Grisou lost his appetite

My sweetest little guy is about a year old and was happily snarfing down anything canned, then raw, and now all I get is a few licks and sniffs.

I've been trying his favorites - chicken hearts, canned kitten food, warmed up and treats sprinkled on, went and bought the Merrick he loved (licked at it for 10 seconds, then went away). Then I went ahead and tried cooked chicken, his all-time favorite - nope.

What he does like is day-old chicks, which he'll attack even fresh out of the fridge. Now I can't feed him only that because they're just basically eggs with legs, but at least it proves that there's nothing wrong with his sense of smell.

The vet didn't find anything wrong in his mouth at all and took blood last night. 

Now I'm sitting on my phone waiting for the results.

We did try some force-feeding 

What's wrong with chicks for a little while?  For them to survive out of the egg they've got to be more than yolk with legs.  Is it not a whole animal?

it's fine, for a little while... (the bones aren't really calcified, and the yolk has a lot of phosphorus) but that little while has been going on for a month now and I'm concerned. He also lost 100 grams that he didn't have to spare .

Ohhhhh...gotcha!  I wonder if he'll eat older ones?  Or maybe you can add eggshell powder?  Maybe taurine powder?

He sounds like one of mine.  When he was eating raw, he would only eat ONE protein at a time.  First it was lamb, and if I tried to sneak in even 10% of any other protein into his lamb to try to get him used to anything else, he's refuse the entire dish.  Suddenly one day, no more lamb.  He just walked away from his dish and refused to eat it ever again (believe me, I tried it even months later)   So I quickly had to switch gears and try other proteins I had on hand for the other cats.  He didn't want to have anything to do with any of them until I finally tried Turkey (which I didn't even have on hand because the other two didn't like it .  He LOVED turkey for about 8 months, and then poof, he did the exact same thing that he did with the lamb.   So I started looking for good (and even not so good in desperation) canned food options because I was at wits end.   He is STILL extremely picky about his canned foods, and some days he'll only eat maybe one 3 oz can of something (Weruva or Simply Nourish or Nutro Natural Choice are the  only 3 he will eat right now.  And I have tried Hounds and Gatos, Natural Planet, By Nature Organics, Wellness, I and Love and You, Soulistic, Earthborn, even Fancy Feast Classics.  Luckily, he still enjoys Stella and Chewys and Feline Natural  freeze dried (only in the dry form though ) chunks as treats, so he gets lots of those, and I always add water to whatever canned foods I give him to pump up his water supply.  And every once in awhile I try to get him to eat raw again, to no avail

I guess what I'm trying to say here is...maybe your boy is just a very finicky cat like mine

I guess what I'm trying to say here is...maybe your boy is just a very finicky cat like mine

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I just got the blood results, everything's fine  (!) except the amylase levels are a bit high which my google search says doesn't say much in cats.

Vet tried to sell me prescription diet   and recommended dry food because of the "dental benefits" 

Will get some appetite enhancer, though (that's what I really hoped to get from her) and some high-cal supplement to add to my pantry full of cat supplements

At least I doubt he'll ever get diabetes with what I (try to) feed him  

and now I've got the results emailed and the amylase isn't that high at all (in U/l, 2.293  is normal and he has 2.364).

What might be high is the lymphocyte count (in K/ul 5.85 is normal and he has 8.05) so I'll rather worry about that. 

He didn't care much for lysine treats yesterday that I gave just in case, but I've got lysine powder and will syringe some of that into him, along with kitty immune support... he does get some eye discharge sometimes

Oh yes, I forgot to add that I also have that high calorie supplement in my supplies too.  Luckily Stinkpot LOVES that.  (go figure!)  I actually looked that up because the 2nd ingredient is sugar and that concerned me about how it might effect him long term re: diabetes.  But he's a thin cat, and I could find absolutely NOTHING about it, so I guess cats and sugar don't relate to diabetes .  I know carbs like corn and wheat etc are terrible for them and can definitely contribute to diabetes, but I make sure to stay away from them, though he does eat certain foods with a few carrots and other vegies in them.  I try to pick them out though. 

roguethecat said:

 
and now I've got the results emailed and the amylase isn't that high at all (in U/l, 2.293  is normal and he has 2.364).

What might be high is the lymphocyte count (in K/ul 5.85 is normal and he has 8.05) so I'll rather worry about that. 

He didn't care much for lysine treats yesterday that I gave just in case, but I've got lysine powder and will syringe some of that into him, along with kitty immune support... he does get some eye discharge sometimes

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Interesting that the Vet didn't even  mention the Lymphycyte count.  Although those could be raised simply from recent vaccines.  Since he's just a year old, has he recently had boosters or anything?  Sorry, I've not been too active here lately and don't know your stance on vaccines  

 
Interesting that the Vet didn't even  mention the Lymphycyte count.  Although those could be raised simply from recent vaccines.  Since he's just a year old, has he recently had boosters or anything?  Sorry, I've not been too active here lately and don't know your stance on vaccines

 

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well, she did mention the lymphocytes briefly but then went on and on about the amylase, so the fact that amylase isn't really high but the lymphos are only  came to me when I got the written results... he didn't have any boosters recently (I don't know my stance on vaccines yet, either - getting a stance is on my to do list )

 actually looked that up because the 2nd ingredient is sugar

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 and cats don't even have the ability to taste that! 

