What was wrong with my cat?

My families first cat had passed away many years ago, but with all the health problems he had for years, our old vet never told us what was wrong with him, and I am starting to believe the vet ended up making our cat worse and led up to him dying of something unknown. For the sake of my cats we have now, and for anyone else I know, could you figure out what was wrong with our first cat?

We were given him at age 2, he was a neutered male tabby. He was neglected before we got him and his history is he was found as a stray kitten and adopted, and was declawed by our relatives before we got him. He was the first cat we ever owned, so at the time we didnt know half the things we knew now.

His symptoms when we got him were-

- He weighed 36 pounds, and all he was fed was 2 small cups of science diet weight loss food a day, and water. That's what our relatives told us to feed him, and our vet agreed with this saying he had to lose a lot of weight.

-After having him with us he lost about 10 pounds in a year and was down to 26 pounds. We all thought it was because he had the run of the house and was able to excersise, at his old house he was locked in a bathroom his whole life. Now I realize 10 pounds in a year is a lot to lose that quickly. He seemed to lose weight for no reason.

-He always had a ravenous appetite, he would beg for food constantly.

-He drank lots of water.

- We were told he is allergic to canned food so he never had canned food in his life, again our vet told us this. Thinking now, dry food adds weight on, shouldnt he have been on canned food only?

-Besides the lack of good grooming due to not being able to reach most areas, he had very flaky dandruff always.

- He was constantly constipated, his poo was always dry and yellow (the food he ate was yellow), he had blood from straining and for years we had to give him laxatives.

- he would vomit every week for his whole life, sometimes 3 or 4 times a day. The vet just said he was eating too much and not chewing properly.

- In his life he had 2 seizures (convulsing, eyes rolled back, foaming at mouth). Twice we bought him to the emergency vet, and he seemed to have recovered fine from them. Our regular vet found no cause for the seizures.

- He frequently got kidney infections, and kidney stones. Our vet squeezed the stones out of our cat when he was awake, it was horrible to see. He also frequently had blocked glands expressed.

-Got URI a lot and high temperatures, but after amoxicillan recovered fine.

-Would sleep most of the day

-had a non-cancerous cyst removed from base of his tail.

-would crave grass all the time and would throw up immedietly after every time, had severe hairballs the size of golfballs sometimes. We brushed him every other day and had him bathed twice a year, he always had dead fur coming out all year.

-Most of his life he wore one of those Hartz flea collars, I know now that was the worst thing to do.

We ended up having to put him to sleep at age 12. For 3 days he would not get up off the couch at all, and when we picked him up he screamed and could only lift his head up. We took him to the vet, and he said there is nothing he could do he is dying so we had to put him to sleep.

Reading all this now, I do feel our cat had Serious health problems, and our vet did nothing good for our cat and we had no idea we were doing things wrong for him.

Please don't beat yourself up over how this poor kitty lived. If he died 12 years ago or more, that was before the internet was pretty much readily available to the general populace, so your research options were limited -- you pretty much had to trust your vet, unless you had time to pore over books in the library.... right?

I would place most of the blame for the health of this poor kitty on your vet. That vet really sounds incompetent to me and unconcerned for the actual health of your cat. And the squeezing the kidney stones out thing just sounds COMPLETELY barbaric to me. I mean, kidney stones in humans are described as being worse than childbirth to pass.

And how can a vet dismiss all canned food as causing an allergy? This is just pure disingenuousness, as cat food brands vary wildly in ingredients. Once again, I am sorry, but this just sounds like a horrible vet.

Anyway, like I said, don't beat yourself up too much. You and your family gave this kitty a loving home until he crossed the Rainbow Bridge, and to me, that's more than enough. :heart3:

And now you know better.

I would still like to know if possible what was causing his health problems. How did he stay at 26 pounds even on a diet, and why was his appetite always so ravenous? Why would he vomit frequently, was it because of his constipation issues, or something else? Why did he have 2 seizures yet nobody could find anything wrong with him?

And most important, what illness or disease caused him to not move, eat, or go to the bathroom in 3 days, and put him in severe pain he couldn't move, ultimately leading us having to put him down? Stroke, heart attack, diabetes, kidney failure, seizure, cancer?

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I know he had many health poblems, I was hoping all his symptoms might add up for a diagnosis.

If I were you I would go to Google, type in ask a vet online and try to find one who would be willing to look at your list and give you some answers.

I remember a vet here in my state who had an online service some years ago and was very kind, compassionate and helpful when somebody was looking for answers after her cat's sudden unexpected death.

So I think you should be able to find someone, a kind, caring vet like this vet, online, to answer your questions as well.

Maybe a thyroid condition?  2 cups a day is a lot of food!  Our 5 cats eat that much in a day between all of them (and they do act like they're starved).  Science Diet is not a good food and the diet stuff is just full of fillers to make them feel fuller but it was considered a decent food not that long ago and we all know the vets are still pushing that stuff.  The flea and tick collar is not good to leave on all the time but again nobody was informed about that until the internet came along.  That vet doesn't sound very good.  Even if he knew vet medicine, he obviously did not have a good "bedside manner" with his clients.  With the kidney stones your cat may have developed kidney failure which you couldn't do much about anyway (most treatment seems to be just keeping them alive a little longer).  I think vets now are more open with what is wrong with our pets because people are becoming more informed (at least most are).  I don't think you'll get the exact answer you're looking for.  Your cat is gone and nobody can go back and give you a second opinion.

When I said "cup" I meant those small plastic bathroom cups, not an actual cup like measuring cup size.

Since having him, our 2 cats now are quite healthy considering, and I have learned a lot.

No flea collars, ever. We use topical frontline only if necessary, usually a bath and constant clean bedding keeps the fleas away. I feed our cats Blue Buffalo (no fillers or grains) and they always get canned food too and always have fresh,clean water. Our 2 cats are not declawed, only fixed. I let my cats eat as much grass as they like, I buy the pre grown cat grass, or seeds and grow mine indoors, they hardly ever get hairballs and they never are constipated. Our cats now are about a pound overweight, I always make sure they get plenty of play time each day to keep them fit and they love to run up and down the stairs to play with their cat toys.  Just with those small changes from our first cat, our cats now are 99% healthier.