Hepatic Lipidosis

Hi All,

Welcome to the most stressful week of my life. I have a cat diagnosed with Hepatic Lipidosis. I had an E-tube installed last thursday (the 15th) So it has been 6 days. I am having a VERY difficult time getting her daily allowance of calories due to vomiting. She is currently on metoclopramide but it seems to do little good. She needs 300 ml of slurry (1.5 can A/D + 60 ml water) to meet her caloric need. Right now I am trying to feed her 40 ml every 4 hours. That only works out to 240 ml and vomiting is still a problem. I am feeding her what to me seems very slowly (1/2 ml per second) and the food is warmed to about 85-90 degrees and I have done my best to make sure there are know air bubbles.

Seeing I can not get her full caloric need I am slowly losing hope. Am I just torturing her at this point? I don't know what the right thing to do is, I just dont want to lose my little girl

Sam

I am so sorry to hear you are going through this. I have a cat with Liver problems, her original diagnosis was H.L., but the vet was thinking on Saturday that it was worse than that. I'm lucky though because Tiger has started to eat on her own again. (See post called Tiger update). I wish I could tell you how to get her to keep the food down, as I said I'm lucky that Tiger is eating on her own. Maybe you should ask your vet about Pepcid. I know that is what is used in CRF kitties to prevent them from throwing up. Talk to your vet first because I don't know if it is OK to give to a kitty with HL. Tiger spent 2 or 3 days at the vets office being treated. I'm not sure what her treatment was, but I am sure it involved IV fluids. Currently I'm giving her sub-q fluids. There are people here who have been super helpful to me because they have had experience with H.L.

Sending many vibes that your kitty starts to improve soon.

Maybe you could try less, more often? Maybe 40ml is too much for her right now. I would try 10-15 every hour and see how that goes. I also agree to ask the vet about pepcid. It helped Riley a lot when he was vomiting.

Originally Posted by AlleyGirl

Maybe you could try less, more often? Maybe 40ml is too much for her right now. I would try 10-15 every hour and see how that goes. I also agree to ask the vet about pepcid. It helped Riley a lot when he was vomiting.

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Wow, every hour? I wonder how long I would have to do that for. I am really trying to figure out a way to balance this with work and sleep. Finding a schedule that is going to work is going to be very difficult I fear.

I am waiting for a call back from the vet. I left a message for him to call me this morning, I wonder how long I should wait.

Definitely talk to the vet. I don't have experience with HP, only with syringe feeding a sick cat to prevent him getting to that point. I know he was only given tiny amounts to start with, then increasing each day. It may be different the way you are doing it. I really hope they have some answers for you.

Assuming I knock off work a little early each day I should be able to (with a great deal of patience) get 240 ml if I do 15 every hour. I just did the first 15 and we will see how it goes from there. It sure seems like this should be less traumatic for her, although I wonder how much water is too much? All the tube flushing is going to add up fast.

Originally Posted by swinchen

Assuming I knock off work a little early each day I should be able to (with a great deal of patience) get 240 ml if I do 15 every hour. I just did the first 15 and we will see how it goes from there. It sure seems like this should be less traumatic for her, although I wonder how much water is too much? All the tube flushing is going to add up fast.

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Please speak to the vet before you make any changes to the schedule, because as I said I have no experience with that and it may be necessary to do it different because of that reason.

Originally Posted by AlleyGirl

Please speak to the vet before you make any changes to the schedule, because as I said I have no experience with that and it may be necessary to do it different because of that reason.

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I spoke with the vet (she was very good at understanding mostly incoherent sobs). I tried the 15ml/hr trick and it worked fine for the first 5 feedings but then she threw up. The vet told me to try 15 ml three times a day, and very very slowly increase. I am willing to give that a try. I had committed to letting her go, but I am willing to try again.

FHL is a nasty beast and it really boils down to the how long the cat has been suffering with it and how extensive the internal damage is. She could have developed idopathic HL which means that she was sick before she even looked or acted like she was sick. If she is vomiting with the tube being in her neck, then talk to your vet about the possibility of a PEG tube being used. There are risks with this tube, because it does require full anesthesia to get it in place.

About letting her go, after battling FHL several times over the years in different cats, it came down to watching the cat to see if she had given up. If she isn't getting any nutrition, it is because the body has already fed on itself and her brain is getting the message that she is full, so her body rejects the food she really needs. She could possibly have other health issues that are being masked currently by the roadblock of FHL.

