Flowerbelle's turn: Heart problem? Asthma? Megacolon - Page 2

I called the Doc. She'd just left for the day, gone home sick. She's expected back in the morning, we're "first" in her inbox. Supposedly.

I do hope she feels better, of course.

But I'm pissed. Not because she's sick, I feel badly about that. No, I'm pissed because I asked to have copies of Flowerbelle's file faxed to her other vet. I should have set it up to be done automatically when we checked her in, but I forgot. This doc's office has a complete file on Flowerbelle and this doc knows we work with multiple vets. We like to keep everyone's files current. I was told that they can't fax her records without the doc's permission. I've never heard that before. The vet's offices need OUR permission to fax things to another practice... but I've never heard of the VET needing to release the records. I saw no point in getting upset, since they obviously weren't going to do anything, and all I could possibly do is upset the person to whom I was talking. Especially because I was really mad. So instead of saying, "I'm sorry, I don't understand. She's our cat, and we paid for the services, the diagnostics, and the consultations, and your file is complete with her records from the vet to whom I'm asking you to fax this current information," I said, "thanks, I'll talk to the Doc tomorrow."

But I am fuming.

I really like this doc. But I REALLY hate this practice.

Well, Doc is in today. We called at noon. She called right back. There were no reports back from radiologist or cardiologist. She doesn't know if the report from radiologist is just not in her file, or if it was not returned. She is going to look into it. She never asked the cardiologist for a report. She wanted the radiologist report to go to cardiologist before his report, so hasn't even asked the cardiologist for a report yet. We should hear from her by Saturday at the latest, unless the reports actually are there or in email or something.

I am not happy.

Yes, pumpking is the king of poop! You succeeded in your mission to keep me laughing.

OK, forget this morning's drama... Doc called after the office was officially closed for the day.

The radiologist report was in, but not the cardiologist. I don't remember all the technical jargon, but the bottom line is:

1) He does not think there's an issue with her heart. It was a position thing more than an "enlargement" problem (one of the reasons Doc thought it was enlarged was because of how much of it appeared to be along the whatever bone that is). THIS we can have our other vet check. It'll mean getting the digital xrays to him so he can look at them to compare to her other xray a couple years ago. But that we can definitely check. (Or he can send the older xrays to the board certified radiologist - everyone in NJ uses the same guy - and he can provide his professional opinion). But that's a relief. I guess we'll see what the cardiologist has to say.

2) Looks like bronchitis-whatever. Potentially early asthma OR damage done by prior parasitic infection. Now - we know it's not damage from prior parasitic infection, because the older xray was clear, and the lung worm problem that was sooooo bad was 2003, when we first rescued her. BUT... she does have herpes, and it IS possible that's doing some damage. She's never had a flare-up (in terms of eyes or nose congestion), but it is possible it's doing other internal damage (Stan, her other vet, said that most likely over the course of her life it would continue to eat away at her turbinates (basically the sinuses)).

BUT... she has started to cough a little bit here and there again. So Doc said it is also possible this is an issue with mycoplasma, and she may have tracheitis. What she wants us to do is bump her lysine up to flare-up dose (500mg/day), and give her liquid doxycycline. Now - no one carries liquid doxy. They usually have it compounded. But she called around to local pharmacies, and found one that is ordering it today, and it will be here Monday. IF it's this, we should hear an improvement in 4-5 days, but give her the full course of 20 days. If there's still a problem after that, then we explore treatment for asthma.

IN THE MEANTIME (lol), she threw up again this morning. A minute after she ate, all her undigested food. But I'm pumping her full of PUMPKIN (not pumpking!) every day, and she's having regular and normal bowel movements now (saw her go again this morning). SO... we know it's not hairballs, and we know it's not backed up poop in her small intestine causing the problem.

I'm to continue giving her the Dang Girl, Gone Wrong herb ( ), the two little capsules twice a day... and if this continues to happen on any kind of regular basis, she's going to figure out the best herb to treat what would appear to be a spleen Qi deficiency (same thing Chum has, though his problem wasn't hairballs). It would be different than the herb we give Chum, because he has a Yin deficiency (too hot - that's why he licked all the fur off his abdomen), and Flowerbelle has a Yang deficiency (too cold - that's why she loves to sleep on the heating ducts).

So we don't have cardiologist report back yet, and we probably will have the old xray compared to new xray, whoever does it and however it gets done (the whole POINT of having a baseline xray! We have them for ALL the cats except Chum and Billy, and we will get those done as soon as we can afford it) so we can be sure her heart looks the same as it did.

