Are you permitted to install a dishwasher?It's a relatively simple install but you can always get a portable that requires no plumbing work- hooks up to your faucet ...
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Willy might have cancer / high-grade lymphoma Treatment thread
- Thread starter cmshap
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- #402
If I am, I'm not even going to bother trying to find out (at least not now), because every extra dollar is going towards Willy at this point.
My aunt had a portable dishwasher. It took up a lot of space in her tiny kitchen. I have a built-in, but only used it about twice a year when I had company for dinner. My roomie won't use it, so I don't, either. It's just easier to hand-wash. Elvis has a Drinkwell regular fountain. It's our second one. I don't mind cleaning it every week, at all. We also have 3 other bowls of water around the house, so he has a lot of choices. He loves his fountain and I think the sound of the water is soothing.
I wouldn't call it noisy, i mean it does make some noise since it is mechanical after all but I have it in my bedroom its barly noticable except a very dull hum. I can sleep fine with it running, it does make noise when low but its more a splashy noise. It comes in ceramic or stainless steel, I have the ceramic model. I think anything mechanical is going to make some motor noise.
Thank you-thats what I thought ,been looking around and 23decibels seems the quietest- that would drive me bonkers-lol
When is Willys next treatment date?
cmshap
Do you fellas have plans for
Thanksgiving? Does Willy like turkey?
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #407
Day-before-Thanksgiving update, 11/22.
19 days after first chemo dose; one week before the next dose (on 11/29).
As you read this, Willy is OK now, so don't panic (I'm telling you but also telling myself). He hasn't shown any decrease of energy, and is otherwise acting normal, and moving through his usual routine (see attached pics). But some things have changed that are worrying me.
My current worries:
(1) Decreased appetite came back, worse than before when I was describing it earlier in this thread. I barely saw him pick at food over the last two days. He ate a couple of treats and a few pieces of kibble, but that's all I saw. Of course, he could have eaten more when I wasn't looking, but I was home all day.
(2) His characteristic vomiting has returned. I will explain this more below, or maybe in a post right after this so I can describe his history. It's not the vomiting that worries me most, as he has had this issue for years, way before cancer. It's the fact that he is potentially expelling valuable calories.
My other observations:
(1) He's been drinking more water than normal. He's always been a good drinker, and has been drinking plenty of water throughout this saga (the same amount, by my estimations, as throughout his life). He stops to take drinks all the time. But lately, he's spent more time than usual at his water bowl when he decides to take a drink. Enough extra time that makes me notice it.
I don't think this is a bad thing, as I want him to take in more water when he is vomiting, but it might mean something.
(2) He might feel thinner? I am ignorant when it comes to cat anatomy, but let me describe what I feel.
Imagine taking your hand, and shaping it into a U or C shape. Then imagine cupping your cat's back with it. So that your cat's spine rests against the inside of your palm, your thumb is along one side of his body, and your other four fingers are along the opposite side. And you run your hand down from neck to butt (this is one of the ways he always enjoyed petting, so I've always done this).
The width of his body, as I feel in my hand between the two sides, feels narrower. I have absolutely no idea if that means anything about a cat actually getting thinner, or if it has more to do with aging, etc. I also know that now I am fixated on his appetite, my emotions may be playing tricks on my brain, and I am just looking for evidence to confirm my bias. All I know is that after petting him for years, something feels different now.
Unfortunately, I don't have a new working precision scale yet to use for weighing him. I just spent a lot of money on other things (see below) while also trying to somehow make the next 4 or 5 (depending on my oncologist's recommendations after the 5th one) monthly chemo treatments work. But I know that weighing him would be a much more invaluable tool than feeling for whatever I think I feel, and am probably wrong about.
What I'm doing right now
Today, being the day before Thanksgiving when everything will be closed for days, I was considerably more worried about his eating. So I went to my vet and dropped what I consider to be a ridiculous amount of money on Mirataz transdermal, and Hills ONC dry food.
I wasn't specifically looking for Hills food, and I know there are some qualms with it on this forum, but it was what my vet recommended because it most closely resembles the food he willingly ate (and went crazy for) for years in the past. He ate another kind of Hills food exclusively for years, and then it was also what I supplemented his wet diet with later.
