Long thin insect? Parasite?

I feel like an idiot now for not taking my cat in to the vet a month &1/2 ago when I noticed a couple of thin, long, small insects crawling in a box she used to sit in. I then noticed one as it was crawling across one of her pet rugs. I also found one on her while she was laying on my bed. She had been to the vet a month or so before then, so maybe she came back home with something back then? After I noticed these insects, after a couple weeks, she was seriously ill after a lot of sudden vomiting and had to be hospitalized twice a few weeks ago. Although that could have been caused by me feeding her low-fat, low-sodium turkey breast for breakfast for a week & a little bit of an egg yolk (with olive oil) or she could have eaten something or hairballs (blockage that caused vomiting)....

I'm wondering now about those super thin insects...I had looked up fleas and ticks online and they didn't resemble them. If you have any ideas of what I am talking about, please let me know. I had dismissed them as some insect that had crawled in through my window or something and my cat wasn't scratching more than what looked normal (behind her ears occasionally).

Now I am trying to figure out what was wrong with her exactly before and try to prevent it from happening again. One vet said pancreatitis, but 5 days later, the pancreas test came back normal and the vet specialist started talking about cancer and wanted to do a endoscopy & biopsy. I couldn't spend another $1,500 after just spending $3,300 on emergency care + I'd already spent ~$1,500 on my cat before then. The old cure for pancreatitis was to starve the cat...before vets realized fatty liver was more serious, so maybe the normal pancreas test results 5 days later were from my cat not eating (I did force fed her liquid senior cat supplement milk when she wasn't eating)? The enlarged intestines that indicate inflammation that were seen on the ultrasound could have been pancreatitis from what I read online...

I'm trying to really narrow down the possibilities from pancreatitis, IBD, dental disease (she has very bad teeth-4 already were surgically extracted), parasites, cancer, thyroid disease, etc. before she gets ill again so I can know what tests to pay for and what not to bother with since I don't have a blank check to write like the vet specialist seems to want me to write. She would test for everything if I allowed her to.

My cat is going in for her dental cleaning this Thursday, so after that, I'll be able to rule out dental disease for her bad teeth if she gets really ill again.  I will also ask them to do a fecal test...but I wanted to ask if anyone has any idea what I am talking about about the thin, long, small insects.

Do they look a little bit like a centipede - but much smaller? Lots of little legs? That is not a parasite bothering your cat, they're coming in from somewhere - she's just on the floor where they are. Even if this isn't what you're trying to describe, most parasites of cats are internal - and of the external variety, there are fleas, ticks, and pretty much everything else you can't see with the naked eye. So the problem is most likely not parasites.

FYI, the test for pancreatitis is NOT definitive. Nor is an ultrasound. Sometimes you can see the inflammation of the pancreas - sometimes you can't. If the Spec fPLI indicates there is pancreatitis, it is. There are not false positives. But the absence of a positive does not mean there is not pancreatitis - there ARE false negatives.

OK - 54% accurate in diagnosing mild pancreatitis, for instance: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jvim.12150/pdf

How was she treated? That will help me / us understand what was happening. I'll check in with others that have experience with this, but I'm pretty sure not eating is not going to contribute to a normal spec fPLI. Actually, pancreatitis and IBD often go hand-in-hand. What you may have is a kitty with IBD and chronic pancreatitis that had a flare. This is becoming SO common. In the Raw IBD group I admin on Facebook, many of the cats have both, and managing the IBD usually helps the pancreatitis. The main tools in the arsenal (we recommend) are probiotics, slippery elm bark powder (best if made into syrup), and a commercial raw or homemade raw or cooked diet, so you have ingredient control. Oh - and omega 3s.

http://www.2ndchance.info/pancreatitiscat.htm An excellent overview of pretty much every aspect of inflammation in our cats' GI tracts.

Thank you! Maybe that is what I was trying to describe. I can't quite remember anymore. Have never seen those before, so was wondering if they were cat-parasite-related since they were in her pet areas.

