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AnonymousNarcotics
Aug 6, 2012

we will go far into the sea
you will take me
onto your back
never look back
never look back
My kitten got spayed today. She hates the cone but she's fine. It's working as intended, keeping her from licking/chewing at her stitches.

However, I have two other cats that are very protective of her and groom her constantly. Is there anything I can do to keep THEM from licking /chewing at her stitches?

Idk if they are planning to, I just know they baby her.

I was going to get her a surgical bodysuit but I DIYed one for her and she freaked out. I'll buy a professional one if there's no other options.

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YourCreation
Jan 4, 2004

A little creative surgery helps turn a few sick pets into a new and improved friend!
Gotta keep em separated.
The MPS suits are good.

Hutla
Jun 5, 2004

It's mechanical
The recovery pajamas turned my cat into a raging cyclone of hate determined to sprint around the room as fast as possible, so we just left her and kept an eye out for getting too interested in her wound. Our vet didn’t even cone her, she superglued over the stitches and said that most cats don’t chew at them like dogs do, as long as it’s cleaned well after surgery.

Qubee
May 31, 2013




-all good-

Qubee fucked around with this message at 16:20 on Jan 30, 2021

The blue bunny
May 29, 2013

Chainclaw posted:

Thanks for the suggestion. I really want a vet to recommend an option like that, but even after seeing the new vet today we were told "Oh, we can do a super special poop test for $200 and we'll get you the results on Monday." When we asked if there was anything we could do now, they said no. Right now me and my partner are each spending about 2 hours a day cleaning cat poo poo, we have to lock the cat in the bathroom overnight so he won't pee on the bed and he meows very loudly and is very upset about it for a while, so I'm woken up several times throughout the night. We might call the vet again tomorrow and ask about soluble fibre.

I have no idea how he is so energetic and so poopy at the same time. You would think he was a Tron motorcycle leaving a trail of poo poo from the last mess we just cleaned.

Somehow we're able to stay patient with him through all this. I think if he was a less cute cat it would be more difficult.


My cat gets runny poos. A vet diagnosed it as a food allergy. I was advised to switch food in and out to work out what she is allergic too. I finally worked out she is allergic to something they put in dry food and some wet food brands. The allergy is not with protein but some additive or filler. She now eat Felix and fancy fest and has no runny poo problems.

My advice is to have extra litter boxes, that can be swap out quickly.

SSH IT ZOMBIE
Apr 19, 2003
No more blinkies! Yay!
College Slice
So uh, my cat got super sick. Looked like he was throwing up blood, and there was blood in the stool. I kept taking him to the vet, they kept not finding anything. I asked for like a month if he should go on a steroid.

Eventually he stopped eating entirely, smelled horrible, lost a ton of weight really fast. Went to the vet, she felt a growth on his intestines, and they also were very inflamed and distended. Did an X-Ray, showed nothing. She sent me to a veterinary hospital, they did an ultrasound, found a growth. Said probably lymphoma. Took asperate. Cytology came back negative for cancer, but reactive lymphoid hyperplasia.

He's about to die at this point. Hiding. Etc. I'm no longer syringe feeding him.
I take him to the vet with the realization I'm probably not going to come home with him alive that day.
She said yeah, we could put him to sleep. I took a few minutes.
While I took a few minutes, the other vet called back and said we could operate, cut out the lymph node and do more testing. I said I don't think he will survive that.

I asked if we can just try a steroid. It should reduce his immune system from freaking out. She's like fine. Did that and an antiemetic.
He immediately bounced back. Has been eating two cans of recovery diet a day. Been social, sleeping next to me etc.

He had some alternating constipation and liquid stool, the vet said I could try miralax. Sorta went back to normal.
It's been a week, he's put on weight.

I am not sure what to do next.
The steroids are horrible to give. I'm crushing them up and putting them in food or water in a syringe.

If he continues recovering...should I take him to the other vet and have the growth removed and tested? He isn't acting like he wants to give up.

