My cat family and I need help.

Hi everyone!

My name's David. My family has 5 cats. All Siamese, four seal points, one blue point. They're all family, we have their mother (Sheena) and her four offspring (Junior, Silvester, Misha and Paul). Their dad was my cat since I was 10 years old, a majestic Balinese who I called Peluso and tragically passed away last year.

I had to euthanize him and I can't think of something more horrible to have to do. To end the life of someone you love so much. I'm still very heart broken and I choke up just writing about it.

I'm afraid just over a year later, I'm reliving some of the same things I went through with Peluso. Junior, now 15 years old, started losing weight several months ago and became increasingly picky about his food and ate less and less. In the last couple of weeks he's stopped eating altogether and have had to resort to forcing him to eat and now liquids through a drip bag. The vet that's been looking after him can't figure out what's wrong. They go from early kidney disease, to pancreatitis, hyperthyroidism, to possible tumor, etc. A new theory every visit. He had an ultrasound, no tumor was found but still no good idea on what's ailing him.

Worst of all is that all our other cats, Sheena, Misha, Paul and Silvester have all now stopped eating as well. It drives me bananas that nobody can figure this out. My mother's done a lot of online research but she's not a vet, she's treated them with organic medicine for the possible conditions and it worked for a while but now I'm deeply concerned and dreading that they're slipping away from us. Junior is so light and feels cold to touch and is a painful reminder of what my dear Peluso looked like on his last days with me.

I'm going to make a visit to Vancouver's Feline Hospital to get an other opinion since I've lost faith in our vet and I don't want to give up on our guys, I just can't take a blow like that.

Oh my God, I am so sorry you are going through all these problems
Since it appears all of them are showing similar problems, I can't help but to think there is some common factor going on...
Think a few weeks ago - did you change food? Did you buy a new bag of food? Could it be tainted? Did you apply flea meds? Did anyone move in move out? Did anything at all happened in the household?
Please please, no matter what continue to force feed them... make sure they eat! No matter what.

Oh those poor babies! I have no real advice to give, but I want you to know that I am thinking of you and your kitties, and hoping that you will be able to get some answers.

Thanks Kailie. Thanks Carolina. It means a lot.

We'll start feeding them tonight. I've read about other people stressing how important it is for them to keep eating, otherwise everything else starts to fall apart. I'll definitely follow your advice.

I moved out a little over a year ago and my mother and father spend less time at home with their work situation. My sister is hardly ever home anymore, but she's never spent much time with the kitties anyway. I do suspect that these changes have affected their mood though.

I also made an observation yesterday. The last two cats to stop eating are also the ones that don't care much for being pet or picked up so I thought there could be some contaminant on US that we've transferred to them over time. My mother did change her detergent to Cheer liquid, which is what I use in my home.

Please keep us posted on how things are going with your cat family. I'm concerned about them, and I'm sure many others here are, too.

I have no idea if the change in laundry detergent would affect them. No idea at all. But changing to something else, wouldn't hurt, and it might help. In the mean time.

I hope you can get some real answers very soon.

My thoughts and prayers are with all of you.

Robin

Hi everyone, thank you for your positive vibes, I really appreciate it.

We force fed all of them yesterday; twice. We took Sheena to the vet and she's actually quite healthy and I'm glad we have a baseline for her now.

We gave Junior some medicine that helps with appetite. We'd used it before with no real improvement but yesterday he did start asking for food and ate on his own small amounts of solid food several times. A great improvement.

I've been spending as much time as I can with them and their mood is much better according to my mother and father... I might have to end up moving back in with them...

We've been thinking back as hard as we can to find out what changed before the big downturn and we think perhaps a bag of food may be the cause. We stopped using it and the vet offered to have it analyzed. This may very well be the reason for their illness as the two that got sick last are the ones that eat very little of this solid food.

The vet also wanted to keep Junior for two days at the hospital to feed him intravenously. This was a hard decision for us because I know from my previous experience with my Peluso, that they get miserably depressed there and it offsets whatever gains he might have. At such a crucial time I don't think this is a good idea. Instead, we're going to force feed him three times a day to get him to eat one whole can of Medi-cal's recovery food which is designed to bring up their weight quickly. This is what the vet recommended for daily intake.

