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- May 9, 2014
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So I tend to write essays when I'm looking for advice, so I'll start this post with my question, and then below you can read my cat's history thus far if it interests you.
Question: Has anyone here ever had a cat with a neurological disorder? It was only mentioned to me as a vague possibility, but lately I'm not sure. She doesn't seem to like her head or spine touched. She shakes her head every now and again, especially after I pet her there. And I notice her back twitching a lot lately, but not in the feline hyperesthesia fashion of twitching and then flipping out, running, and frantically grooming. Just... twitching.
I'm curious as to whether or not anyone knows if I should be worried about brain damage or anything. If she was hurt before I got her, would brain damage take this long to show up? Should I expect it to get worse over time? Or should I not even worry about brain damage because she's not walking around in circles and having seizures, etc.?
I mean one thing I've thought about is nasopharyngeal polyps, which might explain the head shaking and lack of eating (due to polyps in the middle ear and throat). I guess I'll find out when she has her endoscopy!! Thoughts?????
HER HISTORY---------
About 4 months ago my 2 year old cat fell into routinely turning down food. After she became dehydrated and rushed to the vet, I believe they wrongfully diagnosed her as IBD. There had been a few puddles of vomit in the weeks prior, but mostly just clear liquid hair ball vomits. A few times I found a bizarre dried vomit outside the litter box on the mat, which I guess is concerning also, but I digress.
I took her too a specialist finally about a month ago, as I wasn't comfortable settling for IBD. The medications piled on fast and it took a long time to get her off of them, particularly prednisolone. I just wanted to get a second opinion. The specialist wasn't really convinced it was IBD either. He wanted to do an endoscopy, but I had to wait till she was off the steroids.
Fast forward a few weeks, steroids are done, she's been stable and hydrated and on a 100% wet food diet, but the vets find she has a vaginal e coli infection (which is unrelated to her overall health. She likely got it when I accidentally wiped diarrhea into her vagina...). So we start antibiotics and forego the endoscopy once again because I can't fast her for it when I need to feed her with the antibiotics.
During all this, her eating is actually stable. I have to coax her along, but it's manageable. She was having 4 meals a day, and coming off steroids hadn't puked or had diarrhea in quite some time. (She never did puke/diarrhea chronically to begin with, and now isn't at all apart from diarrhea with the antibiotics).
Half way through her antibiotics treatment, she completely turns down food again. I probably rushed her to the emergency a little unnecessarily, as I tend to be a cat hypochondriac since all of this non-eating nonsense, but it turns out it was for the better. I brought a fecal sample and they found she had round worm. So I started her AND her sister on Panacur to be safe.
Now, finally, ALL medications are done. I have them down to 3 meals a day. They're on a new food because I think she's averse to the one she refused while on antibiotics. The past week and a half she's been eating really well, which has been a relief, but she's still not herself. I'm always terrified that in the back of my mind she's going to start walking away from her bowl before finishing again, which ended up happening today. It wasn't a huge deal, I added a little water and she finished. But I'm familiar with the signs of her giving up.
And she's still pretty absent. She's been following me around a bit like she used to. A little more talkative like the good ol' days. But she's very unapproachable and sullen. She used to be my loving affectionate cat. Chirp and trail behind me everywhere I went. She would always push herself into my hand as I petted her head. She would arch her back and stiffen her tail as I moved down. And now she just lurches downwards at my touch. There's no aggression or growling. She just doesn't seem like she wants to be touched. And when I pick her up, she lets out a little whine. (She used to just grumble and look at me with disdain in true kitty fashion, but now she makes it sound like it's actually ruining her life when I hold her instead of just being a drama queen).
I know the specialist vaguely mentioned a neurological disorder potentially being the culprit, as during the climax of her illness she was off balance, drooling, falling over herself, but the vets I was taking her to at that time just kept blaming nausea and IBD.
Aaaaand this brings me to my question up top
Question: Has anyone here ever had a cat with a neurological disorder? It was only mentioned to me as a vague possibility, but lately I'm not sure. She doesn't seem to like her head or spine touched. She shakes her head every now and again, especially after I pet her there. And I notice her back twitching a lot lately, but not in the feline hyperesthesia fashion of twitching and then flipping out, running, and frantically grooming. Just... twitching.
I'm curious as to whether or not anyone knows if I should be worried about brain damage or anything. If she was hurt before I got her, would brain damage take this long to show up? Should I expect it to get worse over time? Or should I not even worry about brain damage because she's not walking around in circles and having seizures, etc.?
I mean one thing I've thought about is nasopharyngeal polyps, which might explain the head shaking and lack of eating (due to polyps in the middle ear and throat). I guess I'll find out when she has her endoscopy!! Thoughts?????
HER HISTORY---------
About 4 months ago my 2 year old cat fell into routinely turning down food. After she became dehydrated and rushed to the vet, I believe they wrongfully diagnosed her as IBD. There had been a few puddles of vomit in the weeks prior, but mostly just clear liquid hair ball vomits. A few times I found a bizarre dried vomit outside the litter box on the mat, which I guess is concerning also, but I digress.
I took her too a specialist finally about a month ago, as I wasn't comfortable settling for IBD. The medications piled on fast and it took a long time to get her off of them, particularly prednisolone. I just wanted to get a second opinion. The specialist wasn't really convinced it was IBD either. He wanted to do an endoscopy, but I had to wait till she was off the steroids.
Fast forward a few weeks, steroids are done, she's been stable and hydrated and on a 100% wet food diet, but the vets find she has a vaginal e coli infection (which is unrelated to her overall health. She likely got it when I accidentally wiped diarrhea into her vagina...). So we start antibiotics and forego the endoscopy once again because I can't fast her for it when I need to feed her with the antibiotics.
During all this, her eating is actually stable. I have to coax her along, but it's manageable. She was having 4 meals a day, and coming off steroids hadn't puked or had diarrhea in quite some time. (She never did puke/diarrhea chronically to begin with, and now isn't at all apart from diarrhea with the antibiotics).
Half way through her antibiotics treatment, she completely turns down food again. I probably rushed her to the emergency a little unnecessarily, as I tend to be a cat hypochondriac since all of this non-eating nonsense, but it turns out it was for the better. I brought a fecal sample and they found she had round worm. So I started her AND her sister on Panacur to be safe.
Now, finally, ALL medications are done. I have them down to 3 meals a day. They're on a new food because I think she's averse to the one she refused while on antibiotics. The past week and a half she's been eating really well, which has been a relief, but she's still not herself. I'm always terrified that in the back of my mind she's going to start walking away from her bowl before finishing again, which ended up happening today. It wasn't a huge deal, I added a little water and she finished. But I'm familiar with the signs of her giving up.
And she's still pretty absent. She's been following me around a bit like she used to. A little more talkative like the good ol' days. But she's very unapproachable and sullen. She used to be my loving affectionate cat. Chirp and trail behind me everywhere I went. She would always push herself into my hand as I petted her head. She would arch her back and stiffen her tail as I moved down. And now she just lurches downwards at my touch. There's no aggression or growling. She just doesn't seem like she wants to be touched. And when I pick her up, she lets out a little whine. (She used to just grumble and look at me with disdain in true kitty fashion, but now she makes it sound like it's actually ruining her life when I hold her instead of just being a drama queen).
I know the specialist vaguely mentioned a neurological disorder potentially being the culprit, as during the climax of her illness she was off balance, drooling, falling over herself, but the vets I was taking her to at that time just kept blaming nausea and IBD.
Aaaaand this brings me to my question up top
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