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  #1  
Old June 20th, 2008, 01:46 PM
mandimus mandimus is offline
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Wasting Cat

She has been seen by a vet. I'm just looking for other options. I work for a veterinarian in a research facility (not by choice, I'm military) and took my cat to see him.

Boo is almost four years old. I have had her and two other cats since they were kittens and they have lived strictly indoors this entire time, Never even setting a paw outside the house.
She gets vaccinated for FELV, ditemper combo and rabies every year.

In the beginning of May, it was discoverd that she was very dehydrated and had gone from 4.6kg to 3.0kg. She is now at 2.5kg. She has now completely stopped eating on her own and is being syringe fed. She is getting SQ fluids daily because she keeps getting dehydrated. She was vomitting everything that was fed to her for a while. She was put on Prednisone on june 12th and has stopped vomiting, but stil will not eat. She has been seen drinking and licking up catnip. Her attitude is good. She is social and receptive to attention, but slightly withdrawn from the other cats.

Radiographs were unremarkable. Ultrasound showed that one of her kidneys was "funny looking". She now has very slight jaundice. The vet suspects lymphoma but says she's too much of an anesthetic risk right now to take a biopsy. Her bloodowrk shows a recent elevation in her lymphocytes to 78%, low overall WBC count, and a low HCT. Her BUN is a little low and creatnine on the high end of normal limits. Everything else was normal. Her blood work has fluctuated a lot. Sometimes pretty much normal, other times something was too high or too low. She gows to the bathroom with some regularity now that she is being force fed (she deals with it okay)

The vet can't tell me what's wrong with her. HELP!
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  #2  
Old June 20th, 2008, 02:29 PM
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badger badger is offline
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Wow, this hits home, I have a wasting cat myself at the moment (which I will bring up on another thread).
Poor little guy. I don't have any brilliant ideas for you, I hope Dr. Lee will see this.
My Sunday vet put Mousse on a combo including prednisone and two antibiotics (I call it the feel-good drug), which helped him quite a bit, but I notice on my copy of his file with his 'regular' vet that this was shot down rather scornfully as inappropriate (no idea why).
Have you tried an appetite stimulant (Cipro)?
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  #3  
Old June 20th, 2008, 08:54 PM
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Bump bump...
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Old June 20th, 2008, 10:49 PM
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badger-
Just tried to PM you, but mailbox is full.

I wanted to say that Dr. Lee said in another thread that it's PK to PM him if he hasn't gotten around...so, you might want to try that.

Meantime, just hang in there. I know how agonizing it can be.
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Old June 21st, 2008, 12:42 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mandimus View Post
Radiographs were unremarkable. Ultrasound showed that one of her kidneys was "funny looking". She now has very slight jaundice. The vet suspects lymphoma but says she's too much of an anesthetic risk right now to take a biopsy. Her bloodowrk shows a recent elevation in her lymphocytes to 78%, low overall WBC count, and a low HCT. Her BUN is a little low and creatnine on the high end of normal limits. Everything else was normal. Her blood work has fluctuated a lot. Sometimes pretty much normal, other times something was too high or too low. She gows to the bathroom with some regularity now that she is being force fed (she deals with it okay)

The vet can't tell me what's wrong with her. HELP!
Jaundice usually means the liver is not functioning properly - this could be a result of her rapid weight loss from not eating - Hepatic Lipidosis aka fatty liver. The "funny looking" kidney sounds like she also has either a kidney infection or some function loss. You mention she is on SQ fluids has the vet discussed giving fluids via IV? It is usually more effective for more serious cases.

Have you had blood & urine work done since starting pred?

I hope you can find some solutions keep us updated on how your girl is doing
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Old June 21st, 2008, 01:03 PM
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I hope your kitty will be OK.
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Old June 21st, 2008, 07:53 PM
mandimus mandimus is offline
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Yes, bloodwork has been being done on a regular basis, before and after the prednisone. She had a urinalyisis done when we first caught this because the initial suspicion was a kidney infection. The urinalysis showed trace amounts of blood, and two culters grew nothing. She was put on antibitotics before the cultures came back neg, and has since been taken off. I know the jaundice could have something to do with hepatic lipidosis from when she wasn't eating before we discovered it, but she was not yellow until only a few days ago. She's been being syringe fed for weeks now. I tackled a vet who was passing through our facility and he recommended doing a liver panel on her. He also recommended having a veterinary pathologist look at the blood slides that we have for her to get a better assessment to the possibility of lymphoma... but he also said that with lymphoma, the lymphnodes would be swollen. So Monday, we'll see about getting that done.
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Old June 22nd, 2008, 04:54 PM
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Good luck,
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Rose semi feral, a cpietra rescue, female tabby (approx 13 yrs)

Jasper RIP (2001-2018)
Sweet Pea RIP (2004?-2014)
Puddles RIP (1996-2014)
Snowball RIP (1991-2005)

In a cat's eye, all things belong to cats.-English Proverb

“While we are free to choose our actions, we are not free to choose the consequences of our actions.” Stephen R. Covey
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  #9  
Old June 22nd, 2008, 11:58 PM
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Even being syringe fed she still could develop hepatic lipidosis, she needs an appropriate high protein food.

