Advice on increasing per meal food consumption in cat with questionable health

Hi,

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have a cat with a lot of health problems (which is why this is in Cat Health rather than Cat Nutrition). She has decreased in weight from 7.3 last August to 5.1 today. The vet says it's possible that this more due to stress (either from the health problems or from a new cat that arrived in late August) that led to a decrease in appetite that led to a long-term lack of interest in eating a lot of food. 

I am currently trying to determine whether this is the case by feeding her A/D food and counting her calories very carefully per day. She would probably eat 50-60 calories per day if it was her own choice, but I feed her off my finger and via syringe and have been working my way up the past few days to 180 calories per day (today will be 140 if all goes well). However, it's not an ideal situation because she doesn't want to eat more than .5-.6 oz of A/D at a time, and that's only off of my finger. She has a growth in her abdomen (unclear whether it's cancerous ) and if that is affecting her ability to eat a lot at one time then I'm okay accepting that and moving on. However, she seems able to eat .5-.6 every 45 mins to an hour. Based on how cats supposedly digest, this makes me feel like she COULD eat more in one sitting, she just doesn't feel like it/is in the habit of eating this small amount. 

Does anyone have any luck with increasing cat meal sizes? She used to be much better about this, so it's not just her permanent state. I'm wondering if it would help if I just syringe fed her more each sitting to get her used to it, but I would much rather she was able to do it voluntarily. She can't really have dry food bc of her chronic UTI problems. She is sometimes willing to eat Nutrical, but again in small portions. She has no interest in food toppers (except, very occasionally, Fortiflora). 

cathaver said:

 
Hi,

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have a cat with a lot of health problems (which is why this is in Cat Health rather than Cat Nutrition). She has decreased in weight from 7.3 last August to 5.1 today. The vet says it's possible that this more due to stress (either from the health problems or from a new cat that arrived in late August) that led to a decrease in appetite that led to a long-term lack of interest in eating a lot of food. 

I am currently trying to determine whether this is the case by feeding her A/D food and counting her calories very carefully per day. She would probably eat 50-60 calories per day if it was her own choice, but I feed her off my finger and via syringe and have been working my way up the past few days to 180 calories per day (today will be 140 if all goes well). However, it's not an ideal situation because she doesn't want to eat more than .5-.6 oz of A/D at a time, and that's only off of my finger. She has a growth in her abdomen (unclear whether it's cancerous

) and if that is affecting her ability to eat a lot at one time then I'm okay accepting that and moving on. However, she seems able to eat .5-.6 every 45 mins to an hour. Based on how cats supposedly digest, this makes me feel like she COULD eat more in one sitting, she just doesn't feel like it/is in the habit of eating this small amount. 

Does anyone have any luck with increasing cat meal sizes? She used to be much better about this, so it's not just her permanent state. I'm wondering if it would help if I just syringe fed her more each sitting to get her used to it, but I would much rather she was able to do it voluntarily. She can't really have dry food bc of her chronic UTI problems. She is sometimes willing to eat Nutrical, but again in small portions. She has no interest in food toppers (except, very occasionally, Fortiflora). 

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My sense is that the question in front of you is more than a technical one of how to get your cat to eat more, but really a question of underlying health.  A growth in her abdomen sounds very serious, and while in theory it could be benign, i can only imagine sadly that it may not be.  I can't square these two opposing ideas from your vet.  On the one hand s/he suggests it could be due to stress, but then there is a tumor in your cats abdomen. Tumors will cause appetite loss, a healthy animal even under stress wouldn't generally loose that kind of weight. If your cat was so upset by the new cat that he was loosing this kind of weight i would isolate them.

When was she diagnosed with this tumor?

Did your vet suggest a biopsy?

Did s/he offer a prognosis? A treatment?

Does she have other symptoms?

Are there other illnesses?

It is heartbreaking  when our animals stop eating, or have trouble eating.  But they loose appetite when they feel badly, and forcing them to eat, except to get them through a short term crisis, or certain very appetite specific illnesses like fatty liver disease, may be forcing them to endure more than nature wants.

Having said that, you can try boiled or roasted chicken, warmed up, cat gravy (comes in a bottle in some pet stores), or whatever she wants to eat, at this point calories are calories, and a balanced diet may not matter so much.

Pain meds, may also help, if she is in pain.

If she is progressing into hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver disease) it will cause her not to be hungry and the only real treatment is the insertion of a feeding tube.  It makes it easy to get food in her, you just squirt it in, but this may not be indicated with a growth in the stomach.

I'm sorry you're going through this.  I would talk to your vet about long term prognosis and asking them to assist you with nutrition, or if the time is being reached, end of life care.

I have nothing to add to this advice. I absolutely agree that, at this stage, anything she'll eat that is safe for her is the way to go. I'm so sorry you're going through this.

Thanks for the advice guys.