The idea is that the mirtazapine will make him hungry, and then he will have a familiar-ish food to eat.
How it's going so far
I gave him one dose of the Mirataz this evening, after getting home from the vet. I gloved up, squeezed out a 1.5-inch line of the ointment onto a gloved finger, and applied it as best I could to the inside of his right ear.
Unfortunately, I forgot that's the ear that hurts him. That was the ear with the bad infection several weeks ago, but which also has a small tumor (at least we think it's a small tumor, but it's a tiny growth nonetheless) on a skin fold inside. As I was applying it to the inside of his outer ear with my finger, he yowled in pain.
I think I got most of it in the right place? It was very hard to tell. But right now, it is maybe 1.5 hours after administration and he hasn't eaten, although he has been taking a nap for much of that time (and still asleep now). So I hope I got it applied correctly. And next time I am only going to use his left ear... the vet told me to alternate ears, but I can't be hurting him and making him fear the process.
What's next?
As I said at the top of this thread, his next chemo appointment is one week from today, Wednesday 11/29.
Hopefully he will start eating more and I can figure out how to apply the ointment correctly. I want him to be eating before his next dose of chemo (lomustine).
One more note about wet food
I know lots of you are going to want to give me suggestions about wet foods, broths, tuna water, etc. He just seems to be no longer interested in any kind of food in liquid/wet form.
I have blown through and wasted much other money on trying every kind of wet food under the sun.
Kwik
asked if Willy likes turkey. His favorite wet food for a long time, which he would gobble up, was Shiba turkey pate. Now he won't touch it, or at the very least, just licks it a few times.
I get this reaction every single time:
I take a CLEAN plate and open a fresh container of some wet food. I spoon a little out onto the plate, and pour out some extra juice. Whether I put this plate in his usual eating spot, or other places (I just decided one day to try putting his food in a new spot without any trace smells of old food around), he does this:
50% of the time, sniffs it, then licks around the perimeter, just lapping up some juice. Then within 10-30 seconds, stops, and begins to "bury" around the plate.
50% of the time, sniffs it, doesn't even attempt to lick it at all, and begins "burying."
I am at my wit's end with this. But I seriously wonder if it has to do with his years-long vomiting problem (this thread is already long; I will follow up with another post just about that). He is so used to smelling his vomit and "burying" his mess right after he vomits, I seriously wonder if he is mistaking wet food for his own vomit. He smells a mushy pile that probably smells like a lot of his vomits from the past, and instinctually just wants to bury it rather than process that it is fresh food. That's my best guess, anyway.
So at this point, I am much more set on trying to get him to eat as much dry food as I can. I can't afford to keep buying more wet food that will just go to waste. Although I'm crossing my fingers for Mirataz to work.
Edited to add pictures which I forgot to attach.
19 days after first chemo dose; one week before the next dose (on 11/29).
As you read this, Willy is OK now, so don't panic (I'm telling you but also telling myself). He hasn't shown any decrease of energy, and is otherwise acting normal, and moving through his usual routine (see attached pics). But some things have changed that are worrying me.
My current worries:
(1) Decreased appetite came back, worse than before when I was describing it earlier in this thread. I barely saw him pick at food over the last two days. He ate a couple of treats and a few pieces of kibble, but that's all I saw. Of course, he could have eaten more when I wasn't looking, but I was home all day.
(2) His characteristic vomiting has returned. I will explain this more below, or maybe in a post right after this so I can describe his history. It's not the vomiting that worries me most, as he has had this issue for years, way before cancer. It's the fact that he is potentially expelling valuable calories.
My other observations:
(1) He's been drinking more water than normal. He's always been a good drinker, and has been drinking plenty of water throughout this saga (the same amount, by my estimations, as throughout his life). He stops to take drinks all the time. But lately, he's spent more time than usual at his water bowl when he decides to take a drink. Enough extra time that makes me notice it.
I don't think this is a bad thing, as I want him to take in more water when he is vomiting, but it might mean something.
