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 This is Stella. She's 13 years old. When I graduated from college and got my first grownup apartment all to myself I adopted her as a kitten. She's fluffy and lovable, and is a textbook definition of what they say about the cuddly ragdoll temperament of longhaired torties. In early December she just abruptly stopped drinking. Everything in her blood work looks fine except for her electrolytes being funky due to dehydration. Nothing weird in ultrasound, sounds like they did an endocrine workup that came out clean, nothing in x-rays. After some time in the cat-ICU to stabilize her, they got her on subcutaneous fluids every other day, and we've been doing that ever since. Outside of not drinking, she generally seems okay and herself. Her appetite was a little low but prednisolone has helped keep her eating regularly, and she's at a stable weight now. No sign of kidney failure, which I guess is usually why cats wind up on fluids. It used to be that you could get her to literally run to her water bowl by just dropping an ice cube in there, but even that doesn't work now. She sometimes looks at the bowl but says nope and walks away. Has anyone seen this before in their pets? I'm assuming at this point it's possibly a brain tumor, but I really don't know for sure. The vets and I agreed that an MRI or CT on the cat would be unnecessary roughness on her and a waste of my money. Nobody's going to put a 13 year old cat through brain surgery, so anything we found in the scan wouldn't be actionable information. The vets seem pretty much stumped. The general attitude is that what we're doing is keeping her stable and out of pain, so just keep doing that until she has a downturn. If it is a brain tumor, what do I look out for to know it's getting worse? I'm well aware that we're into the bonus round with the cat at this point and she's not going to get better. However, this is the first time for me in this stage of a pet's life. I don't know how to spot a cat that's truly in the kind of distress that means it's time for us to say goodbye.
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Mar 27, 2016 05:01
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 01:23 |
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You haven't mentioned wet food - does she eat wet food? Cats can get a lot of moisture from wet food. I have one cat that hardly drinks any water. I mix extra water into the wet food, not enough to make soup, but to make a sort of paste with the pate type food. He has megacolon, so getting enough water into him is important. There's the possibility of bad association, like pain. Any sign of dental disease? In 13 y/o cat I would assume that some extractions would be needed sometime soon if not already. Maybe there's a cold sensitive tooth pain? Have you tried moving water bowls around the house, changing the bowl, trying a cat water fountain, etc? Anything to try to change a bad association, in case it's related to that. Have you tried a cat only vet? They are more tuned into the things that can cause this. I totally get the frustration of no medical signs but a stark behavioral change. My Cosmic just had a mystery short illness with a fever, and now he doesn't eat meals anymore. He'll eat maybe half, and then if you try to feed him an hour later he'll eat the whole meal plus. Or you have to lock him in a room with the food for an hour. Or he'll only eat kibble one day. And the next refuse the kibble the next meal and eat half his wet food. He was a perfect picture of consistency before the illness, eat his meal twice a day and asking for more. Now this battle to make sure he eats enough has been going on over a month, and another $400 on tests showed perfect blood work. I just try to establish a new routine based on what works.
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Mar 27, 2016 14:37
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Seriously, try a cat water fountain and if that doesn't work, get back to us. Most cats are into the visible running stream and just wanna shove themselves in it.
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Mar 27, 2016 14:39
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I've had great luck with tuna juice... when you open a can of tuna and pour out the liquid without any of the actual meat. Even the sickest cats I've encountered, who refuse to drink or eat, will happily lap up a bowl of tuna water. Not a long term fix, but a nice treat for kitty and a quick shot of hydration for them.
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Mar 27, 2016 15:20
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Keeping her hydrated by giving sq fluids won't allow her thirst centers to respond, which is something we see pretty commonly in animals on fluids of some sort - they have no stimulus to drink so they don't. Have you discussed doing a trial off the sq fluids? It would be unusual for her to not respond off the sq fluids. The mechanism behind thirst is complicated but it's true that it's not controlled only by the brain. Different types of receptors exist in the pituitary, heart, arterial walls, kidneys, liver, multiple parts of the brain.....here is some light reading on it. Also going to throw out that she may also have been drinking from the toilet.