The reason the vet thinks it's possible that it's benign is because she's only 4.5 years old, the fine needle aspiration showed no cancerous cells, her blood tests were normal except for elevated globulins (also associated with FIP, which he thinks she might progress to someday) and it has stopped increasing in size. More relevant, however, is the fact that because of the way the tumor enters into her underlying muscle tissue, it is not feasible to remove it, so the consensus is that putting her through a million tests and a surgical biopsy would just be pointless trauma for her. At this point I'm trying to improve her quality of life until something worsens in some way. For the moment, except for the low appetite, she acts pretty much like any cat her age that I've had. She sleeps on the bed, likes treats, plays a little if the other cat isn't around (we've tried long term isolation with no improvement). We may get to the end-of-life discussion sooner rather than later, but I don't think we're there yet.

Oh, also, the vet is assisting with nutrition. That's how she has the A/D food. He made a ton of suggestions (baby food, brewer's yeast, boiled chicken, etc.) that she didn't go for. She does like the A/D food, she just wants to eat a minuscule amount at a time 20 times a day.

cathaver said:

Thanks for the advice guys.

The reason the vet thinks it's possible that it's benign is because she's only 4.5 years old, the fine needle aspiration showed no cancerous cells, her blood tests were normal except for elevated globulins (also associated with FIP, which he thinks she might progress to someday) and it has stopped increasing in size. More relevant, however, is the fact that because of the way the tumor enters into her underlying muscle tissue, it is not feasible to remove it, so the consensus is that putting her through a million tests and a surgical biopsy would just be pointless trauma for her. At this point I'm trying to improve her quality of life until something worsens in some way. For the moment, except for the low appetite, she acts pretty much like any cat her age that I've had. She sleeps on the bed, likes treats, plays a little if the other cat isn't around (we've tried long term isolation with no improvement). We may get to the end-of-life discussion sooner rather than later, but I don't think we're there yet.

Oh, also, the vet is assisting with nutrition. That's how she has the A/D food. He made a ton of suggestions (baby food, brewer's yeast, boiled chicken, etc.) that she didn't go for. She does like the A/D food, she just wants to eat a minuscule amount at a time 20 times a day.

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Thanks for the clarifications, very helpful and I hope you have along time with her.  9 Lives tuna (and similar) is VERY stinky and many cats find it hard to resist, I would never recommend it for a healthy cat who is eating, but we use it in the medical community as a medicinal (yummy) food for cats who have appetite issues.

Thank you! Do you have any sense of how much fish-based food contributes to UTI problems? I know the A/D food has fish oil, and her UTI symptoms have gone away since I stopped letting her have dry food and have been giving her the A/D, but I've been trying to avoid fish because I had some vague sense that it's not good for UTI-prone cats. Is there any truth to that? 

StephenQ said:

 
Thanks for the clarifications, very helpful and I hope you have along time with her.  9 Lives tuna (and similar) is VERY stinky and many cats find it hard to resist, I would never recommend it for a healthy cat who is eating, but we use it in the medical community as a medicinal (yummy) food for cats who have appetite issues.

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I, too, am very sorry you're going through this, @cathaver. I agree with StephenQ about 9Lives. That reminds me that one of the foods our previous cat would eat when she was very sick was Weruva's BFF: those have tuna, too, and there's meat and lots of gravy. Another food she ate (pureed in the mini-processor) was Merrick's Cowboy Cookout, recommended by a pet food store employee as possibly being stinky enough to be attractive, and Weruva's Cats in the Kitchen Lamb Burger-ini, which contains some tuna, was also popular. I also had pretty good success feeding Weruva's Steak Frites off a fork. Brooksie also took a liking to Wellness Core's venison/lamb food; their kitten food has a little herring that might make it appealing for your cat.

Those were probably her favorites of the dozens I tried when she wasn't eating. It sounds like you've probably already tried lots of things but I thought I'd mention those, just in case!

Good luck, I know it's very, very stressful to try to get a sick cat to eat.

Whilst fish isn't ideal for uti cats, in this situation I would have no hesitation about feeding it. It hopefully won't be a long term option anyway, and once she gets back into the habit of eating under her own steam you should be able to transition her back onto a more appropriate food.

As an example, my chf greyhound stopped eating recently. Eventually, he started eating cat food and cat treats (offered in desperation). They gave him diarrhoea, but after a few days I he was eating under his own steam, and after a week and a half I was able to get him back onto species appropriate food. Sometimes you have to throw all your ideas of suitable food out of the window to get an animal eating again. It's certainly worth a try.

I'm so sorry you're having to go through this. I hope you have many more months (hopefully years) of quality time with your girl

@LisaHE  and @Columbine  thanks so much for your suggestions! Anything is worth a try! 

cathaver said:

 
Thank you! Do you have any sense of how much fish-based food contributes to UTI problems? I know the A/D food has fish oil, and her UTI symptoms have gone away since I stopped letting her have dry food and have been giving her the A/D, but I've been trying to avoid fish because I had some vague sense that it's not good for UTI-prone cats. Is there any truth to that? 

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There can be a connection to seafood and crystals in the urine at least to the extent that cats with a prior history of crystals shouldn't have it in their diet but a UTI is not the same thing as crystals, so i would if my vet agreed, try it, but probably under a vet's advice.