(2) He might feel thinner? I am ignorant when it comes to cat anatomy, but let me describe what I feel.
Imagine taking your hand, and shaping it into a U or C shape. Then imagine cupping your cat's back with it. So that your cat's spine rests against the inside of your palm, your thumb is along one side of his body, and your other four fingers are along the opposite side. And you run your hand down from neck to butt (this is one of the ways he always enjoyed petting, so I've always done this).
The width of his body, as I feel in my hand between the two sides, feels narrower. I have absolutely no idea if that means anything about a cat actually getting thinner, or if it has more to do with aging, etc. I also know that now I am fixated on his appetite, my emotions may be playing tricks on my brain, and I am just looking for evidence to confirm my bias. All I know is that after petting him for years, something feels different now.
Unfortunately, I don't have a new working precision scale yet to use for weighing him. I just spent a lot of money on other things (see below) while also trying to somehow make the next 4 or 5 (depending on my oncologist's recommendations after the 5th one) monthly chemo treatments work. But I know that weighing him would be a much more invaluable tool than feeling for whatever I think I feel, and am probably wrong about.
What I'm doing right now
Today, being the day before Thanksgiving when everything will be closed for days, I was considerably more worried about his eating. So I went to my vet and dropped what I consider to be a ridiculous amount of money on Mirataz transdermal, and Hills ONC dry food.
I wasn't specifically looking for Hills food, and I know there are some qualms with it on this forum, but it was what my vet recommended because it most closely resembles the food he willingly ate (and went crazy for) for years in the past. He ate another kind of Hills food exclusively for years, and then it was also what I supplemented his wet diet with later.
The idea is that the mirtazapine will make him hungry, and then he will have a familiar-ish food to eat.
How it's going so far
I gave him one dose of the Mirataz this evening, after getting home from the vet. I gloved up, squeezed out a 1.5-inch line of the ointment onto a gloved finger, and applied it as best I could to the inside of his right ear.
Unfortunately, I forgot that's the ear that hurts him. That was the ear with the bad infection several weeks ago, but which also has a small tumor (at least we think it's a small tumor, but it's a tiny growth nonetheless) on a skin fold inside. As I was applying it to the inside of his outer ear with my finger, he yowled in pain.
I think I got most of it in the right place? It was very hard to tell. But right now, it is maybe 1.5 hours after administration and he hasn't eaten, although he has been taking a nap for much of that time (and still asleep now). So I hope I got it applied correctly. And next time I am only going to use his left ear... the vet told me to alternate ears, but I can't be hurting him and making him fear the process.
What's next?
As I said at the top of this thread, his next chemo appointment is one week from today, Wednesday 11/29.
Hopefully he will start eating more and I can figure out how to apply the ointment correctly. I want him to be eating before his next dose of chemo (lomustine).
One more note about wet food
I know lots of you are going to want to give me suggestions about wet foods, broths, tuna water, etc. He just seems to be no longer interested in any kind of food in liquid/wet form.
I have blown through and wasted much other money on trying every kind of wet food under the sun.
Kwik
asked if Willy likes turkey. His favorite wet food for a long time, which he would gobble up, was Shiba turkey pate. Now he won't touch it, or at the very least, just licks it a few times.I get this reaction every single time:
I take a CLEAN plate and open a fresh container of some wet food. I spoon a little out onto the plate, and pour out some extra juice. Whether I put this plate in his usual eating spot, or other places (I just decided one day to try putting his food in a new spot without any trace smells of old food around), he does this:
50% of the time, sniffs it, then licks around the perimeter, just lapping up some juice. Then within 10-30 seconds, stops, and begins to "bury" around the plate.
50% of the time, sniffs it, doesn't even attempt to lick it at all, and begins "burying."
I am at my wit's end with this. But I seriously wonder if it has to do with his years-long vomiting problem (this thread is already long; I will follow up with another post just about that). He is so used to smelling his vomit and "burying" his mess right after he vomits, I seriously wonder if he is mistaking wet food for his own vomit. He smells a mushy pile that probably smells like a lot of his vomits from the past, and instinctually just wants to bury it rather than process that it is fresh food. That's my best guess, anyway.
