10 month kitten had fever, not really eating or drinking...thoughts?

Well, I don't have any experience with this. We have a kitty we have to keep an eye on because he's got an autoimmune disease that causes anemia, but we've never had a kitty (knock wood) go off their food for any unidentified reason.

I'm sorry your vet didn't think to give you something for the nausea, to help prevent kitty from throwing up the antibiotics when you had to go back to get something he might tolerate. I'm also sorry it didn't occur to your vet to give your cat Convenia (an antibiotic injection that doesn't need to be repeated).

It is important your kitty eat. Here is a thread that you may find really helpful, showing you how to force feed him for now. Syringe feeding Lucky video/If your cat is not eating

Is he hydrated? (Does his skin snap right back if you pinch it up and let go? Or does it kind of "tent?")

He wasn't blocked up in the sinuses? No runny nose or coughing/sneezing? No goopy or runny eyes?

If he doesn't improve and you find you still need to force feed him, you may want to talk to your vet about the shot of antibiotics, anti-nausea meds, or you may want to consider getting another vet opinion. Quite frankly, a second vet opinion literally saved the lives of two of our cats.

for your male! (What's his name?)

Well, when it comes to eating, you definitely don't want him to go more than 48 hours. But yes, see how he's feeling tomorrow. If he's still not eating, I'd call the vet to ask if they think it's important to get some antibiotics in him, and how they think you should manage his not eating.

I am so sorry your kitten is sick! And I couldn't agree more with LDG on this. You must start syringe feeding you cat. Did the vet offer some A/D? It is a prescription diet from Hill's packed with nutrients and is an appetite stimulant wet food. It can be mashed down for syringe feeding and this will make your kitty start to feel better fast. Cats should never go long without eating and syringe feeding then is the only option. A few small frequent amounts will help so much. Bless you for taking on these sick rescue kitties. Let us know how he is doing.

He's so lucky to be in such wonderful care. Do keep us updated!

More for your baby!

Sounds like Logan couldn't be in better hands. I think he is on his way to recovering and so happy for him and you too for continued good progress.

I am very sad to see your post. I am so sorry Logan is not doing well. This must be very difficult on you too. Sending mega and mega to you and Logan. Please keep updating. Prayers are coming your way. FeLK is a terrible disease, I am sorry.:he art3:

AW hun, my heart is aching for you. Very painful part of loving and having cats when they get very sick. .

Yeah, waiting is soooooo difficult.

And heaps of for your baby boy!

I hope the antibiotics do the trick! Our Tuxie fought anemia of unknown origin for years (still is). He responded to doxycycline, but also needed steroids to suppress his immune system response (of attacking his red blood cells) (that's the really short version LOL). Prednisone stopped working, but the long-acting shot, depomedrol is working. He went from needing it every two weeks to needing a shot about once a year (his fight with anemia has been going on since 2004).

for Logan!

I hope you won't need to. !!!!

I sure hope the meds help Logan. continuing your way.....

This sounds like our Tuxie.

The one thing I would say is that if the prednisone doesn't work, they have to consider trying Depomedrol. They are both steroids, but they DO have a slightly different mechanism of action. Tuxie never had a prednisone injection, but we gave it to him orally. Now maybe that makes a difference. And it worked at first, and his RBC went up. But then he stopped responding to it. Our vet consulted with feline blood specialists, and decided to try the Depo, which is the standard of care when dealing with Feline Hemolytic Anemia. Now - that wasn't Tuxedo's diagnosis, but he was a medical mystery (still is). But the treatment for the FHA worked.

I don't know how much you've learned about anemia yet, would you like some quick basics?

I hope non of this scares you, but with anemia they can't figure out, it's best to be armed with information.

Basically, anemia falls into two categories: Regenerative and Non-regenerative.

Regenerative anemia means that the bone marrow works, and the body is producing red blood cells.

Non-regenerative anemia means the bone marrow isn't working, and this basically isn't really treatable.

