Cat is very nauseated...drinking a lot and extremely lethargic.

Hi all.

I have a five year old, indoor-only kitty named Screamer (I know...it's an awful name). We usually call her "Kittia."

On Wednesday morning, I noticed she didn't run to the bedroom door to great me like she always does. I found her under the dining room table, hunched up and looking miserable. When I tried to pick her up, she slunk off and huddled in another room. She is a VERY personable kitty and always wants to be petted and loved on. She's also highly energetic, so I knew something was wrong.

I looked around the house and found several spots where kibble had been thrown up, along with several other spots of white, foamy stuff. I do have two other cats, but I'm almost positive the puke was all hers.

I took her to the vet right away, fearing she had a blockage or something. The vet poked and prodded and checked her over and said we should wait a day and see how she was doing. Throughout the day on Wednesday, I offered her plain yogurt and some high-quality canned food (Call of the Wild). She ate a little and drank and used her litterbox and by Thursday morning, she was MUCH better. By last night, she was playing and running around and being herself. This morning, she seemed totally back to normal.

This evening, though, she went rapidly downhill. She's now clearly very nauseated and has taken to sitting with her head hanging over the water bowl. She has been drinking a LOT. Obviously, I'm freaking out because I know this is a sign of kidney failure, but I also know that kidney failure is kind of something that happens to older cats, and she's quite young, as I noted above. She's only 5.

My biggest fear is that she somehow ingested some sort of toxin, though I've no clue what it might be. She lives indoors, like I said, and I don't use any herbicides or pesticides around the house. I only use natural cleaning products--vinegar and baking soda and such.

The only thing odd that has happened is Monday night, she fell INTO the bathtub while I was taking a bath, and I'd used up the last of some gross Bath and Body Works body wash. She licked herself dry, but I can't imagine there was enough of the soap in the water to make her sick.

Most perplexing is how she seemed to recover and then got sick again. She did throw up, too--a big spot of clear liquid.

If she's still bad off by morning, I'll be taking her back into the vet. Does anyone have any idea what this could be?? Is there anything I can do for her?? She looks so miserable. I gave her 1/4 of a Pepcid AC to help with nausea, and it seems to have helped a little, but I know that's only treating the symptoms.

Does this seem like an emergency?? She's still alert and she did take a bit of canned food while ago. I'm just really worried about how she's hovering over the water bowl, because everything I've read says that means kidney problems (I always thought it could just mean that the animal is nauseated).

Thanks for any advice.

Just wanted to add: I just took her upstairs (where the litterboxes are) and she peed immediately (probably because she's been drinking so much water). Before I could pick her back up, she started back down the stairs, but as soon as she reached the bottom, she laid down immediately, as though it had exhausted her to walk down the stairs. I'm so worried she's somehow poisoned herself, but I don't understand why she would have recovered for two days and then become sick again!!

I'm sorry, I don't know. Taking her to vet is very important, and if your vet is unable to help you then I recommend calling to other vets and telling them your problem. They should be able to help you a little and may want to see her

I took her to the vet again this morning. She was so dehydrated and her blood pressure was so low, the vet couldn't get a blood draw. Her body temperature was also abnormally LOW. This seems very, very bad to me. She peed on the table, and took a urine sample to reveal that she has an awful bladder infection--which is one reason why he low body temp is so concerning. Shouldn't she have a fever with a bad infection??

Her glucose was also high. It could just be stress, but it could also be diabetes. I left her there for the weekend. She'll get fluids, antibiotics, and hopefully they can draw some blood. I'm so worried about her.

The fluids will help. The antibiotics should help. Diabetes is treatable. Sending vibes for your little one.

Thank you. I'm hoping it's not something like acute renal failure or pancreatitis or something. I really hope the vet is able to get a good blood draw before the end of the day. The low body temp just really scares me. I used to work at a vet's, and it was never, ever a good thing for a cat to feel cool/cold to the touch.

Oh wow. I hope she will be okay and I hope they can pinpoint all of the exact problems and treat the causes accordingly. Good luck with the little girl. I understand the fright big time, believe me. Sending good vibes your way.