So at this point, I am much more set on trying to get him to eat as much dry food as I can. I can't afford to keep buying more wet food that will just go to waste. Although I'm crossing my fingers for Mirataz to work.
Edited to add pictures which I forgot to attach.
Attachments
Last edited:
He sure has some beautiful big mitts!Day-before-Thanksgiving update, 11/22.
19 days after first chemo dose; one week before the next dose (on 11/29).
As you read this, Willy is OK now, so don't panic (I'm telling you but also telling myself). He hasn't shown any decrease of energy, and is otherwise acting normal, and moving through his usual routine (see attached pics). But some things have changed that are worrying me.
My current worries:
(1) Decreased appetite came back, worse than before when I was describing it earlier in this thread. I barely saw him pick at food over the last two days. He ate a couple of treats and a few pieces of kibble, but that's all I saw. Of course, he could have eaten more when I wasn't looking, but I was home all day.
(2) His characteristic vomiting has returned. I will explain this more below, or maybe in a post right after this so I can describe his history. It's not the vomiting that worries me most, as he has had this issue for years, way before cancer. It's the fact that he is potentially expelling valuable calories.
My other observations:
(1) He's been drinking more water than normal. He's always been a good drinker, and has been drinking plenty of water throughout this saga (the same amount, by my estimations, as throughout his life). He stops to take drinks all the time. But lately, he's spent more time than usual at his water bowl when he decides to take a drink. Enough extra time that makes me notice it.
I don't think this is a bad thing, as I want him to take in more water when he is vomiting, but it might mean something.
(2) He might feel thinner? I am ignorant when it comes to cat anatomy, but let me describe what I feel.
Imagine taking your hand, and shaping it into a U or C shape. Then imagine cupping your cat's back with it. So that your cat's spine rests against the inside of your palm, your thumb is along one side of his body, and your other four fingers are along the opposite side. And you run your hand down from neck to butt (this is one of the ways he always enjoyed petting, so I've always done this).
The width of his body, as I feel in my hand between the two sides, feels narrower. I have absolutely no idea if that means anything about a cat actually getting thinner, or if it has more to do with aging, etc. I also know that now I am fixated on his appetite, my emotions may be playing tricks on my brain, and I am just looking for evidence to confirm my bias. All I know is that after petting him for years, something feels different now.
Unfortunately, I don't have a new working precision scale yet to use for weighing him. I just spent a lot of money on other things (see below) while also trying to somehow make the next 4 or 5 (depending on my oncologist's recommendations after the 5th one) monthly chemo treatments work. But I know that weighing him would be a much more invaluable tool than feeling for whatever I think I feel, and am probably wrong about.
What I'm doing right now
Today, being the day before Thanksgiving when everything will be closed for days, I was considerably more worried about his eating. So I went to my vet and dropped what I consider to be a ridiculous amount of money on Mirataz transdermal, and Hills ONC dry food.
I wasn't specifically looking for Hills food, and I know there are some qualms with it on this forum, but it was what my vet recommended because it most closely resembles the food he willingly ate (and went crazy for) for years in the past. He ate another kind of Hills food exclusively for years, and then it was also what I supplemented his wet diet with later.
The idea is that the mirtazapine will make him hungry, and then he will have a familiar-ish food to eat.
How it's going so far
I gave him one dose of the Mirataz this evening, after getting home from the vet. I gloved up, squeezed out a 1.5-inch line of the ointment onto a gloved finger, and applied it as best I could to the inside of his right ear.
Unfortunately, I forgot that's the ear that hurts him. That was the ear with the bad infection several weeks ago, but which also has a small tumor (at least we think it's a small tumor, but it's a tiny growth nonetheless) on a skin fold inside. As I was applying it to the inside of his outer ear with my finger, he yowled in pain.
I think I got most of it in the right place? It was very hard to tell. But right now, it is maybe 1.5 hours after administration and he hasn't eaten, although he has been taking a nap for much of that time (and still asleep now). So I hope I got it applied correctly. And next time I am only going to use his left ear... the vet told me to alternate ears, but I can't be hurting him and making him fear the process.
