Desperate for help! Our adult male cat can only swallow liquid/soup diet without vomiting 5 weeks po

We took our cat, Donnie, to the emergency vet 5 weeks ago today because he was lethargic and vomiting. A sonogram and blood work indicated a tear in his intestines as well as a free pocket of fluid with bacteria. He underwent emergency abdominal surgery. The surgeon found no tear and nothing else to explain his symptoms. She took a bacteria culture as well as several biopsies. The bacteria never grew anything and the biopsies were all negative.

In the meantime, we transferred him to our regular vet for care for a few days. He didn't want to eat. We fed him Science Diet AD food through a syringe for about a week. He was in and out of the vet's office for examinations, fluids, xrays and more blood work in an attempt to diagnose. Needless to say, it was a very traumatic time for him and for us. His blood work was virtually normal.

He went through a course of a couple of different antibiotics until it was determined there was not a bacterial infection after all. It took almost 10 days for us to learn that.

He has been up and down with being able to eat. We tried everything to entice him to eat and finally he began eating food that we either blended till it was liquified or a pate style cat food thinned with water. He has continued to have some struggles with swallowing and vomiting. A few of those have been painful. They are thick (mucous) and sometimes have small amounts of blood.

Through process of elimination and trial and error, our vet has been treating him for the past 3 weeks for esophagitis with Sucralfate and famotidine as well as an anti-nausea med, Metoclopramide. Donnie had about 4-5 good days last week. We really thought he was doing better. He had more energy, was being ornery towards his sister cat and was eating much better (the thinned food). Thinking he had made big strides, we gave him a pate style food without thinning it about 5 days ago that he barely ate, but he couldn't swallow it and he ended up vomiting painfully. He hasn't eaten much at all since then. Our vet prescribed prednisone and he's had 2 doses. He hasn't eaten at all in the past 2 days except for licking a bit of "gravy" from cat food and some chicken broth. This is not for lack of appetite - he shows interest, just knows his limits. He's not drinking much either, even though he's taking prednisone.

Our vet has been very compassionate and caring, but he's baffled by Donnie's symptoms. We were told that the next recommended "attempt" at  diagnosing him is a scope procedure (to see if there's a stricture or esophageal tumor) and although we live in a major metropolitan area, the closest place to take him for this is a couple of hours away. He has been so traumatized already that we are opting not to put him under anesthesia again.

Another bit of background . . . about a year and a half ago he had surgery to remove bladder stones. In retrospect, what they may have seen in the sonogram 5 weeks ago, was scar tissue from the bladder stone surgery. At that bladder stone ER visit, they thought he was anesthetized, he fell off the procedure table, landed on his face and fractured his 2 canine teeth. He underwent anesthesia again for 2 root canals. Hopefully this will help explain why we don't want him to undergo the trauma of another surgery.

We love our Donnie cat - he's a huge joy in our lives and even through the ups and downs of these past 5 weeks, he loves our love and attention and purrs all the time. Any suggestions at all would be so appreciated!

Aww how sad.

Welcome to the cat site.

My mind went to inflammation in his intestines, such as pancreas, intestines, etc.

So he did have an ultrasound performed?

This can be very helpful, but it's critical that the person doing it as well as reading it is highly experienced, someone who does this all the time, rather than once in a while. The difference can be surprising!

If all of this seems to have been well checked out and you are confident that the tech is highly skilled and experienced, then I think the next option should be the scope procedure.

But wonder if this procedure might be done without full blown anesthesia. Perhaps acepromazine?? 

Just a thought, not sure whether it would be enough or not. It's a strong valium type med. He would be really out of it and helpless.

For instance I have used it plenty with ferals, a coupld of the vets I work with in my rescue group will only deal with ferals if they have been given acepromazine beforehand, it works great.

My feral tortie cat room resident here had to be seen and her mouth examined, she has since had all teeth removed and is great, but I remember being able to hold her hear in my hands and as she stared at me, likely thinking how much she would like to tear me to shreds, I opened her mouth, rubbed her face, kissed her on her cheek, etc.

She couldn't do a thing about it!

Might ask if this is a possible option.

I do think this is something that should be diagnosed asap. The lack of eating is dangerous.

Thank you so much for your reply catwoman707!

Donnie's ultrasound was performed at the ER vet clinic and read by the resident doc as well as the surgeon he called in to do the surgery. I'm wondering if we should ask for those results so that we can have someone else read them?

I'm not familiar with acepromazine, but will definitely ask our vet about that option in the morning. We also discovered that there's a cat clinic in our town that we are planning to call in the morning to see if they are capable of performing the scope procedure.

We realize that his non-eating is a dangerous scenario.

Thank you for your suggestions and encouragement.