Russian Blue mystery illness

supersi

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We have two Russian Blue cats. The older one is in great health.
The other is not, and we don't know why, here's the story....

The cat is a 2 year old, neutered male. We initially took him to vet because he got to a certain skinny looking weight and wouldn't put on any more weight.
Compared to our older Russian Blue he is very skinny and a lot smaller in stature.

The vet was concerned about his weight and took numerous blood tests, including tests for Feline Leakemia & cat aids, cat flu etc...
The only thing the vet could find was a heightened white blood cell count.
The vet proscribed antibiotics to try and clear it up. Whilst on the antibiotics he improved, gained weight and had more energy.

However twice he has had a recurrence and twice we've been back to the vet with no clear answer. In the last few days he has lost his appetite and frequently cries out at us as if he's trying to tell us what's wrong.
He appears to be in a lot of pain and is listless.

Prior to losing his appetite he would gobble down food as fast as he could. He would then vomit it up, we've also found the remains of bird in his vomit.

Has anyone had a similar experience with their cat and was there a diagnosable problem, what was the outcome?
We love him very much but don't want him to suffer needlessly.
 

miss mew

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The only suggestion I have for you is to try a few other vets for a second opinion.

I'm so sorry that you have been going through such a terrible time, and although I have no personal expeirence related to the symptoms you described I'll send you and your russian blue my prayers
 

pushylady

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Was he only sick after eating the bird? As he's indoor/outdoor, he can be exposed to a lot of things, and with his white blood count being high, he's obviously fighting something.
I would recommend getting another opinion and pushing to see if they can come with something.
 

renovia

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definitely seek other vet's advice. Kass' Nakita lost a lot of weight and is on a type of prozac i believe. but i think your kitty sounds like he's fighting off something.
 

mzjazz2u

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Originally Posted by supersi

We have two Russian Blue cats. The older one is in great health.
The other is not, and we don't know why, here's the story....

The cat is a 2 year old, neutered male. We initially took him to vet because he got to a certain skinny looking weight and wouldn't put on any more weight.
Compared to our older Russian Blue he is very skinny and a lot smaller in stature.

The vet was concerned about his weight and took numerous blood tests, including tests for Feline Leakemia & cat aids, cat flu etc...
The only thing the vet could find was a heightened white blood cell count.
The vet proscribed antibiotics to try and clear it up. Whilst on the antibiotics he improved, gained weight and had more energy.

However twice he has had a recurrence and twice we've been back to the vet with no clear answer. In the last few days he has lost his appetite and frequently cries out at us as if he's trying to tell us what's wrong.
He appears to be in a lot of pain and is listless.

Prior to losing his appetite he would gobble down food as fast as he could. He would then vomit it up, we've also found the remains of bird in his vomit.

Has anyone had a similar experience with their cat and was there a diagnosable problem, what was the outcome?
We love him very much but don't want him to suffer needlessly.
Ok now I don't know if this is what your cat is experiencing or not. It's a long shot but worth considering. Have you changed his diet at all recently? My Red Persian got very sick and lost 40 % of his body weight recently. He went through tests, had a weekend of IV's and antibiotics and then got sent home on antibiotics. Previous to this, he would eat like a pig too, and then vomit some of it up. I thought he ate too much. But now I talked to another vet in the reference laboratory I work in and gave him all the details. He seems to think it was my cats diet. I had tried to change it very slowly over the last month or so. So this doctor says he thinks the food didn't agree with my cat and he got an inflammed bowel with secondary infection. BTW he's doing much better now. Still not back 100% yet but it's only been 1 1/2 weeks.
 
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supersi

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The vet thought his bowels were inflamed. We are about to put him on Hills Science food. Any recommendations?
 

russian blue

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Originally Posted by supersi

The cat is a 2 year old, neutered male. We initially took him to vet because he got to a certain skinny looking weight and wouldn't put on any more weight.
Compared to our older Russian Blue he is very skinny and a lot smaller in stature.

However twice he has had a recurrence and twice we've been back to the vet with no clear answer. In the last few days he has lost his appetite and frequently cries out at us as if he's trying to tell us what's wrong.
He appears to be in a lot of pain and is listless.

Prior to losing his appetite he would gobble down food as fast as he could. He would then vomit it up, we've also found the remains of bird in his vomit.
I'm going through a similar thing with Nakita, my Russian Blue. Nakita's weight was 4.8 pounds at last vet check. As you can imagine, I don't want her to get any smaller! I would check with the vet to see if he might have IBS and/or food allergies. We also just changed her litter. She was using Swheat Scoop and we've gone to a totally different brand to see if it makes a difference.

I was reading an interesting article a couple of weeks ago comparing increases in IBS rates with the increase in use of clumping litters. They were mentioning that the dust from the clumping litters that the cat ingests might be irritating the cats and increasing stomach/bowel problems. Not sure if that has been scientifically studied, but it's an interesting theory to think about.


Originally Posted by supersi

The vet thought his bowels were inflamed. We are about to put him on Hills Science food. Any recommendations?
We're currently on Royal Canin Prescription Duck and Rice and there's also Rabbit and Pea that you can order through your vet. Nakita wouldn't eat the various Hills brand at all. I would also suggest trying out a canned diet. If food allergies/IBS is suspected, canned diets seem to be tolerated better by cats with this condition than the dry food. I also have Nakita on Wysong's All Meat Duck canned food. It's only meat with no additives (but to make it a complete food you need to supplement it with their other product).

Please keep us updated on his condition. It's really hard seeing our cats suffer and not knowing what to do.
 

purrpaws

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Could it be some kind of parasite from the bird? Many wild birds carry nasty diseases and parasites.
 
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supersi

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Laslo isn't too smart when it comes to what he chooses to eat, so he might be eating something (dead birds, slugs, lizards) that we don't know about repeatedly but can't work out it's bad for him. The food brands you talked about we don't have in New Zealand. We feed him Purina One for grazing food and feed him diced beef every evening.

As for his litter box, both our cats are allowed outside so he doesn't use one.
 

johanna reyes

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me too i have rassian blue too , i heard that dont feed it dry food , i didnt try it but i going to by wet food for my male rassian  blue , but i think it will help to your cat and my
 
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