What's next?
As I said at the top of this thread, his next chemo appointment is one week from today, Wednesday 11/29.
Hopefully he will start eating more and I can figure out how to apply the ointment correctly. I want him to be eating before his next dose of chemo (lomustine).
One more note about wet food
I know lots of you are going to want to give me suggestions about wet foods, broths, tuna water, etc. He just seems to be no longer interested in any kind of food in liquid/wet form.
I have blown through and wasted much other money on trying every kind of wet food under the sun.
I get this reaction every single time:
I take a CLEAN plate and open a fresh container of some wet food. I spoon a little out onto the plate, and pour out some extra juice. Whether I put this plate in his usual eating spot, or other places (I just decided one day to try putting his food in a new spot without any trace smells of old food around), he does this:
50% of the time, sniffs it, then licks around the perimeter, just lapping up some juice. Then within 10-30 seconds, stops, and begins to "bury" around the plate.
50% of the time, sniffs it, doesn't even attempt to lick it at all, and begins "burying."
I am at my wit's end with this. But I seriously wonder if it has to do with his years-long vomiting problem (this thread is already long; I will follow up with another post just about that). He is so used to smelling his vomit and "burying" his mess right after he vomits, I seriously wonder if he is mistaking wet food for his own vomit. He smells a mushy pile that probably smells like a lot of his vomits from the past, and instinctually just wants to bury it rather than process that it is fresh food. That's my best guess, anyway.
So at this point, I am much more set on trying to get him to eat as much dry food as I can. I can't afford to keep buying more wet food that will just go to waste. Although I'm crossing my fingers for Mirataz to work.
Edited to add pictures which I forgot to attach.
*PRAYERS* and best thoughts and wishes for Willy's appetite to pick up and for him to retain and utilize his food.
Elvis drinks quite a lot, too. He's 16, and I know it's normal for cats as they mature to drink more. I want him to drink as much as he wants. He has his ups and downs on how much he eats. A day when he eats a 5.5 oz. can for breakfast/lunch and a 3-oz. can for dinner is a very good day. Some days he just eats half of the big can, and most of the 3-oz. can. He has Blue Buffalo adult dry food free-choice. So whenever he wants to eat, he always has something good.
If you search "cat weight chart" it will bring up multitudinous diagrams you can look at. These should be helpful.
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #409
Thanks for the well-wishes. I've actually looked at many of those charts. If you're referring to the ones that tell you to look at your cat from the top and from the side, and compare to images that range from underweight to obese? I'm quite familiar with those.
Willy never has looked underweight, except when first rescued, when he was obviously emaciated (like protruding ribs). But he's always had a big appetite, and for his whole life after that first rough patch, he's been slightly overweight.
He looks mostly the same now, from his top and side profiles, as he did in his overweight phase.
In fact... when I brought Willy into his first chemo appointment, I was with my mom. I am a city-dweller without a car, so when I have to go places sometimes, my mom, who lives 10 minutes away, helps me out. As she was driving, she looked at Willy in his carrier (she hasn't seen him for months) and told me he looked like he had gained weight. But he had in fact lost weight.
(For much of his adult life, he was in the 10.75 to 11.25 lbs. range, which was overweight for his size. At his weigh-in during the chemo appointment I am describing, he was about 9.75 lbs. That is considered normal for his size. But my vet considered it a warning sign of something, because of the change, even though the final result was a healthy weight at the time. It was the fact that he was consistently at the same overweight weight for years and then now he's under that. That's a sign of something happening.)
So when I look at his body, it doesn't tell me much, although I am getting the feeling that with cats... just like with humans... everything sags as they age (lol). His belly seems to sag more than it used to, yet he is weighing less than he used to. So maybe that's what I am observing.
I don't drive and don't have a car, either. My roomies take me to grocery store, dentist, and vet if I need.
Another thing that can happen with mature cats is that they, like humans who don't weightlift, lose muscle mass, and that can make them feel thinner. How long has it taken him to go from 10.75 to 9.75? That would be another aspect to consider.