But we are GREATLY relieved to hear the news that this does not look like a heart problem (knock wood!).

Paula, thanks for sharing that. Makes sense.

Actually, her xray was clear. It's just the Doc thought her heart was enlarged because of how much of it sat on the sternum. The radiologist doesn't think it's an issue. Her records weren't transferred to her regular vet yet - probably tomorrow. He'll decide whether or not he wants the xrays sent to him, or if he wants to send the old xrays to the radiologist for comparison.

As to the liquid Doxy.... we picked it up today, and I have to give her 5ml a day. I HATE giving liquids to cats, especially Flowerbelle, she is the WORST with her flailing little paws and her teeney little head. AND it's raspberry flavored. (It's for kids LOL).

Well, since we've worked out our "arrangement" for my syringe feeding her the pumpkin peacefully, I figured I mix it with a/d and syringe her with it.

But I forgot she loves strawberry ice cream and yogurt! As it turns out, I can squirt a little from the syringe onto my finger (like it's a treat), and she'll lick it up. She ate most of the syringe. (She'd just eaten dinner though). So now I know - feed her doxy mixed with food on my finger instead of one of her meals.

But yes - I've got LOTS of alarms set to remind me when to do what. Between Flowerbelle, Lazlo, Chumley, and Baloo I'm administering 9 meds/herbs 21x a day (some are two pills at the same time, I didn't count those as additional times a day - if I did, that number goes up a lot LOL), and Lazlo gets an additional two pills every three days (and chemo every other week at the vet). And that's not counting the L-lysine supplement I have to remember to add to which cat's food twice a day, the ferals' food, the pumpkin that has to be syringed into Lazlo and Flowerbelle daily, and the Revolution and Frontline being put on Dot and Baloo alternating every two weeks.

Speaking of which... Lazlo's "pepcid a/c" alarm just went off....

Oh Tricia, I HAVE to use that scaredy cat!!!!!!

THANKFULLY the medications/herbs are all SO different, I don't have to worry about mixing them up:

Small capsules (Dong Gui Cong Rong - now rechristened "Dang girl, gone wrong!" - Flowerbelle two, 2x/day),
large capsules (Jade Lady - Lazlo one pill 2x/day),
1/4 orange oval pill, Lazlo (Cerenia - am, 1x/day)
and square pink pill (pepcid a/c - pm), Lazlo (1x per day);
little white tablet (pred), Lazlo (1x per day);
gigantic white tablet (sucralfate), Lazlo (1/2 tablet 2x/day);
gigantic herbal tablet ("Propserous Farmer"), Chumley & Baloo (3x/day);
tincture (Consolidate Qi), Chumley & Baloo (in ALL meals, 4x/day);
brown powder (slippery elm), Chumley & Baloo (1/4t in food 2x/day);
Aloe vera juice, Chumley & Baloo, (1/4t in food 2x/day)
Probiotic - capsule in fridge - sprinkled on Chum & Baloo's food, 2x/day (when I give them the slippery elm/aloe vera juice)
white powder (L-lysine), Ming Loy, Billy (1/8t in food once a day); Flowerbelle (in food, 2x/day);
Syringe Laz & Flowerbelle with a tablespoon of pumpkin mixed with a/d once a day (evenings)
...and now Flowerbelle, 5ml of bright pink liquid (Doxycycline) mixed with food, fed on my finger once a day.

...and 1/4 orange capsule (Yunnan Baio) for Lazlo every three days, and
1/4 of mirtazipine for Lazlo every three days.

It's a lot of herbals... but they are SO working. Lazlo's gingivitis is GONE. (Jade Lady). Chumley's not itchy at ALL (Prosperous Farmer). I know for SURE the Consolidate Qi has fixed the diarrhea, because I just got a bottle that's not labeled correctly, so I'm waiting for the replacement, and he and Baloo haven't had Consolidate Qi for five days - and the diarrhea is back. So no question it's doing the job. As to the Dang girl, gone wrong! herb... Doc says it may take a few months for the nerves in Flowerbelle's colon to ... regrow? .... but we'll probably do a follow-up xray in 4-6 months to check in on her GI system, and we'll know whether it worked or not. I'm confident it will - everything else she's prescribed has really helped. I also know she's not selling us smoke... because we don't buy the herbs through the vet. She tells me where to buy them cheaper online.