Reik
Mar 8, 2004
How big are the steroid pills? We use gelatin capsules and a pill gun and it has helped a ton with giving cats medications. If it's not cancer, would removing the lymph node be curative? How risky would the surgery be if he continues to bounce back?

YourCreation
Jan 4, 2004

A little creative surgery helps turn a few sick pets into a new and improved friend!

SSH IT ZOMBIE posted:

So uh, my cat got super sick.

I think you've been let down a little bit. Were you referred to a medicine specialist or just for some imaging? What your cat really needed was some appropriate diagnostics and probably endoscopy with biopsies. Sounds like they sampled a lymph node and it was reactive, which obviously it would be because your cat's intestines are super pissed off. Yes you can do surgical biopsies of the intestine but that's probably unnecessary. At this stage you don't really have a diagnosis yet but we have seen a response to steroids, so it could be inflammatory bowel disease, it could be lymphoma, or anything in between. Your options are:

1) Get a referral to a medicine specialist for a proper work up and diagnosis. If it's IBD it can sometimes be managed with diet changes after some steroid use. Your kitty probably could use some B12 supplementation too. If you have the funds then do this one.
2) Continue with steroids and try and taper off and see the response (not sure what dose he's on but don't stop them suddenly if he's been on them >7 days).
3) Continue steroids for life but deal with the inevitable side effects like diabetes

Steroids typically drive hunger, which means your cat should be hungry. You can try EzyPill or Pill Putty or even shaking the pill in a bag of Dreamies to give it some seasoning. Some cats will eat a row of Dreamies with a pill hidden in there somewhere.

Good luck and let us know how he does.

SSH IT ZOMBIE
Apr 19, 2003
No more blinkies! Yay!
College Slice
Just for some imaging though the other vet seems to be much better equipped. They want to do surgery and would do a biopsy on the removed mass.

He has not gone in for any endoscopy though that sounds really useful.

Think an endoscopy would be called for before surgery? They did an ultrasound and x-ray.

I originally thought IBD but the new vet says there's no way in heck the growth would be as large as it is.

He's not passing blood anymore. Normal colored stool, a bit large. I'm still giving him miralax.

They do not think removing the growth would be curative.


The other thing is I feel like this has happened 3 or 4 times. The first time he got diagnosed with ckd, his creatine was super high. The vet got really confused because his kidney function reverted back to normal. It happened again but he came back without help.

I just wonder if he keeps almost dying because of this. Like maybe high creatine was his kidneys were shutting down.

I was at one point thinking it was autoimmune before they found a mass.

SSH IT ZOMBIE fucked around with this message at 06:58 on Feb 6, 2021

YourCreation
Jan 4, 2004

A little creative surgery helps turn a few sick pets into a new and improved friend!
I would not do surgery. I would go for an internal medicine consultation and get some multi-disciplinary input before doing anything else. If you let me know what city you're in I can see what clinics would be best in your area.

SSH IT ZOMBIE
Apr 19, 2003
No more blinkies! Yay!
College Slice

YourCreation posted:

I would not do surgery. I would go for an internal medicine consultation and get some multi-disciplinary input before doing anything else. If you let me know what city you're in I can see what clinics would be best in your area.

Rochester, NY

YourCreation
Jan 4, 2004

A little creative surgery helps turn a few sick pets into a new and improved friend!

SSH IT ZOMBIE posted:

Rochester, NY

https://find.vetspecialists.com/sea...1okRHuYlQfwfAFo

Looks like there are two nearby. I would ask your vet for a referral and you can get an estimate too.

empty whippet box
Jun 9, 2004

by Fluffdaddy
One of our cats Cheeto stopped being able to poop yesterday at about this time. He has peed some but to me it seemed less than usual. He just peed and we looked at it and it was pink. We are in the parking lot of the emergency vet because this happened an hour after all the normal vets closed for the weekend. We cannot afford this. We are hoping they let us at least get him treated before demanding payment. We have a few hundred dollars above bills and I already know that won't even cover how much this will cost but I can't lose him. There is nothing in this world that matters more to me than my cats and I am struggling to hold it together as I wait for them to take him in. I do not know what it will cost yet. I hate to have to ask for help again but I will do anything to make him better. He is only 5 and I am not ready to lose him. He has been acting fine all day other than the pink pee and has been eating and drinking and playing but blood in urine is the biggest red flag there is with cats. I am beyond panicked.

