- Joined
- May 20, 2014
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This may be long so thank you in advance for reading.
We have two great cats from the same litter - regular domestic short hair/medium hair. They've been with us since they were 3-4 months old, brother and sister. Now 8 years old. No real issues in prior years - they had check ups every six months at Banfield, teeth cleaned once a year and rinse/repeat until we moved overseas with my job in 2011.
In the past year or so the boy, Tommy, my beautiful tuxedo, would throw up after eating food on occasion and in the last 6-8 months it turned to be daily. We're talking light brown vomit and on occasion getting darker but we thought it was from the food or eating it up too fast. When we were back home in the US in December 2013 we took both cats to the vet for dental cleaning, blood work and mentioned this but they said there's nothing wrong. We were in West Africa before and Tommy or Sally didn't need a vet in the entire two years we spent there - they were both perfect - indoors only cats.
We arrived to my new duty station in the middle east and not even a month into the stay, Tommy starts losing weight. He was at healthy 13.4 lbs when we got here and went to 12.4 lbs in a month or so. More throwing up of the dark brown kind. I naturally call a local vet to do a house call - according to her it's probably nothing, adjustment to new environment, stress - gives him an antibiotic shot and a vitamin shot and he perks up. A week later back to the same - losing weight, won't eat, when he does eat throws up - same thing with vet antibiotics and he'll be fine. I was probing at that time if more could be happening but told nothing. Another 4 days later and he is still losing weight - more antibiotics and this time I want blood work done and x-ray - not needed. Three days later he is worse - I get the vet to come again and this time demand blood work and x-rays - she finally admits she has no idea what's going on with him but she has a friend who has a vet clinic and to take him there. Tommy is now at 10 lbs! We take him to the vet and leave him so they can run the tests and do the x-ray and the vet calls me after 11 pm saying it's pancreatitis and he'll keep him for a week. Finally a relief as I felt we were only masking the symptoms and not getting to the cause of the issue. Tommy was well cared for in the clinic and we got to visit pretty much every day and he was so happy to see us. After a week his blood work was back to normal and he was allowed to come back home with us but only instructions we were given is have him eat, continue antibiotics for five days and then start with appetite enhancers (children's syrup, 0.5 ml dosage after each meal).
Well, the eating part was not going so well - I'd offer three kinds of foods, including raw chicken and he'd lick some and walk away. I'd chop the chicken as finely as I could and then he's eat a tablespoon and that was it. A friend told me get yogurt and mix in some sugar and give him that - he'd eat a half a teaspoon and only if I slathered it on his mouth. I finally started googling all and came up to this forum and realized oh sh!t! he should've been force fed! So husband and I started doing that and there is some progress - Tommy is being force fed and not minding it so much - he seems better but I know we have a long way to getting him back to his pre-sickness weight. He will eat a bit of sour cream as well. Drinks water regularly (bottled one, we can't use tap water here).
Current diet - wellness chicken cans (they may have some liver in them), with a bit of warm water mixed and into syringe (real feeding syringes and cat sack on their way here as I just ordered them). Fancy feast classic (various) on the way here too as he likes those.
I also got him the B12 shots and have so far given him one and am considering continuing with shots every week.
Questions for you - is what we are doing the right course of treatment? Do I need to add anything else to his diet? How long until I get my baby back to his healthy self?
We have two great cats from the same litter - regular domestic short hair/medium hair. They've been with us since they were 3-4 months old, brother and sister. Now 8 years old. No real issues in prior years - they had check ups every six months at Banfield, teeth cleaned once a year and rinse/repeat until we moved overseas with my job in 2011.
In the past year or so the boy, Tommy, my beautiful tuxedo, would throw up after eating food on occasion and in the last 6-8 months it turned to be daily. We're talking light brown vomit and on occasion getting darker but we thought it was from the food or eating it up too fast. When we were back home in the US in December 2013 we took both cats to the vet for dental cleaning, blood work and mentioned this but they said there's nothing wrong. We were in West Africa before and Tommy or Sally didn't need a vet in the entire two years we spent there - they were both perfect - indoors only cats.
We arrived to my new duty station in the middle east and not even a month into the stay, Tommy starts losing weight. He was at healthy 13.4 lbs when we got here and went to 12.4 lbs in a month or so. More throwing up of the dark brown kind. I naturally call a local vet to do a house call - according to her it's probably nothing, adjustment to new environment, stress - gives him an antibiotic shot and a vitamin shot and he perks up. A week later back to the same - losing weight, won't eat, when he does eat throws up - same thing with vet antibiotics and he'll be fine. I was probing at that time if more could be happening but told nothing. Another 4 days later and he is still losing weight - more antibiotics and this time I want blood work done and x-ray - not needed. Three days later he is worse - I get the vet to come again and this time demand blood work and x-rays - she finally admits she has no idea what's going on with him but she has a friend who has a vet clinic and to take him there. Tommy is now at 10 lbs! We take him to the vet and leave him so they can run the tests and do the x-ray and the vet calls me after 11 pm saying it's pancreatitis and he'll keep him for a week. Finally a relief as I felt we were only masking the symptoms and not getting to the cause of the issue. Tommy was well cared for in the clinic and we got to visit pretty much every day and he was so happy to see us. After a week his blood work was back to normal and he was allowed to come back home with us but only instructions we were given is have him eat, continue antibiotics for five days and then start with appetite enhancers (children's syrup, 0.5 ml dosage after each meal).
Well, the eating part was not going so well - I'd offer three kinds of foods, including raw chicken and he'd lick some and walk away. I'd chop the chicken as finely as I could and then he's eat a tablespoon and that was it. A friend told me get yogurt and mix in some sugar and give him that - he'd eat a half a teaspoon and only if I slathered it on his mouth. I finally started googling all and came up to this forum and realized oh sh!t! he should've been force fed! So husband and I started doing that and there is some progress - Tommy is being force fed and not minding it so much - he seems better but I know we have a long way to getting him back to his pre-sickness weight. He will eat a bit of sour cream as well. Drinks water regularly (bottled one, we can't use tap water here).
Current diet - wellness chicken cans (they may have some liver in them), with a bit of warm water mixed and into syringe (real feeding syringes and cat sack on their way here as I just ordered them). Fancy feast classic (various) on the way here too as he likes those.
I also got him the B12 shots and have so far given him one and am considering continuing with shots every week.
Questions for you - is what we are doing the right course of treatment? Do I need to add anything else to his diet? How long until I get my baby back to his healthy self?