I'm so sorry that Grisou lost his appetite. Is there a plan to address the high lymphocyte count?

roguethecat said:

 
well, she did mention the lymphocytes briefly but then went on and on about the amylase, so the fact that amylase isn't really high but the lymphos are only  came to me when I got the written results... he didn't have any boosters recently (I don't know my stance on vaccines yet, either - getting a stance is on my to do list

)

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What did she say about the amylase?  What did she say were possibilities?  Sometimes lymphocytes increase when the GI system is off.

What did she say about the amylase?  What did she say were possibilities?  Sometimes lymphocytes increase when the GI system is off.

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ah. She wanted to do more tests to rule out pancreatitis which I declined when I saw the actual figures because it's too close to normal to be of any significance (and apparently, cat's amylase dates change by the hour, which she didn't mention and probably doesn't know, being fairly new at her job). It's just that anything out of the normal range lights up on the data sheet, even when it sits directly on top of the border.

Then she got into diabetes and tried hard to sell me on the prescription diet food, pushing the dry stuff... I don't want to embarrass her by implying she doesn't know much about cat nutrition  , she's a really nice person and cares, but I'm still not going to buy prescription diet and dry is getting into my cats only over my dead body.

Anyway. Grisou ate some more day-old chicks  and some Wellness pouch stuff, voluntarily. I also got some Gerber's baby food (which has cornstarch! ) and will go hunting for sweet breads again on the weekend (he really loved that one). 

GoHolistic said:

 
I'm so sorry that Grisou lost his appetite. Is there a plan to address the high lymphocyte count?

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about that - not sure I trust the numbers here. His lymphocyte count is 8K, which other sources tell me is on the high end of the normal range. Apparently the normal range of a cat's lymphocytes depends on who's doing the counting and measuring. It's entirely possible that compared to your average poor dry-fed cat, my fierce hunter of dead chicks has a superior immune system.  

Which prescription diet was she trying to sell you?  I'd be tempted to have more blood work pulled in the next few weeks or so.  Pancreatitis can start as a real low underlying little problem and then turn into something exceptionally stupid later.  I'd want blood work again just to rule it out.  We do have ranges for a reason, an yes some cats may ride a little high or low and for them that may be normal (just like in people).  But I wouldn't trust high numbers based on a diet.

peaches08 said:

 
Pancreatitis can start as a real low underlying little problem and then turn into something exceptionally stupid later.

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I TOTALLY agree considering I've experienced just that with my cat Sebastian. He now has chronic pancreatitis.

yes, waiting a bit and repeat bloodwork seems my best option here...   ... meanwhile, let me read up on symptoms (he doesn't show anything) and causes. 

so, I picked up Mirtazapine last night. Apparently it tastes really, really bad  , but it works... he ate wellness again, lots for him. Two day-old chicks this morning and then he spent half an hour killing the third  , complete with wild growling... I'm watching out for side effects but he's not meowing (they also call the stuff meowzapine) at all.

The vet somehow succeeded in selling me something called nutri-cal which is basically corn syrup with vitamins ($$). I figured, if he likes it, it can be a topper... he doesn't like it. I don't blame him. I'm also not going to force a cat to eat corn syrup.

(Everyone gets dry-liver based vitamin tablets once in a while that we consider a treat, and the chicks should be vitamin bombs anyway)

So I ended up giving the nutri-cal to the ferals outside, and am not sure if I'm to feel bad about that - don't want them ending up diabetic.  

Did you happen to ask your Vet about that Nutri-Cal and your concerns with diabetes, since it's loaded with sugar?  I really haven't been able to find anything on it, even on the feline diabetes websites, so am wondering if sugar reacts diffferently in cats.  I can't imagine that to be the case, but you never know.

Glad the Mirtazapine worked, just wonder what's causing his loss of appetite in the first place.   Hopefully once it's "jump started", he'll get back to normal eating habits.

I doubt one tube of Nutri-Cal is going to make one cat diabetic, not to mention several ferals.  I'm sure you're OK there.  It's dense nutrition that might save a life (like Hill's A/D) and I can understand why she'd have you try it if the cat went on not eating for much longer.

The first symptom most get from pancreatitis is pain.  Next is swollen pancreas, abdominal distention...I'm not insisting that Grisou has pancreatitis or these symptoms.  Just that the blood work raises my eyebrows and I think checking it again later might be worthwhile.  Something as simple as a gallstone or a piece of ingested bone can block the pancreatic duct and start this whole nightmare, no matter how good we are to our animals.  I think you and the vet both did right and it sounds like Grisou has a good plan going for him.