I'm scares they will take him and stick him in a room until tomorrow morning or something and he won't make it through the night. He's been seeming totally fine other than this all day but I understand this to be a very serious problem potentially. gently caress

Torpor
Oct 20, 2008

.. and now for my next trick, I'll pretend to be a political commentator...

HONK HONK
My little guy is still kicking, running on steroids, his appetite is good and he is active and social, but he seems to be on a very slow trajectory downwards. Still refuses to eat fancy pants cat food only Halo turkey stew. I think he’s lost over 1/2 of his body weight.


He’s still putting in hours at my wife’s WFH job ‘helping’ her do zoom meetings by standing on the desk and blocking the camera and he still greets me at the door every day when I come home for lunch and at the end of the day. :smith:

I’m wondering if I should have gone to a veterinary oncologist.

Edit:

SSH IT ZOMBIE posted:


He's not passing blood anymore. Normal colored stool, a bit large. I'm still giving him miralax.


May I ask what ratio they gave you my guy has a liquid-easily-tracked-around-the-house-poop problem. :shobon:

Torpor fucked around with this message at 04:15 on Feb 13, 2021

empty whippet box
Jun 9, 2004

by Fluffdaddy
cheeto is at the vet, we are waiting to hear back from them. the vet seemed to think he probably just strained too hard trying to poop, so it's likely JUST constipation. gonna be a long couple hours though. a saintly goon has made sure that the costs are covered, for which I will be forever grateful. this community is really amazing sometimes.

YeahTubaMike
Mar 24, 2005

*hic* Gotta finish thish . . .
Doctor Rope
Can cats fake sick?

YourCreation
Jan 4, 2004

A little creative surgery helps turn a few sick pets into a new and improved friend!

empty whippet box posted:

cheeto is at the vet, we are waiting to hear back from them. the vet seemed to think he probably just strained too hard trying to poop, so it's likely JUST constipation. gonna be a long couple hours though. a saintly goon has made sure that the costs are covered, for which I will be forever grateful. this community is really amazing sometimes.

More likely he has a bit of cystitis and you just saw him straining to urinate for longer periods of time. Hopefully with a bit of pain relief and time he'll feel much better 8)

YourCreation
Jan 4, 2004

A little creative surgery helps turn a few sick pets into a new and improved friend!

YeahTubaMike posted:

Can cats fake sick?

Explain.

YeahTubaMike
Mar 24, 2005

*hic* Gotta finish thish . . .
Doctor Rope

For the record, I do NOT think she's doing it now (edit: and I didn't think she was doing it when I asked).

Do cats ever act sluggish for attention, for example?

YourCreation
Jan 4, 2004

A little creative surgery helps turn a few sick pets into a new and improved friend!
Just wanted to double check as people in the UK use the word "sick" as a replacement for vomit. There aren't any fakers as far as I am aware, at least not in cats.

Reik
Mar 8, 2004
One of our girl cats is having a rough time right now, she has been losing weight due to hypercalcemia that we were thinking was just idiopathic since we had been managing it for a while with alendronate, but she lost about 1lb in a month so we took her in for an ultrasound and they found a mass on her bladder that we've got a presumptive diagnosis of transitional cell carcinoma after a fine-needle aspiration. They sent off her calcium panel though and the ionized calcium is only slightly elevated, which they said doesn't line up with hypercalcemia of malignancy, so they think it's probably her early stage renal disease causing the hypercalcemia and the carcinoma is asymptomatic for now. She's also got arthritis and low-grade chronic pancreatitis in addition to the cancer and renal disease, but besides some back leg stiffness it's really just that she's losing weight. We've got her on cerenia to help with nausea she has from the pancreatitis, gabapentin for the arthritis pain, and mirtazapine to try and get her to eat more, but she's still not gaining and she's around 8lb 10oz right now.