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Flowerbelle update. Cardiologist report is in. No sign of CHF. He does recommend we have her blood pressure taken... but if she does have chronic bronchitis, we can use steroids to manage the inflammation. Her records are being sent to Stan (the great vet that saved her life and Tuxie's life). Today is his surgery day, so I don't know if we'll hear from him tonight or tomorrow morning, but we'll get next steps from him. Holistic vet said we should go ahead and get her BP done with him.... and we'll just see what he has to say about next steps. Basically I think we need to figure out if she has early stages of asthma OR chronic bronchitis. Treatment is different.

In the meantime... she'll be on the doxy for 20 days, and we'll see what happens.



But she's running around here playing like a maniac - and showing NO signs of any respiratory distress. No coughing episodes, and no vomiting recently....

Stan called. WE LOVE THIS MAN! He started with this, "There is nothing on the radiologist report that is going to keep me up at night." He boiled it down: basically with digital xrays, the method used affects what you see (how you set it up to look for what). The radiologist believes her lungs are within completely normal range. Though UNLIKELY, there is a potential pattern of interstitial bronchitis, but radiologist thinks it has to do with the xray, not her lungs.

As to her colon, there were a lot of air pockets - meaning she was gulping air - something very common in nervous cats. There was NO mention of megacolon by the radiologist. Stan says that's something hard to diagnose from an xray, and not with just the one series. However - the facts are that she had small hard poops, and there was a bunch stuck up in her small intestine. Stan does concur - that could definitely have been the cause of her throwing up undigested food. So keep her on the pumpkin, and since the herbs Dr. Cheng has prescribed for everyone else for various things have done so much good, he sees no harm in following her advice here.

He says this radiologist is "quite frankly, just brilliant," so he sees no need to bother comparing the old xray with the new one. If Dr. Goggin has reported that her heart is not enlarged, her heart is not enlarged, period.

The cardiologist report was NOT faxed. So we'll get that sent up tomorrow. If he recommends we get her bp taken, then it's probably a good thing to do. But taken in context of radiologist report and blood work, there is no urgency, and we have no reason to worry.

He sees no harm in finishing the 20 days of doxy... it covers "most" lung infections in cats, so might as well finish it up now that we've started it.

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Gary's upset that Dr. Cheng seems to be a bit of an alarmist LOL. BUT... I pointed out, we did just have the experience with Lazlo where we didn't take the most conservative approach first, and it turns out we should have. So while we may have been worried.... the bottom line is that we have addressed Flowerbelle's issue with constipation that had been going untreated, probably was causing her to throw up, and we learned there's probably nothing else wrong with her.

I am lucky. Lazlo I just pop them down his throat. Flowerbelle squirms, but I get them in there LOL. Chumley and Baloo eat theirs in the pill pocket with cat food smooshed on the outside. Everyone's eating the stuff mixed in or sprinkled on their food.

In fact... those herbal pills I have to give Chum and Bill - there must be something tasty about them, because when Chum eats the outside of the pill pocket and I don't see he left the pill behind, Shelly eats them.

OK. Flowerbelle is a regular little pooper now (and a stinker, though thankfully her poops aren't stinky ). But we finished the doxy... the end of the week before? A while ago. A little cough started up a couple of days after it was done. Just a little cough, once a day maybe.

Well, now it's up to several times a day - and we have the humidifiers blasting in here. We're keeping it about 35% humidity despite the heater.

So we're off to Stan (the amazing non-holistic vet LOL) on Monday. She needed her blood pressure taken anyway.

It seems like she's got chronic bronchitis. Not quite sure how we want to treat it. May take her to Dr. Cheng too. Don't know if there's a holistic alternative - I know steroids are usually the drug of choice (when not contraindicated because of a heart condition, that it seems she does not have).

Yeah, the pattern was bronchitis, not asthma. The radiologist report says her heart is normal, the cardiologist report agreed. We're having her blood pressure taken as a precaution.

I did speak to Dr. Cheng today. She's pleased on the raw food update , but was (of course) sorry to hear about Flowerbelle. After we see Stan on Monday, we'll probably go see Dr. Cheng the following week. She says she has a lot of herbal options for chronic bronchitis, most work really well. So that's very encouraging! I expect Stan will recommend the normal course of action, steroids. We'll go that route if we need to, of course, but we'll start with the alternatives.

But she's doing well on the poop front. Dr. Cheng suggested we use the Dang Girl Gone Wrong herb for at least a few months, so we're off to pick up some more tomorrow.