I would definately go for the pathologist

for some positive results & some answers
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  #10  
Old June 25th, 2008, 02:02 PM
mandimus mandimus is offline
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So yesterday she ate some cat treats. This was the first time that she had been seen voluntarily eating in 3 weeks. They were the hard "nutritionally complete" pounce treats. I put a few in front or her and she ate them like there was no tomorrow. So then I gave her the maximum amount recommended on the bag and she ate them all. But she still won't eat her dry or wet cat food, won't eat her science diet a/d, tuna, baby food, not even the new cat food that I bought to feed her today. Not even the tastiest chicken and liver gourmet meow mix wet food. Nothing. What the heck?
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  #11  
Old June 25th, 2008, 02:16 PM
mandimus mandimus is offline
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Liver Panel

Dide the liver panel. All normal.
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  #12  
Old June 25th, 2008, 02:34 PM
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Good news. I buy lots of those tiny cans in different flavours for Mousse, the minute he gets tired of one flavour I switch him to another.
Have you thought about boiling him up some chicken and rice?
It's such a worry when they won't eat. Keep tempting him.
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  #13  
Old June 25th, 2008, 07:06 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mandimus View Post
But she still won't eat her dry or wet cat food, won't eat her science diet a/d, tuna, baby food, not even the new cat food that I bought to feed her today. Not even the tastiest chicken and liver gourmet meow mix wet food. Nothing. What the heck?
Science diet, meow mix & pounce are definately not good food choices, my mums recent rescue cat would only eat meow mix and a tiny bit of fancy feast, she was unbelievably picky. In trying to switch her to a good food I found that they only one she likes is the Solid Gold Blended Tuna canned and the Solid Gold Katz-n-Flocken dry

Solid Gold also makes Indigo Moon dryfood for cats.

Wellness also makes Pouches you can give that a try.

You can ask @ your local pet supply store if they have sample bags for you to try.

Since she will eat the pounce, what you can do is mush them up & spread it on her food to try and tempt her to eat. There are some more tips here here

Also you can warm up the canned/pouch food my placing the dish in the sink with some hot water - most cats will prefer slightly warm food, this also releases the flavour & therefore the smell. Adding a little hot water to the wet food does as well.
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Last edited by growler~GateKeeper; June 26th, 2008 at 01:45 AM.
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  #14  
Old June 26th, 2008, 01:41 AM
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Growler gave you some very good suggestions on foods to try. Good luck.
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  #15  
Old July 12th, 2008, 07:04 PM
mandimus mandimus is offline
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Well, she's now eating and gaining weight. After nearly three months of her "crashing" she is now finally pulling through.

And just quick response to a comment about science diet food a couple threads ago...it's one of the best food their are. Especially the a/d. It's specially formulated to put witgh on sick animals. Also another tid-bit, the military allows it's working dogs to eat science diet ONLY. With how expensive those dogs are... you know it has to be good stuff

So anyway, she's getting better, but I still never did find the root of the problem. So hopefully there's no relapse.
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  #16  
Old July 12th, 2008, 09:31 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mandimus View Post
She gets vaccinated for FELV, ditemper combo and rabies every year.
Sorry, I didn't catch this thread earlier! I am glad that she is doing well. Again - for anyone wanting to contact me, please feel free to PM me.

One quick note on the vaccinations.

FeLV - this is an important vaccine to give young cats. Shortly after a year of age, all cats, regardless of being vaccinated or not, develop natural immunity. Different veterinarians have some different thoughts on when FeLV vaccines should stop but for indoor cats, there likely isn't any reason to vaccinate a 4 year old cat for FeLV.

Many vaccines may be given every year or every 3 years such as the distemper combo and rabies.

Also for all cat owners, I would recommend a quick look at the thread on non-adjuvanted vaccines. Please make sure that an injectable FeLV is NEVER given. It needs to be the recombinant, needless delivery to reduce (to the best of our understanding, eliminate) the risk of VAS (vaccine associated sarcoma).

Again, glad that your cat is feeling better!
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  #17  
Old July 12th, 2008, 11:33 PM
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Glad to hear your kitty is doing better this is the end of whatever caused it
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  #18  
Old July 13th, 2008, 12:23 AM
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Originally Posted by Dr Lee View Post
Also for all cat owners, I would recommend a quick look at the thread on non-adjuvanted vaccines. Please make sure that an injectable FeLV is NEVER given. It needs to be the recombinant, needless delivery to reduce (to the best of our understanding, eliminate) the risk of VAS (vaccine associated sarcoma).
In case anyone missed reading the thread on this here it is....

http://www.pets.ca/forum/showthread....anted+vaccines


mandimus, glad to hear your kitty is doing better and hope she does not have a relapse.
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Old July 13th, 2008, 12:42 AM
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Originally Posted by mandimus View Post
Well, she's now eating and gaining weight. After nearly three months of her "crashing" she is now finally pulling through.

And just quick response to a comment about science diet food a couple threads ago...it's one of the best food their are. Especially the a/d. It's specially formulated to put witgh on sick animals. Also another tid-bit, the military allows it's working dogs to eat science diet ONLY. With how expensive those dogs are... you know it has to be good stuff

So anyway, she's getting better, but I still never did find the root of the problem. So hopefully there's no relapse.
I am very glad to hear you kitty is doing better.

You might want to do some research into that Science Diet though. While some of their special diets aren't too bad - the '"regular" stuff is garbage and I would have a real hard time choosing between it and Wal-Marts brand of cat food. Just because the military feed SD to their working dogs isn't a glowing recommendation. I am sure that the SD reps fed their line of PR to whomever and then offered them a fat deal for buying in the kind of bulk that the military would need.
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