Is she alert? How do her eyes look? When you come into the room, what does she do? Remember that cats learn early how to mask pain. I have had cats die in my arms and I never even knew they were ill! Some were even purring when they passed. But you have to take your cues from her- and forget about what you want. If her quality of life is suffering, then yes, so is she. FHL can be reversed but you really n eed to attend to the cat round-the-clock in order to get t hem over it. The problem when cats get to the stage where we as humans are faced with making a difficult choice is- once their pain ends and they depart the earth, our pain begins. Don't keep her alive for selfish reasons. Keep her alive if she is fighting to stay alive.

Best wishes


MA

as long as your cat is keeping the food down for even 10 minutes it is getting calories!!! You are doing AMAZING!!! I had a FHL cat, down from 12 lbs to 5lbs, completely yellow, and as far as I was concerned she HAD given up, she curled up in a corner and wouldn't even look at me except a feeble attempt to escape when I tried to force feed her. Well that was two years ago and she is now a healthy 12 lbs, eating 3 regular meals aday so there is hope!!

Are you weighing your cat daily??? this will be your best gauge on how your cat is doing!!! this will tell you if you are getting enough calories in (even if your baby is vomiting,..... my cat didn't stop vomiting the whole time I was treating her) as long as you can get the weight to stabalize then you're doing ok.

I am SO SO sorry you are going through this, it is so emotional and hard and there are no guarentee's, but you've done SO much, don't give up yet....

I posted my experience with fatty liver disease on another post a few days ago. My Dudley suffered from this disease twice in his life. Both times a feeding tube was surgically placed into his stomach. This was several years ago, so I don't remember if he was on any anti-nausea meds or not. I do remember that if I fed him just a little too fast, he would throw up. I felt so bad for him. He was hospitalized the first time for a few days and while he was there, he pulled out his tube and had to have it put back in again. Then, in addition to everything else he had to go through, he had to wear an Elizabethan (sp. ?) collar all the time. He was a cat with attitude with that thing on! He learned very quickly to go up and down stairs with it on.

I had to feed him in the morning before work, come home on lunch hour to feed, come home directly from work to feed and then later at night. Plus extra waterings in there, too. It is a commitment. Heck, Dudley really starated enjoying our "special" time together and would purr through every feeding. In fact, the vet said he had never seen a cat enjoy being tube fed like Dudley did. And you might make some mistakes along the way. The one I made, which I felt terrible about then but find humorous now, is that I apparently hadn't blended his food enough one time and was feeding him on my bed. Well, the tube clogged up and the next thing I knew, the pressure blew food out all over the bed, the walls, etc. No one was the worse for it, but I felt like a bad kitty mama. It took 3 months each time for Dudley to start to take an interest in food & water. I still remember the first time I saw him wander out to the food dish and take 3 bites. It was very exciting.

I think you're doing fine. Just realize that it will take time, but don't give up unless your kitty does. This disease really helped bond Dudley and I even closer than before, and he did survive both attacks.

Originally Posted by FluffyNo1

I think you're doing fine. Just realize that it will take time, but don't give up unless your kitty does.

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I think this is great advice! Like Hissy said also, it all depends on how kitty is acting.

Its great that the first few small feedings were successful. It may just be that the 5th one was too much. Increasing the amount and/or the number of feedings slowly is a good idea. You might ask the vet how much and how often she recommends the increase. You want to make sure she is getting enough to actually combat the problem.

Wishing the best for you and kitty (what is her name?).

I thought I would let every one know that I had to put Perl down today. I took her to the vet and she had lost nearly a pound of weight in just over a week. I love her so much, and she she didn't do anything wrong... I did it for her. I will miss her forever. I feel if the roles were reversed she would have done the same for me.

It is amazing how the loss of a pet can bring a big guy like me down to a quivering pile of sadness. I think she taught me a lot about how deeply I can love and it is a lesson I will never forget.

God speed little Perl.

I am so sorry for your loss of Perl.

I thought you all should should see my little girl.

I have never lost a pet before, it is killing me

With deepest sympathies, we will now respectfully close this thread. Please do post a tribute to your beautiful Perl in the Rainbow Bridge forum.