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Mar 27, 2016 17:38
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So this started back in December when she started acting derpy and in pain, and the bloodwork indicated dehydration that was bad enough that she had to go into supportive care with IV fluids for a weekend. The 24/7 referral hospital sent her back home to me and I was told to recheck with my usual vet a week later. At the time of recheck her blood sodium was up out of range again; she went back on IV fluids, starting the sq fluids when I took her home. We discussed with the vet about tapering the fluids back to every 3 days instead of every other day. It turned out poorly -- her sodium levels had returned to a fairly high level again. To round up some of the other stuff, we've tried the usual stuff to entice her into drinking, like the water fountain, ice cubes, etc, no go. Her teeth looked fine at a checkup around the same time this all started. We've kept a decently close eye on that because my other cat got dealt a bad hand genetically and has tooth resorption issues, As for food, our other cat eats a mix of dry and wet k/d prescription food for his own kidney weirdness and Stella eats mostly the dry stuff we put out for him. The vet said it wouldn't be a bad idea for her to eat the k/d anyway. She ate dry Blue Buffalo before that. I never gave her wet food when she was little, so she acts as though she doesn't know wtf to do with it.
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Mar 28, 2016 01:49
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That's really weird! I'd follow your vets' advice, seems like they have a way to manage the situation!
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Mar 30, 2016 02:53
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Enelrahc posted:That's really weird! I'd follow your vets' advice, seems like they have a way to manage the situation! Yep. The main vet we work with said he has never seen anything like this in his 12 years of practice. He added that she's clearly on a decline, but between prednisolone and the fluids, we're keeping it from being too steep and rough for her. But the whole thing at this point is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ In the last week or so she's also started vocalizing a little more, getting more withdrawn, and pooping outside the box. I feel like the pooping may be a dominance thing because she really was the alpha cat in the house for so long. As she withdraws, the other cat is trying to fill the gap, and I don't think she's really liking that.
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Mar 30, 2016 14:07
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How many different flavors of wet food did you try with her? I would exhaust that option first if I could. It took a lot of trial and error to find flavors all four of them liked.
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Apr 1, 2016 03:24
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Sadly she took a hard turn southward yesterday and we had to say goodbye  We handled it at home. I about completely lost it when my other cat came over after she passed and gave her a lick on her nose.I wish I knew what caused this, but it wouldn't have changed anything in the end. I'm now trying to find a rescue or some other group that can take a donation of the rest of the unused fluid bags, since I've got half a case left. Hopefully someone else can benefit from that.
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Apr 1, 2016 21:02
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kitten smoothie posted:Sadly she took a hard turn southward yesterday and we had to say goodbye I'm so sorry for your loss. I'm sure she loved you guys.
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Apr 1, 2016 21:12
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I just found this thread, read it, then scrolled back up to see her tag. Nearly got all choked up. I'm gonna snuggle my cat extra tonight. You are a good cat parent
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Apr 5, 2016 22:23
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Thanks. I at least take solace in knowing that by getting supportive care for her ASAP when she crashed in December, I kept her from dying a pretty crappy death back then. We got three months bonus time together before giving her a more peaceful sendoff. I have a couple close friends who had cats that were about the same age as Stella. Both friends lost their cats in the last month as well. So we're all able to commiserate over the three cats that had gotten to that age where they ended up forgetting how to cat.
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Apr 7, 2016 05:38
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Threads like these make me dread the next few years.
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Apr 8, 2016 00:46
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Sorry to hear this. She looked like a sweet cat.
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Apr 8, 2016 07:00
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 01:23 |
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I'm so glad your cat finally decided to seek help and get sob-- oh. Oh no. No no no. No.
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Apr 14, 2016 22:37
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