Yes, I was referring to those charts.
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On the food, wet vs. dry vs. Hills, etc. etc....
If I were in your shoes, I would throw everything out of my mind about what foods are "best" and what's the healthiest and let him eat what he wants, and if he wants dry food and only dry food, so be it. He needs to eat something, and if the wet food for some reason is not agreeing with him, I'd let him eat what sounds good. Tag (my Papillon) and Willie (my DLH) both developed cancer, and were both raw fed the majority of their lives. When they got older, their tastes changed, and Willie especially got picky with his food and was given whatever his little heart desired, which was usually a mixture of Sheba and dry food. Tag was no longer interested in raw food but would devour home cooked, Weruva, or Castor and Pollux.
The change in body composition would make me take notice, but, as hard as it is try to remember that his little body is going through a lot right now and there are bound to be some changes. I have noticed my cats, as they age, feel a little more "spine-y" than they did in their youths and to the best of my knowledge, none of them have cancer. (For example, I do not have the same body at 40 as I did when I was 18!
) You're doing such an awesome job at keeping track of all the "little things" that could go unnoticed otherwise. 
If I were in your shoes, I would throw everything out of my mind about what foods are "best" and what's the healthiest and let him eat what he wants, and if he wants dry food and only dry food, so be it. He needs to eat something, and if the wet food for some reason is not agreeing with him, I'd let him eat what sounds good. Tag (my Papillon) and Willie (my DLH) both developed cancer, and were both raw fed the majority of their lives. When they got older, their tastes changed, and Willie especially got picky with his food and was given whatever his little heart desired, which was usually a mixture of Sheba and dry food. Tag was no longer interested in raw food but would devour home cooked, Weruva, or Castor and Pollux.
The change in body composition would make me take notice, but, as hard as it is try to remember that his little body is going through a lot right now and there are bound to be some changes. I have noticed my cats, as they age, feel a little more "spine-y" than they did in their youths and to the best of my knowledge, none of them have cancer. (For example, I do not have the same body at 40 as I did when I was 18!
) You're doing such an awesome job at keeping track of all the "little things" that could go unnoticed otherwise. - Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #412
I'll answer the questions in your responses just before this, but I'm happy to report that within like 15 minutes of writing my big post above, Willy woke up from his nap, immediately went over to his food dish and ate more of the new Hills ONC dry food in one sitting than I have seen him eat in one sitting for a while.
He just went back into his bed, but I think I can assume the mirtazapine is working.
It's just such an expensive, such a small tube (5g tube for almost $60). I know I can get it cheaper, but given that his appetite crashed just before a long Thanksgiving weekend, I didn't want to order it and not get it until some time next week. If I continue to need this med, I will source it more wisely.
He just went back into his bed, but I think I can assume the mirtazapine is working.
It's just such an expensive, such a small tube (5g tube for almost $60). I know I can get it cheaper, but given that his appetite crashed just before a long Thanksgiving weekend, I didn't want to order it and not get it until some time next week. If I continue to need this med, I will source it more wisely.
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #413
Around 1.5 to 1.75 years, approximately.
I pushed his last annual exam off for a while because he had been healthy at his previous exam, and had shown no signs of anything wrong to me. All was normal, and I was giving it more time to postpone the expense.
As soon as I got a slight feeling of his lump under his skin, I moved his next scheduled appointment about a months sooner, and that was the exam which revealed his 9.75 lbs. weight, and also started the process of getting his lumps biopsied.
- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #414
Me neither, at almost 42. But that's good to know about your observation of "spiney-ness." Willy is my first cat ever, and everything under the sun is different from dogs, which I grew up around my whole younger life.I have noticed my cats, as they age, feel a little more "spine-y" than they did in their youths and to the best of my knowledge, none of them have cancer. (For example, I do not have the same body at 40 as I did when I was 18!
I figured I was probably feeling aging more than weight loss. And when I look at him from the side, I'm pretty sure his belly hangs lower than before, even if it has nothing to do with weight.
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Sorry to hear you've had a challenging time as of late. Hang in there.