He's still got diarrhea so even though he's drinking lots of water, he's still needing the IV drip.

I'm feeling optimistic that if we're diligent about force feeding him and the others we can get them over this. It's hard work, I've slept very little, but I have to do it, and want to do it. These guys have been part of nearly half of my life.

Hello again.

So, my mother decided yesterday morning to take Junior to the vet as she got spooked and felt she needed to do something immediately. She ended up leaving him overnight as previously suggested to her by her vet.

This means we couldn't take him today to the cat specialist I wanted to see. I'm quite angry about this but I just have to go with it at this point. I'm just more concerned of him getting depressed while he's there.

He's going to be there one more day to see if his condition improves. Although I'm not quite sure what it is that they're looking for. I know he won't be eating by himself without his family being around him, so it's down to force feeding him, which we'd been doing fine. The dehydration we'd managed by putting him on the IV drip every night. At least he has that on all the time now so that's a plus. They've been unable to control his diarrhea so far which was my mother's main concern though.

We visited him last night before they closed and he actually ate on his own as soon as I opened up his cage. Further proving my point that he needs his family. We visited him this morning, just a few hours ago and he wasn't as sharp looking as last night, but he's usually not so great in the mornings. At least, I'm telling myself that.

We'll go visit him again in the afternoon and again in the evening. I want to spend as much time as I possibly can with him.

Junior is very lucky to have such a good and caring family.

I really hope you find out the problem and find a solution.

Please keep us updated here.


Robin

Quick update.

We took Junior home after a few days of him at the vet under intensive care. His mood was improved once at home, appetite not quite back but eating on his own and his diarrhea while not completely gone, it's a lot better so he's staying more hydrated.

We're still having to give him a helping hand every day with feeding and fluids if he's dehydrated. Things aren't all that better but at least he's not in critical state as he was before. His blood panel shows improvement throughout so that's a big relief.

We still don't know what's wrong with him though. I think we'll have to keep doing the feeding and fluids for a while until he regains strength and then maybe he'll start eating on his own.

The other guys are looking much better. Only Paul is still needing to be force fed.

We've bought so many different types of food in the last little while that we could open up our own store. All in search of something they'll like eating again. Some work, some don't, some work on some of the cats, some on others. It's a mess.

That's all for now. Thanks to everyone reading for their support.

I am glad they are feeling better... and also hoping all this food is wet food? Changing dry foods like that can really mess up their system, and make the diarrhea much much worst.

Hasn't any blood work been done on these cats? I saw ultrasound mentioned but no blood work? Guess work is no good, a superchem, including t-4 (thyroid) needs to be done on each of them.

They've stopped eating any of the things they were used to so we have to try something new since there's no easing them into a new one. They were mostly wet food with a bit of dry food. Now it's just dry food that they want.

Blood work has been done. Several times on Junior, he showed improvement in that area. Hyperthyroidism was diagnosed for Silvestre and has been on medication for a while. Junior showed signs of pancreatitis and early kidney disease but none of those two observations seem to explain his lack of appetite and over all condition according to the vet.

Junior has once again stopped eating completely and it's more difficult to force feed him. The last couple of weeks, when he was already ill, he would go up to the food, wet his lips and not eat. Also would stand by his bowl of water for long periods of time and drink little bits. Now he's not doing either, he wants nothing at all anymore. He just sleeps and looks sad. Vet told us that shows he's nauseous.

Today he's been drooling a lot. We've been giving him some meds to fight the nausea but it doesn't seem to help.

My mother today mentioned for the first time throwing in the towel on him... I don't want to give up, but I also don't know what we can do to help him.

Early kidney disease and pancreatis both can cause lack of appetite, it is one of the key symptoms in both. The kidney issues often cause nausea ask the vet about some medicine for that

So sorry to hear...

Get some anti-vomitting meds from the vet, see if that helps.

Langley Animal Clinic is really good, try there for another opinion. I wish you luck with your babies. I just had to put mine down just over a week ago, he was my everything.

Junior showed signs of pancreatitis and early kidney disease but none of those two observations seem to explain his lack of appetite and over all condition according to the vet.

Click to expand...

You need a new vet.

BOTH these conditions can seriously affect appetite and overall condition. They are serious diseases and have serious affects on the kitty's body.