YourCreation
Jan 4, 2004

A little creative surgery helps turn a few sick pets into a new and improved friend!
Sorry to hear that Reik 8(
You could consider oral ondansetron - it's a lot more effective anti-nausea medication than Cerenia is.

Reik
Mar 8, 2004
We had her on cerenia and pantoprazole/ondansetron before her recent stay at the hospital, using ondansetron before and after her weekly alendronate dose and pantoprazole the rest of the time, but the internist said just cerenia should be fine. I'm kind of hoping the oncologist gets her on a steroid since it seems like that could help with appetite, calcium, cancer, and arthritis.

YourCreation
Jan 4, 2004

A little creative surgery helps turn a few sick pets into a new and improved friend!
Our current data shows that maropitant (Cerenia) is a good anti-vomiting drug, but may not control nausea as well as we thought. On the other hand, Ondansetron controls both nausea and vomiting effectively. It can certainly be used long term and our medicine team likes it a lot for our sicker chronic cases.

Steroids will certainly go a long way it sounds, but my medicine is 99% ICU these days rather than chronic care.

Reik
Mar 8, 2004
We first discovered the pancreatitis because she had chronic vomiting so maybe that's why we started with cerenia, I'll ask about the ondansetron though.

Ventral EggSac
Dec 3, 2019

One of my cats was diagnosed with diabetes last week. He's doing fine so far, except that he doesn't seem to want to eat anything except for his old food, which they recommended he stop eating because of the carb level. We're gonna try different low carb foods, but for now we're trying to keep my other cat from hoovering up all of the food he doesn't eat (the other cat is also a loving CHUNK with a heart murmur! Stop eating!!).

He's even really tolerant of the insulin shots. He ripped out his glucose monitor like within an hour of getting it, so we'll have to do a curve manually by pricking his ear in the next couple days. I will, my partner is still freaked out about giving shots and testing, so it's up to me. I don't blame my partner, but I am feeling the pressure a bit. Right now we are giving him one unit every 12 hours, and I'm scared of that being too much or too little, especially since how much he eats has gone down so much.

I know it could be much worse but I just feel like crying all the time now, I can't sleep well cause I'm worried I'll read the signs wrong and I'll wake up to something having gone wrong.
Sorry I guess I am kind of venting more than anything, but advice is definitely welcome too.

Reik
Mar 8, 2004
Did you put the glucose monitor on yourself? Our vet did the first few but we started putting them on ourselves and used a few drops of vetbond in addition to the adhesive it comes with. That might help them from ripping it off, and you could also get a little padded collar to around their neck to help them from getting to it as well.

Ventral EggSac
Dec 3, 2019

That's a good idea. The vet attached it, and since he got it off so fast she said it was probably not worth trying again. Did you reattach the same one or a new one? The one we got was $60, so I'd like to re-use it if we tried again, the pin is bent though, if that matters. Is the vetbond easy to get off afterward?

Reik
Mar 8, 2004

Ventral EggSac posted:

That's a good idea. The vet attached it, and since he got it off so fast she said it was probably not worth trying again. Did you reattach the same one or a new one? The one we got was $60, so I'd like to re-use it if we tried again, the pin is bent though, if that matters. Is the vetbond easy to get off afterward?

You'd need to get a new one I think, they're pretty finicky. They're the libre ones, right? We had to use some rubbing alcohol to get the vetbond off.

Ventral EggSac
Dec 3, 2019

Reik posted:

You'd need to get a new one I think, they're pretty finicky. They're the libre ones, right? We had to use some rubbing alcohol to get the vetbond off.

