I have a 12 year old cat who started with diarrhea last January. We spent a lot of time at the vet trying things that didn't help much. Throughout all this, his behavior never changed, but he had diarrhea multiple times per day and he was losing weight. He was about 14 pounds at that time and he is now about 9.5 lbs.
I finally took him to the specialist vet to have an ultrasound a couple of months ago. She said his colon/intestine was all messed up; very thick and even twisted. He shows no signs of pain or discomfort. The vet said that during the ultrasound, when they have to press pretty hard on the belly, he did not even react.
I opted to not do the surgical biopsy, but agreed to a needle biopsy. Those results may have showed some cancerous cells, but there wasn't enough for a definitive diagnosis.
At first I was going to go ahead with the chemo, but then I decided not to since he wasn't in any obvious pain or discomfort and his behavior was still normal - running, jumping, etc.
We did start prednisone - 10 mg/day. The pred has not firmed up his stool nor decreased the frequency of bowel movements, but it has decreased the amount of blood that I see. He has not gained any weight, BUT he has not lost any either!
My real reason for posting here is that he has litter box issues now - understandably! He will usually poop in the box, but he will not urinate in the box and of course on the pred he is urinating more frequently. I also have 2 other cats, one of whom seems to be pooping and peeing outside of the boxes. I have three boxes and a puppy pee pad set up in the downstairs bathroom. Often I find pee just outside the bathroom, and poop in the living room.
I am using the motion sensor air canisters to keep the cats out of the living room - this helped with an earlier issue when I introduced a new cat into the house last year- but I noticed the ill cat peeing in the upstairs hallway now! Downstairs is all tiles, so that's at least easy to clean, but upstairs is laminate and I really do not want the cats peeing up there.
Any ideas to get all the cats using the boxes appropriately?
I finally took him to the specialist vet to have an ultrasound a couple of months ago. She said his colon/intestine was all messed up; very thick and even twisted. He shows no signs of pain or discomfort. The vet said that during the ultrasound, when they have to press pretty hard on the belly, he did not even react.
I opted to not do the surgical biopsy, but agreed to a needle biopsy. Those results may have showed some cancerous cells, but there wasn't enough for a definitive diagnosis.
At first I was going to go ahead with the chemo, but then I decided not to since he wasn't in any obvious pain or discomfort and his behavior was still normal - running, jumping, etc.
We did start prednisone - 10 mg/day. The pred has not firmed up his stool nor decreased the frequency of bowel movements, but it has decreased the amount of blood that I see. He has not gained any weight, BUT he has not lost any either!
My real reason for posting here is that he has litter box issues now - understandably! He will usually poop in the box, but he will not urinate in the box and of course on the pred he is urinating more frequently. I also have 2 other cats, one of whom seems to be pooping and peeing outside of the boxes. I have three boxes and a puppy pee pad set up in the downstairs bathroom. Often I find pee just outside the bathroom, and poop in the living room.
I am using the motion sensor air canisters to keep the cats out of the living room - this helped with an earlier issue when I introduced a new cat into the house last year- but I noticed the ill cat peeing in the upstairs hallway now! Downstairs is all tiles, so that's at least easy to clean, but upstairs is laminate and I really do not want the cats peeing up there.
Any ideas to get all the cats using the boxes appropriately?
