve his quality of life.

I’m sure the oncologist DVM who treats it will discuss all of that with you.

 

[StephCat]

stephanietx , S silent meowlook , Meowmee , fionasmom

Thank you all for your help and guidance with my sweet boy. He was diagnosed with Large Cell Lymphoma in both the cecal mass and stomach mass. The two lymph nodes that were removed did not have cancerous cells, so they were just reactive. He does have three other gastrointestinal lymph nodes that are enlarged that were not removed or sampled.

The hospital's oncologist is out of town this week (of course), but I scrambled yesterday and today and was able to get an appointment at another hospital (BluePearl) for tomorrow morning. They were able to work with their oncologist there to squeeze me in.

My kitty's name is Eros because he's the most cuddly and loving cat I've ever known. He is also a very anxious cat and does not handle the car or vet visits very well. I hope we can make it work, because I know chemotherapy is going to be very stressful for him.

Here are a couple photos of him before surgery:

 

[Meowmee]

stephanietx , S silent meowlook , Meowmee , fionasmom

Thank you all for your help and guidance with my sweet boy. He was diagnosed with Large Cell Lymphoma in both the cecal mass and stomach mass. The two lymph nodes that were removed did not have cancerous cells, so they were just reactive. He does have three other gastrointestinal lymph nodes that are enlarged that were not removed or sampled.

The hospital's oncologist is out of town this week (of course), but I scrambled yesterday and today and was able to get an appointment at another hospital (BluePearl) for tomorrow morning. They were able to work with their oncologist there to squeeze me in.

My kitty's name is Eros because he's the most cuddly and loving cat I've ever known. He is also a very anxious cat and does not handle the car or vet visits very well. I hope we can make it work, because I know chemotherapy is going to be very stressful for him.

Here are a couple photos of him before surgery:

View attachment 487095View attachment 487097

Sorry hugs if he doesn’t do IV chemotherapy I don’t know if they do that for this type of cancer and he takes chlorambucil that is given by mouth so he will be taking that at home. But I would imagine if he has to make trips to the Dvm, he will probably get used to it over time and you can give him something to calm his nerves maybe too.

I will write more later. Hugs to Eros,he is gorgeous

 

[StephCat]

Thank you. I believe chlorambucil is only for small cell lymphoma. I think there is one chemo drug for large cell lymphoma you can do at home, but it doesn't work very well. Oncologists usually recommend CHOP or COP protocols which have IV chemotherapy. Maybe you're right he will get used to it or I can give him some medication for anxiety. I've tried gabapentin 3 times, and it doesn't seem to help much, if at all.

 

[Meowmee]

Thank you. I believe chlorambucil is only for small cell lymphoma. I think there is one chemo drug for large cell lymphoma you can do at home, but it doesn't work very well. Oncologists usually recommend CHOP or COP protocols which have IV chemotherapy. Maybe you're right he will get used to it or I can give him some medication for anxiety. I've tried gabapentin 3 times, and it doesn't seem to help much, if at all.

So maybe Wizard had small cell I can’t remember now… He might need a higher dose of gabapentin or just a different medication. The good thing about chemo with cats is that they don’t seem to have all of the terrible side effects that people have. But if he is having nausea, he can take Zofran just like people do, it’s a very powerful anti nausea effect.

Just taking a pill when I was on the way to the emergency room in my second DKA made me able to get there and they gave it to me IV when I arrived too. Until you have DKA nausea you don’t know what nausea really is lol. Worst ever for me anyway.

 

[fionasmom]

Oncologists usually recommend CHOP or COP protocols which have IV chemotherapy

This is usually for large cell lymphoma. He is a beautiful little guy and I am sorry that you are both facing this.

 

[silent meowlook]

He is so cute. I am very sorry for the diagnosis.

 

[StephCat]

stephanietx , S silent meowlook , Meowmee , fionasmom

Hello everyone, thank you again for all your help.

I just wanted to let you know that Eros' belly healed up pretty well, and we did start the COP protocol for him. COP was the recommended chemotherapy protocol his oncologist wanted to do. We are now 4 weeks into chemotherapy, and Eros is doing really well. He feels so much better than before and has not vomited at all, but he does have some nausea and inappetence after the chemo treatments which has caused him to lose about 1/2 a pound, even with supportive medications. However, as per the protocol, we are moving to chemo treatments every 2 weeks now instead of every week, so he should have fewer side effects now and hopefully gain weight or at least stop losing weight.

The car rides and vet visits have been very stressful, but we are managing with medications. We just tried trazodone since the gabapentin wasn't helping much, but the trazodone really made him feel bad, so we will probably not do that again. He was really scared when it started kicking in before we even left, and then he was really zonked out and didn't eat very much that day. It did work, though, and he did not open mouth breathe (pant) during the car ride, so we may consider using a half dose next time.

Despite the side effects and stressful car rides and vet visits, Eros is doing really well. He is playing and purring. He caught a moth a few days ago and ate it. Not sure if that was best for him, but he was happy about it. It really seems like we almost have our old cat back. I do not regret starting chemo for him at all; I'm happy we did. Hopefully we get to have many, many more good months with him and achieve full remission, but even if we don't, he is feeling really good right now, and that's priceless.

 

[fionasmom]

Thank you for letting us know that Eros is doing as well as can be expected. This is great news and I hope it continues. Please keep us updated as to his progress and give him a big hug!