Yeah it's a libre. We ended up getting a meter to do it manually instead, we got a curve this weekend. Not a happy experience, though he was very patient with us (until the very end of the day, when he raised hell about the very last prick of his ears-who can blame him). Maybe I'll look into getting another libre in the future. Thanks for the advice, I appreciate it.

SSH IT ZOMBIE
Apr 19, 2003
No more blinkies! Yay!
College Slice
Edit: Kinda dark, my cat passed.

SSH IT ZOMBIE fucked around with this message at 07:29 on Feb 27, 2021

empty whippet box
Jun 9, 2004

by Fluffdaddy

YourCreation posted:

More likely he has a bit of cystitis and you just saw him straining to urinate for longer periods of time. Hopefully with a bit of pain relief and time he'll feel much better 8)

this was in fact the eventual diagnosis. Before last night he had been totally 100% better for over a week - like 10 days I guess - and had been without medication, no litterbox problems at all, etc. Friday we took him out for a leash walk and yesterday we moved in some new furniture that our friends were getting rid of. He got wet food at around 8:30 pm, and was normal, excited about it, jumping up to watch my wife make it, playing with his brothers, etc. Minutes after eating, he suddenly began yowling like we've never heard before - SCREAMING, really. It was terrifying and I have never heard a cat in such obvious pain before. Just over and over and over again, yowling at the top of his lungs. We dropped what we were doing and ran out the door with him to the e vet immediately. They checked his vitals and they were all OK and did an ultrasound and saw no stones and saw that his bladder was very small, indicating it had been recently emptied, so he wasn't blocked. The vet believes he had a bladder/urethral spasm, perhaps because he had a couple exciting days and wasn't as 100% as we thought he was from the last incident. These are intensely painful, and it seems to explain why he'd be ok and then very very suddenly be screaming in pain. He's back on pain meds now and now also an anti-spasm medication; he slept through the night last night zonked on drugs after having eaten a little more and drank some more while they kicked in. When we got up to use the bathroom ourselves a little bit ago, he wound up getting up and we think(we didn't see it, but the time frame makes sense) got up and peed, and it hurt, and he got up in our bed doing his meowling t hing again but not as loud or frequently as last night, but clearly his 'I'm not ok, help me' vocalization. We gave him more of his pain meds and he's back asleep again. I wish we'd have seen him pee just now, but we're pretty sure that's what happened even though we didn't. He just wanted us to get up and comfort him and make it better, and I think that's what we did. We are taking him to our normal vet tomorrow. This plan of action has been endorsed by the e-vet, who thinks there's no reason to think he's not gonna make it until then.

I hate that he's going through this, whatever happened last night was easily the worst thing he's ever experienced. He was screaming in pain, out of nowhere. :(

empty whippet box
Jun 9, 2004

by Fluffdaddy

empty whippet box posted:

this was in fact the eventual diagnosis. Before last night he had been totally 100% better for over a week - like 10 days I guess - and had been without medication, no litterbox problems at all, etc. Friday we took him out for a leash walk and yesterday we moved in some new furniture that our friends were getting rid of. He got wet food at around 8:30 pm, and was normal, excited about it, jumping up to watch my wife make it, playing with his brothers, etc. Minutes after eating, he suddenly began yowling like we've never heard before - SCREAMING, really. It was terrifying and I have never heard a cat in such obvious pain before. Just over and over and over again, yowling at the top of his lungs. We dropped what we were doing and ran out the door with him to the e vet immediately. They checked his vitals and they were all OK and did an ultrasound and saw no stones and saw that his bladder was very small, indicating it had been recently emptied, so he wasn't blocked. The vet believes he had a bladder/urethral spasm, perhaps because he had a couple exciting days and wasn't as 100% as we thought he was from the last incident. These are intensely painful, and it seems to explain why he'd be ok and then very very suddenly be screaming in pain. He's back on pain meds now and now also an anti-spasm medication; he slept through the night last night zonked on drugs after having eaten a little more and drank some more while they kicked in. When we got up to use the bathroom ourselves a little bit ago, he wound up getting up and we think(we didn't see it, but the time frame makes sense) got up and peed, and it hurt, and he got up in our bed doing his meowling t hing again but not as loud or frequently as last night, but clearly his 'I'm not ok, help me' vocalization. We gave him more of his pain meds and he's back asleep again. I wish we'd have seen him pee just now, but we're pretty sure that's what happened even though we didn't. He just wanted us to get up and comfort him and make it better, and I think that's what we did. We are taking him to our normal vet tomorrow. This plan of action has been endorsed by the e-vet, who thinks there's no reason to think he's not gonna make it until then.

