Sick Kitty

My kitten, Ruby, is a 5 mo old male (no one realized he was a boy for awhile, thus the ladylike name). He was neutered on Monday (Dec 9) and at first seemed just fine. He was full of energy the first few days, which is totally in character for him (he is typically loud, demanding, and bouncing off the walls at all times). I followed vet instructions to give him 0.2 mls of Buprenex every 12 hours for about 3 days and everything seemed okay until Wednesday when I noticed he wasn't interested in his food and vomited white foamy bile a few times. By Saturday, nearly a week after surgery and days after the last medication, he still wasn't interested in food and still retched up the bile. I could see he didn't look well and was thinner. When I cleaned his litter box, I also noticed he wasn't urinating as much as I would expect and his most recent stool was loose. I called the vet and took him back for a re-check Saturday in the mid-morning. His incision is fine, no problem there. His gums look fine, his bladder and gut felt fine, his heart and lungs sounded fine, and he had a good normal temperature. The only problems were mild dehydration and some weight loss (pre op: 7.3, re-check: 6.8). The vet said the dehydration and vomiting were concerning, but overall attributed it to a particularly rough delayed reaction to the surgery and medications. They gave him fluids under the skin (up until late last night he had a little camel hump that migrated into a set of bodacious kitty knockers on his chest) and injected an anti-nausea medication into the fluid so he would have all-day relief from his upset stomach. He seemed quite a bit better at home and I was happy he ate his dinner in the evening. However, today I found he again vomited his food during the night. I'm glad that it appeared much more digested, showing it stayed down much longer, and he is trying to eat more today than previous days, but he's not urinated or had a bowel movement at all since yesterday morning and still doesn't seem to be feeling great. His energy is not totally listless, but he's much more subdued than he's ever been. If his behavior changed slowly in the next 6-12 months, I would just attribute it to him growing up from a kitten into a cat, but the change has been extreme just this week.

I'm not sure if I'm just being a worry-wart and maybe he's just slower to recover from his surgery than other cats I've had, or if this is a sign of a more serious problem. The lack of fever and and other healthy vitals eased some of my worry regarding deadly illness, and there's no sign of blood or abnormal substances in any stool or urine at this point, but it's still never good when the intake of food and output of waste seems disrupted. He's going back to the vet for another re-check on Monday or Tuesday, but I was wondering if anyone else has experienced these kinds of symptoms and what happened?

(Also, this is gross and I don't know if it's related at all, but I dropped Ruby off at home after the vet yesterday and went to work, and when I got back my pug dog had had the worst diarrhea ever all over the house, which is absolutely not normal for him. I don't know if he could have licked the cat and ingested some of the medicated fluid on his fur and if that would cause sudden bowel release, or if there's any illnesses that could explain both pets symptoms, or if it was simply a case of very poor timing on the part of the dog. But either way, my day started taking the cat to the vet and ended with 45 minutes of carpet cleaning)

Thank you to anyone with any insights they can share!

Well the first thing is, it is actually not better to see digested food vomit. If you think about the travels that ingested food goes through, it's more common for vomit to be recently eaten food. Digested means it took time to upset him enough to vomit it up, or a deeper issue in a cat, although I do NOT suspect that, it happens more in a mature adult.

I would stop all regular food right now and start feeding chicken baby food, boiled chicken meat and maybe some watered down KMR for nutrients. You can dilute the kmr with pediolyte.

This will allow his tummy to settle down and not be so quick to vomit up whatever goes in.

I believe this is all due to the buprenex. Buprenorphine yes? A very powerful drug.

He must stay well hydrated, but I am pretty sure it will take time for the meds to be completely out of his little system.

In my rescue group, kittens are spayed and neutered by 2 lbs, approx 9-10 weeks or so, and are only given pain meds by the vet once right after the surgery.

Males recover rediculously quick, females by the next day. So I am not really sure why the vet felt he needed 3 days of pain meds, but what's done is done.

As long as he stays well hydrated and gets at least some type of easily digested food, ie; the baby food/or chicken, he will get through this, it will take several more days though. It's only been a few days since his last dose.

Changing his food will settle him down, which will allow his body to slowly accept his regular food.

Interesting. I was more happy he kept food down longer in the hopes that at least something was getting to the rest of his body. Rather than vomiting it in seconds and obtaining nothing, he kept it and his own bile down long enough to absorb something and not starve completely.

As for the pain meds, it's just a cheap optional thing on the 'master list' the vet always likes to trot out. I've had pets as long as I can remember and every vet I've ever seen always brings out the "recommended" list to guilt you into paying for a ton of add-ons. In this case, "Take home pain relief" was so inexpensive I just assumed it was basically kitty aspirin and didn't think twice. I just looked up the medication and yeah, it's a serious opiate! I never thought to ask and just figured figured a man loses his balls, he might want something to take the edge off, but this stuff sounds like heroin! No wonder he started feeling bad after the meds were done and his body had to go back to normal.

I'm keeping an eye on him and so long as he is keeping down fluids I'll wait it out. I always worry, but 9 times out of 10 these things do seem to resolve themselves.