So that's the first thing - is he producing red blood cells? In blood work I believe different measures of the reticulocytes are how they determine this, but Tuxie had to have a bone marrow aspirate to determine if his anemia was regenerative or non-regenerative. (A surgical procedure where they remove some bone marrow, usually from the hip). His problem was that he wasn't producing red blood cells (at the time), so they needed to know if he could.

It was determined he could. With your Logan, it may well be that he is, so they should be able to tell from blood work alone that it's regenerative anemia, and I'm assuming this is the case.

To "jump start" Tuxie's bone marrow, they gave him the same treatment they give people undergoing kidney dialysis: injections of Epogen (erythropoetin). So know that this is an option if it comes to that.

Anemia is determined by the Packed Cell Volume (PCV) or Hematocrit (HCT). These are basically the same measurement - the hematocrit is done with a few drops of blood in a centrifuge, and the PCV is a count of the red blood cells in a 1 ml sample of blood. But they both represent the percentage of red cell volume in the blood.

For cats, GENERALLY "normal" is 30-40.
24 and below is techincally anemic.

High teens is survivable indefinitely if kitty rests (which kitty will naturally do at those levels as they'll be low energy). But do not encourage activity.

Mid-low teens is dangerous and life-threatening, though not immediately.

When Tuxie was at 7, they gave him a few days to live.

The bottom line is at this point it seems they're looking at an autoimmune problem of unspecified nature.

The treatment with the steroids (which is what has stabilized Tuxie long term) is to suppress the immune system response (supress whatever is causing his body to think his red blood cells are like a virus).

Some things you should know when discussing options with the vet if it comes to it.

IF it comes to the point that they recommend a blood transfusion, this is something that needs to be carefully considered. Cats have far more complicated blood than humans, and if I remember correctly, to have a really good blood type matching, there's something like 24 different things that need to match. (I don't remember, but it was totally different than in people). Obviously they don't match all of them... but what this means is that cats are more at risk for not being able to tolerate multiple drug transfusions than people can.

I've read about cats here that had multiple transfusions with no problem. But our vet told us up front that there was the risk that Tuxie might be able to tolerate just one transfusion, so it should be a treatment of last choice.

We're glad we waited until they saw no other option, because he was able to tolerate just one transfusion. What happens, sometimes, in future transfusions, is that their body then sees the incoming blood like it's an invader, and the white blood cells go at it. So when they mix the bood before transfusing it into the cat, it coagulates - so no transfusion possible. If you do get to the point that you're discussing a transfusion, please ask your vet about this.

The point of a transfusion is basically to increase the amount of time to allow other treatments to work.

It sounds like your Logan is in good hands with your vet.

the pred works!

!!!!!!! Please keep us posted.

When are you taking him back for his next hematocrit?

OH! One more thing. I don't know what Logan looks like, but is his nose pink or are his paw pads pink? You can also tell by looking at his gums. But take a look at them now - you'll see they look very pale. When he's not anemic ( ), they'll be pink, and probably bright pink.

Now - when they're napping or resting, they have some kind of vasoconstriction thing going on that makes them look pale even when they're not anemic, so the best time to look at this stuff is when they've been up and doing something - like using the litter box or eating.

And the pred SHOULD increase his appetite. It definitely helped Tuxie. Tux was so anemic he'd look at his food and wonder what he was doing there.

At first, we took Tux weekly, though there may have been a little while when he was there every few days. For his epogen shots, we were there every other day for quite a while. In fact, he had other complications going on in the beginning, and we took him every day for about a month as he also needed nupogen shots (to boost his white blood cell count). But for the hematocrit, as things improved, we went biweekly, then monthly. He needed the depo shots every two weeks at first, then every month, then every few months. Now he needs them about once a year. We take him every six months just to be sure - but we keep an eye on his activity level and his "pink."

I'm sorry, I forgot he was staying there.

I don't know if it'll work that quickly... be great if it would!

We wouldn't even HAVE cats if it weren't for TCS!