I hate that he's going through this, whatever happened last night was easily the worst thing he's ever experienced. He was screaming in pain, out of nowhere. :(

he's now hospitalized due to blockage. he is going to be catheterized for now and is expected to undergo surgery to hopefully permanently prevent this from recurring. I am fortunate that my parents are able and willing to help us through this financially, as pets have always been important as any other part of the family to us, but it will likely cost at or around $4000 in total, and I cannot imagine having to go through this without their help because the other option is simply letting him die.

gently caress.

empty whippet box
Jun 9, 2004

by Fluffdaddy
Cheeto is out of surgery and is going to be ok. Might have him back tonight, and it'll probably be a couple weeks of having to manage his recovery post surgery. But we aren't losing him so I don't care, whatever. Just want him back.

empty whippet box
Jun 9, 2004

by Fluffdaddy
cheeto is home. it will probably be a rough couple days, and a two week recovery, and he will have to learn to use the litterbox again basically. but he's gonna be ok.

Only registered members can see post attachments!

Harold Fjord
Jan 3, 2004
I put new seresto and regular collars on my cats a couple weeks ago. Now one of them has a bit of a crescent shaped bald spot on her neck. It doesn't seem burned or especially sensitive. I think the two collars got a little tangled/bunched together awkwardly and the flea collar was pressed/rubbing on this spot. I've removed the second collar and check from time to time to make sure the seresto is resting on her fur and not rubbing on that spot further. Is it necessary I remove the soresto?

Hutla
Jun 5, 2004

It's mechanical
With the amount of flea collars that just flat out kill cats, I would never in a million years put one on my cat.

A LOVELY LAD
Feb 8, 2006

Hey man, wanna hear a secret?



College Slice
Hey,

We have 2 cats which we've had about 2 years now - indoor only, possibly siblings around 4 yo.

One of them has a bit of an itching problem where she was scratching herself and causing cuts which would end up getting worse, so steroids for that.
Anyways she got sick about this time last year, all of a sudden runny bloody poop, not eating/drinking/moving etc. Got her to the vets who did bloodwork and thought that it could be intestinal blockage, surgery found nothing. During her recovery and a good while after she was off steroids due to being made to eat every other pill under the sun multiple times a day but wasn't actually itching like before so all was good. The itching finally came back so we have her back on the roids, although its a 1mg dose every 2 days so not too bad. We noticed every now and again the poop would have dark red areas, which we were given probiotics for which may or may not have helped.

We are trying elimination diets now to see if we can stop both the itching and the digestive upset (kibble only, they used to be on kibble and wet) with novel and hydrolysed proteins now and we've been on about 4 of different brands.

A hydrolysed soy and rice one has given us the best results turd wise, and also reduced the other cat throwing up but on the other hand has started her itching to the point of hurting herself as well... Whenever we switch out to a different hypoallergenic food, the stomach problems (red bits in poop, occasional vomit, the odd lethargic episode) return within a couple of weeks, so we end up going back to soy.

So really the question(s) are:
1 - Should we keep trying other foods? The next brands will likely have a lot of the same ingredients, I'd like to try them on wet only but they're really picky when it comes to wet.
2 - Is it the right choice to put them back to soy when the digestive symptoms are appearing, I feel like trying to power through for the full 8 weeks could end up making her super ill again.
3 - Any other suggestions really?

