It's annual check up time in my household and this year, my poor baby Koko drew the short straw. She had been losing weight slowly over the last few years, but I wasn't prepared to hear that she had dropped down to 7 pounds. I hate when the change is so slow that you don't notice it outright. And I kick myself for attributing some of her behavior of late simply to the fact that she is now considered a senior.
Her blood work came out bad, which made us step back and talk through the changes that I had noticed in her. She has classic signs of IBD. No one in the house has diarrhea, but I have seen more vomit, and our dogs have a very bad habit of running to a cat when they hear them hacking, so I know that most messes (when I'm not home or sleeping) are cleaned up and never noticed (yeah, dogs are bad that way). She's also a lot less playful (which I attributed to her age), but she did refuse to play with Da Bird a few weeks back (should have been a huge red flag to me).
Of course an endoscopy or biopsy is needed to confirm it, but we're starting on medication immediately to see if things start to stabilize. She goes back to the vet in 3 weeks to retest her blood and see if things have changed.
If IBD, she'll join her brother Muddy in taking medication for the rest of her life. I gave her the first pill last night, the first time I've had to pill her ever, and she wasn't good about it. She'll have to learn that medication is not an option for her poor baby!
I start researching IBD today. Never had to go thru this particularly disease with a cat so am still a newbie with it. My greatest fear is that she will need a special diet, which is always harder to give when you live in a multi-cat household, and when another cat in the house is already on a special diet. She eats some of Muddy's special diet, and something in the back of my head is nagging at me that it may be contributing to the issue she is having.
I know, deep breath time.
Her blood work came out bad, which made us step back and talk through the changes that I had noticed in her. She has classic signs of IBD. No one in the house has diarrhea, but I have seen more vomit, and our dogs have a very bad habit of running to a cat when they hear them hacking, so I know that most messes (when I'm not home or sleeping) are cleaned up and never noticed (yeah, dogs are bad that way). She's also a lot less playful (which I attributed to her age), but she did refuse to play with Da Bird a few weeks back (should have been a huge red flag to me).
Of course an endoscopy or biopsy is needed to confirm it, but we're starting on medication immediately to see if things start to stabilize. She goes back to the vet in 3 weeks to retest her blood and see if things have changed.
If IBD, she'll join her brother Muddy in taking medication for the rest of her life. I gave her the first pill last night, the first time I've had to pill her ever, and she wasn't good about it. She'll have to learn that medication is not an option for her poor baby!
I start researching IBD today. Never had to go thru this particularly disease with a cat so am still a newbie with it. My greatest fear is that she will need a special diet, which is always harder to give when you live in a multi-cat household, and when another cat in the house is already on a special diet. She eats some of Muddy's special diet, and something in the back of my head is nagging at me that it may be contributing to the issue she is having.
I know, deep breath time.
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I believe the stress of the switch to timed meals caused the ulcer(s). :nod: Lazlo was NOT a happy camper and was throwing up a lot. I thought it was due to hairballs (with which he's always had an issue). ...and that he would bring up a big one occasionally reinforced that. But now I'm pretty sure it was his stomach over-producing acid. He was used to eating many, many small meals a day via free-feeding. I did take them to four meals, not 2 or 3. But my point is that your concern about the stress of switching off of free-feeding, especially for older kitties, is a real concern and needs to be factored into any decision, as you already suggest/know. 
). If you can devote pretty much all your time to feeding your cats, I think switching to timed meals from free-feeding can be done. Since I work from home, if I had it to do over again, I'd give them small meals every 1.5 hours during the day, and pepcid ac at night to the four kitties that had the most difficulty with the switch. Then I'd slowly bring the number of meals during the day down to something manageable. But it's a big commitment, and not practical or even possible for most people.