Do you at least have a regular scale? Jump on the scale. Weight yourself. Then jump on the scale holding the cat. That will at least give you something.
Never do that. It's a waste of money and it's going to mess with your mental health when he doesn't eat ANY of them. The last couple year's of Sammie's life I encountered the same problems with him not eating. A combination of stimulants and syringe feeding kept him in the game.
That's good. Hopefully the old fellow gets back to eating normally.
Did they xray and give him an ultrasound to look for any more tumors? I forget.
Too subjective. Especially if he was in loaf mode in the carrier.
It's called a primordial pouch. Some cats have it. Some don't. Sammie had a big one. The two kittens don't, yet. They are all muscle. Especially Teddie Bear (the boy). His dad must have been the biggest, toughest, bull tomcat in the neighborhood.
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- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #416
As an addendum to the above update, he also started zooming tonight after starting to eat again.
He still only ate a big amount once, and then after I gave him another serving, he left it in the bowl. But he ate a meal's worth tonight, so I'm happy. And then started zooming after.
His zooms only last a minute or two, but whenever they happen, I get a clear sign that he is feeling good.
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- Thread Starter Thread Starter
- #417
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who is following this story. Your feedback and encouragement are why I keep writing it.
Willy ate a full meal for breakfast this morning, and then some. He actually woke me up because his dish was empty.
Nighttime vomiting has been his regular pattern almost always; if he is going to vomit, it will nearly always be in the middle of the night, like 3-4am, like clockwork. Last night, he did not vomit at all, and he's more alert and active this morning than he usually is.
If anyone can give me advice on how to sparingly use the mirtazapine to keep him eating, I'd appreciate it. I don't want to overuse it and just administer every day. My vet told me I can use it "as needed" but that is a hard thing to judge. (Also, don't use more than once every 24 hours, but I wouldn't do that, anyway.) I'm just guessing the best course of action will be to wait until he doesn't eat a meal, and then administer?
Willy ate a full meal for breakfast this morning, and then some. He actually woke me up because his dish was empty.
Nighttime vomiting has been his regular pattern almost always; if he is going to vomit, it will nearly always be in the middle of the night, like 3-4am, like clockwork. Last night, he did not vomit at all, and he's more alert and active this morning than he usually is.
If anyone can give me advice on how to sparingly use the mirtazapine to keep him eating, I'd appreciate it. I don't want to overuse it and just administer every day. My vet told me I can use it "as needed" but that is a hard thing to judge. (Also, don't use more than once every 24 hours, but I wouldn't do that, anyway.) I'm just guessing the best course of action will be to wait until he doesn't eat a meal, and then administer?
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That's how I used it.
Happy Thanksgiving..
As far as Mirataz: The IMVet wanted me to eliminate it, as Geoffrey was a good weight. I slowly cut the dose back, until he was not getting any. His appetite tanked. G needs the Mirataz.
After trial and error, I have discovered that dosing him Every Other Day, with a 1/3 dose seems to work. I give him the Mirataz on the days he has chlorambucil, and rotate ears. I also wipe down the ear on the days of chemo.
Do not forget, the expiration of the tube. When newly opened, the potency is higher than later. The instructions are to use only for one month. Since it is expensive, I use it longer, and have to increase the dose as it ages...
As far as Mirataz: The IMVet wanted me to eliminate it, as Geoffrey was a good weight. I slowly cut the dose back, until he was not getting any. His appetite tanked. G needs the Mirataz.
After trial and error, I have discovered that dosing him Every Other Day, with a 1/3 dose seems to work. I give him the Mirataz on the days he has chlorambucil, and rotate ears. I also wipe down the ear on the days of chemo.
Do not forget, the expiration of the tube. When newly opened, the potency is higher than later. The instructions are to use only for one month. Since it is expensive, I use it longer, and have to increase the dose as it ages...
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Thank you, I'm glad to know this is possible, even if not recommended. I certainly will not be able to afford buying it every month.
I am going to try decreasing the dosage next time I administer, since it's a brand new tube, and it sounds like your 1/3 dose works for you. I gave Willy a full dose the first time, and it seemed like a lot.
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