Thanks!


empty whippet box posted:

cheeto is home. it will probably be a rough couple days, and a two week recovery, and he will have to learn to use the litterbox again basically. but he's gonna be ok.
That sounds super awful, glad he's going better!

Chaosfeather
Nov 4, 2008

Harold Fjord posted:

I put new seresto and regular collars on my cats a couple weeks ago. Now one of them has a bit of a crescent shaped bald spot on her neck. It doesn't seem burned or especially sensitive. I think the two collars got a little tangled/bunched together awkwardly and the flea collar was pressed/rubbing on this spot. I've removed the second collar and check from time to time to make sure the seresto is resting on her fur and not rubbing on that spot further. Is it necessary I remove the soresto?

In my years of owning cats and working with them as an assistant, I can say with 100% certainty that flea collars succeed in getting fleas to move away from the collar, but only rarely off of your cat. Because of that they really don't work for what you're trying to do (get rid of fleas/prevent them from getting on your cat). I am of the opinion that if your cat frequently has trouble with fleas you should invest in a good topical flea medication. I have had success with cat flea pills and flea-killing shampoos as well, but I understand that most people do not want to put their cats in the stresses of pilling/bathing them regularly. Not a doctor of course, if the sore gets worse you should probably take it to the vet and make sure it doesn't get infected and cause a bigger problem.

Edit: I want to add, do not put the topical medication on if the back of the neck is a sore at all. You will likely need to wait until that heals over if it's scabbing or open in some way. Please ask a vet!


A LOVELY LAD posted:

Hey,

We have 2 cats which we've had about 2 years now - indoor only, possibly siblings around 4 yo.

So really the question(s) are:
1 - Should we keep trying other foods? The next brands will likely have a lot of the same ingredients, I'd like to try them on wet only but they're really picky when it comes to wet.
2 - Is it the right choice to put them back to soy when the digestive symptoms are appearing, I feel like trying to power through for the full 8 weeks could end up making her super ill again.
3 - Any other suggestions really?

In my limited experience from watching animals get treated for food allergies, I have never heard of 'blood in the stool'? I am also suspect of your vet jumping from bloodwork to surgery over any sort of imaging. Unless you opted for the surgery yourself I would think the step with bloodwork would have been to look for something before putting the cat under the knife.

If your vet is guessing at this point I don't think it would hurt to get a second opinion. I have yet to see bloody stools as something less than concerning, but perhaps one of the actual vets has seen something that I haven't.

In the meantime, can you feed your cats separately? It might be a bit of a pain but if one is responding to the food well and the other responds poorly to it (if I am reading that correctly) that may be the way you need to go to have some healthy cats. I would recommend ensuring there's at least a shut door between them if you're going to try this. It also is a good way to help monitor cat weights and regulate it, if that's something that were to come up at all.

Please remember cats are obligate carnivores, so no 'vegan', 'vegetarian' or non-meat diet is going to give them all of the nutrients they need. The pet nutrition thread may be the one to help you find a diet to try? https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3920678

Chaosfeather fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Mar 21, 2021

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1up
Jan 4, 2005

5-up

A LOVELY LAD posted:

So really the question(s) are:
1 - Should we keep trying other foods? The next brands will likely have a lot of the same ingredients, I'd like to try them on wet only but they're really picky when it comes to wet.
2 - Is it the right choice to put them back to soy when the digestive symptoms are appearing, I feel like trying to power through for the full 8 weeks could end up making her super ill again.
3 - Any other suggestions really?

Thanks!

That sounds super awful, glad he's going better!

So I have an almost 14 year old cat with raging dermatitis and you should definitely commit now to a feeding schedule and feed them completely separately. If the itching still happens, you might need an immunosupressant as well. My cat takes atopica/cyclosporine daily and eats isolated from our other cats, but all it takes is 1 little bit of kibble overlooked after a meal to trigger a new episode of scratching a hole into herself.

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