Thank you!

I'll try to keep everyone updated. If anyone has any experiences with this sort of thing, I'd love to hear them.

My 15 yo just went thru similar thing - we just thought he was getting old. He was throwing up a lot (which he has always done) , begging for food but barely eating, slow steady wt loss. Then one day he was throwing up pink tinged water and he was so listless. Took him to vet - he was very dehydrated, kidney failure ( even tho he was peeing). He was hospitalized for 3 days with an IV for fluids. The X-ray of abdomen show his intestines swollen and full of gas but no obvious blockage. The night before he went to vet he passed bloody stool too. He was given several antibiotics and ant-nausea med. They also did force feeding bc cats get fatty liver if they don't eat for about 3 days. This can cause liver failure. Anyway, I regret that I didn't take him to vet sooner . He has a long road to recovery. I'm glad you took your kitty for medical care. Best of luck.

UPDATE: The vet tech sent me a message that said Screamer's body temp is more in the normal range now and that she ate some of her food last night. Hopefully these are good signs. I have this fear that she might have somehow eaten a piece of a single lily blossom I'd put in a vase in the windowsill. I hadn't even thought about lilies until one of my friends mentioned that her cat had been poisoned by them. The lily was pretty much totally engulfed by the vase, so it would have been very hard for my cat to have gotten hold of it, but I'm wracking my brain for some sort of answer, and I really, really hope the lily is a wrong answer. I had no clue they were so poisonous. Hopefully her higher body temp and the eating are a sign that she's feeling better. :/

That's good news !! Have they been able to draw blood? I would inform them re the poss lily ingestion.

The tech did not say whether or not they've done a blood draw yet. I guess if they haven't, then they'll be doing it tomorrow. They're closed on Sundays, so it's just the techs who are around. I plan on going up there tomorrow to talk to the vet. Thankfully, the clinic is literally only 2 blocks from my house.

Lilies are notorious for dropping pollen (and sap if it is a live plant - I've never had lilies in a vase so I don't know if it would drop sap or not). He may have picked up some pollen on his fur and ingested it while grooming. Please do mention it.

How fortunate you are to live so close to a vet clinic. For a lot of us, it is a distance or a struggle.

That's the thing--it was a single, cut blossom from a "ditch lily" (Hemerocallis), and it was almost entirely INSIDE the vase because the stem wasn't long enough for the flower to do more than peek out over the top. I've been reading some articles by lily experts, and they assert firmly that hemerocallis isn't actually a true lily and that cats are notorious for eating the foliage of ditch lilies--with no ill effects. I can't even say for certain that she actually ate any of the shriveled up little blossom, so I feel a little better about it now that I've done some research. I'm so glad tomorrow is Monday and that I'll be able to hopefully get some more firm information!

UPDATE:

I went to visit Screamer this morning. She was definitely much improved. They were letting her cruise around a closed room, and she was exploring, sniffing, batting at things, and meowing a lot. The vet did blood work this morning (FINALLY!!), and discovered that her BUN was slightly elevated (no surprise) and that her calcium was low. I know low calcium can be yet another sign of kidney failure, but it could also just be that her kidneys are not properly working because of the infection. Her body temperature has returned to normal (thank God). I really feel as though she was on the cusp of acute kidney failure. She isn't urinating as much as the doctor would like her to--though I suppose that could be a good or bad sign, really. He wants to keep her a few more days and keep giving her fluids, which seems like a great idea. I'm just so worried that she did suffer severe kidney damage. However, it's been six days since she first took noticeably ill (the vomiting and lethargy), so wouldn't her blood and urine tests be showing more severe results if her kidneys were incapacitated? Saturday, when I took her in, she wouldn't even stand up and was cool to the touch. Today, she's running around getting into everything. That would tell me that maybe she'll be okay. I'm just so freaked out right now.

It's really the creatinine that reflects kidney damage best. 4 or higher is not good. So glad kitty's doing better!!