Sounds like he picked up some sort of bug or something.  Especially where your pug was sick too.  I would make sure to keep him hydrated and make sure he is eating.  The stress of surgery could have made his immune system a little suppressed and caused whatever is going on to come out.  This is not a typical response to Buprenex so I don't think that was the problem.   I think he has some sort of flu type bug that is upsetting his system.  Definitely follow up with the vet.

You might be dealing with a couple of things.  The pain meds might have been making his tummy upset and causing the initial problem, and it's very common for the stress of going to the vet (for any reason) to trigger an upper respiratory infection.  Sounds like that may be what's going on with your guy.  You might try feeding him canned food in smaller servings (like a teaspoon at a time).  Get a pate version, nothing chunky, and preferably something like chicken or turkey.  You can also try offering plain meat baby food (chicken or turkey, no garlic or onions).  You can also boil some plain chicken (no seasonings), shred it up, add enough water to make it the consistency of oatmeal and offer that.  Smaller meals more frequently might help him get over the vomiting.

He hasn't urinated since Saturday morning? Where are you located? I ask because it's almost 10 pm EST Sunday and the fluids should have caused urination by now.

While buprenex doesn't usually cause any problems, it is capable of doing so. Sometimes a cat will react to meds very differently than most others, it doesn't mean there is anything wrong or weaker in him, just different systems.

Vomiting is how his system attempts to be rid of what is causing problems.

Keep him hydrated, offer him the baby food and/or boiled chicken and give it a few days, he will very likely get back to his 'ol self

Oh I meant to get to that and totally forgot! Good point peaches08.

The fluids he was given, seeing as he was not so dehydrated that his body didn't quickly absorb the fluids, what with the camel hump then the 'bodacious kitty knockers'...haha hilarious btw...

That indicates that he didn't actually need so much fluid, but okay fine, his body will eliminate what isn't absorbed.

BUT...he should be peeing alot, more than usual.

Does the vet know about this? Are you able to accurately know when he goes? He should be peeing, definitely.

He hasn't urinated or defecated at all that I can tell since yesterday (It's 8pm Sunday, he went to the vet at 10am Saturday and just before we left I cleaned his box and there's not much of anything in there now. He's never had problems going elsewhere and there's no cat urine smell anywhere, but I checked around, feeling and sniffing any convenient fabric and came up with nothing. He's strictly indoors and I've been home with him all day.

Still, I think he's probably doing a bit better than yesterday. He's eaten today and not vomited anything, though he's eaten only about half of what I would normally expect. He seems a bit more relaxed this afternoon, not so stiff when he sleeps and doing more of the stretching out instead of hunching up.

The vet gave him enough fluid that they knew it would well up like that. They did it because they didn't want him to start dehydrating right away if he was still feeling unwell enough to be shy of eating or drinking for the rest of the day. The lump was gone by this morning, which was exactly what the vet said would happen.

And... I'm typing this and he went in his box and peed. It's not a really big pee, but he did go and didn't make a fuss out of it (he didn't cry or act stressed).

So far, I'm thinking dislike of going to the vet twice (car rides, strangers, the works) + the medication (or coming off the medication) he was given could explain most everything. He's even trying to nurse on the dog and play with cords again, which I never thought I would consider to be a good thing, but lets me know he's coming back around to his normal (evil) self. 

Thanx for all the suggestions! I think I might be a bit more cautious about that pain reliever in the future just in case he is sensitive to it.

Hi, yes the medicine could be making him a little under the weather. I'm glad he just pottied. I hope he continues to improve. My female experienced some problems. When I took her back to the Dr's they did the same thing. She did improve. Good luck.

Great that he finally peed! I'd scoop the box then recheck the box in the morning.

Perfect

Yes, it sounds clearly like the med did not seem to agree with him, each day now he will be better and soon, good as new! Without his gonads though...

Receiving fluids can sometimes affect the kitty's appetite, too.  It makes them feel more "full", so they don't want to eat.

That's great that he peed! It sounds like he's on the mend now for sure.
How is your Pug doing? Was that just a one-off bout of diarrhea? Suspicious timing.

Ruby tried to ride the dog, played on my face while I slept (or tried to), had splash time in the toilet, took a picture off the wall, and hung from a wall tapestry.

In other words, he appears to be completely himself again and is back in the running for Most Obnoxious Cat in America

He has kept everything down and begged to be fed this morning. I'm gonna request the vet mark down a potential problem with the medication just to make sure any future pain meds he ever needs are a bit more mild.

My pug is just fine, thankfully. Other than the one bowel issue, he's doing good. I suspect he licked the cat (they do love each other) where Ruby got the fluids and medicine injected. That or he decided it wasn't enough for me to just deal with the cat and wanted to be sure to split my attention. Neither would surprise me. One of my rats got congested recently, too, and he's just getting over that, so I think all the kids just wanted to give me a workout.

Great news! No urination is a really big red flag, so I was concerned. In the future, if the cat will eat you can add water to their food to help with hydration. I added water to my cats' canned when they were on canned. Now I just add additional water to the batch when I make their raw.

8xInfinity said:

He has kept everything down and begged to be fed this morning. I'm gonna request the vet mark down a potential problem with the medication just to make sure any future pain meds he ever needs are a bit more mild.

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Good idea.
Sounds like your furry household likes to keep you on your toes! :lol3:

Glad to hear your kitty is back to normal.