She was given the usual medications for pancreatitis that I've read about: pain reliever, anti-nausea, appetite stimulant, pepcid. First, given IV fluids during emergency hospitalization #1, then released to me with 3 oral liquid meds that I squirted in her mouth and that were very traumatic for her -- foaming at mouth, drooling. =( Then, I brought her back for a feeding tube and that vet refused treatment since I told them I thought they were padding their invoices. They didn't seem interested in my cat at all. Almost felt like they were treating an inanimate object, like a car needing repair and felt like they were holding my cat hostage when I had first brought her in deliberately for emergency hospitalization. Vet just said, "Well, I'm keeping her anyway." Seemed like she was about to tell me my cat needed hospitalization, but decided to be rude and just say what she said instead.

Turns out my cat didn't really need a feeding tube then. She just needed a different appetite stimulant -- Mirtzapine, which got her eating and antibiotics. The vet specialist gave her oral meds during emergency hospitalization #2 and also a neck feeding tube that they ended up taking out the next day. Vet specialist started talking about cancer...but I'd like to try to rule out pancreatitis first before doing a $1,500 endoscopy w/biopsy. She did so much better on the new oral medications, but started eating less after I took away the Hill's prescription a/d, so I am now giving it to her again. She threw up the other day, which has really worried me since that was the beginning of all the vomiting and then emergency hospitalizations, but it could be allergy to the beef in the beef pate I had tried to feed her. She usually eats poultry.

As for the raw food diet, I had wanted to try that and put down a raw chicken wing 6 months ago but my baby just licked it and then ignored it. I wasn't ready to try recipes before or buy raw cat food, but now I am looking into that. I have ordered some samples from Primal and will see if my cat will eat them. The problem is my cat is very picky and really would rather starve than eat anything she does not feel like eating, even food she used to like. Ever since they fed her Hill's Science Diet kitten kibble at the vet specialist, she has refused her Orijen. I just bought 12 oz. bags of all other Orijen flavors and all other Acana flavors to try to switch her off the Hill's Science Diet onto at least a better kibble for now. The only wet food she will eat now is the Hill's Prescription a/d. If I do not give her these two now, she refuses to eat. =/ She went crazy for Fortiflora at first, then refused it, then suddenly ate some, but now refuses it again. =/

If I can get her to eat raw or fresh cooked food, then I will be starting the transition over soon while occasionally giving the various kibbles I have if she will eat them as treats. Maybe also all the various grain-free wet food cans I still have too that she used to eat, but no longer. She is just like me, so I understand her. If I like something new, that is all I want for a while until I am tired of it, then I don't want it anymore and would rather starve than eat food I do not want. =/

Oh don't we know that eating agony! Interestingly, we find that in many instances, the pickiness is actually one of the symptoms of not feeling well. Not always - cats WILL be cats.

I have two articles up on TCS that you may find helpful - both about transitioning. Bottom line? You have to think of it as a puzzle and a journey. I don't know how old your kitty is, but a 3 year old is the equivalent of a 28-year old person; a 7 year old is 44; a 9 year old is 52; a 13 year old 68. These are examples - but imagine having only ever eating dry cereal OR a canned stew. Now someone wants you to eat... a salad, for example. It looks weird, it has very little smell, the texture is all wrong. It makes a lot of sense to work on getting that person to eat just one leaf of lettuce first. Think of it like that.

http://www.thecatsite.com/a/transitioning-free-fed-kibble-kitties-to-timed-meals

http://www.thecatsite.com/a/transit...-to-a-new-type-of-food-canned-raw-or-homemade



It's also possible it was just an acute case of pancreatitis! That happened to my Ming Loy. No idea what the trigger was. I fed her 0.25oz meals every two hours, she was on a steroid for inflammation, a pain med, and I gave her sub-q fluids daily for a week. It cleared up, and, knock wood, it hasn't been back....

But do be aware of signs of nausea, that will be helpful to you in any case. (I didn't write the article, but the kitty pictured in the nausea descriptions is my Lazlo. :heart2: ) http://www.ibdkitties.net/pancreatitis.html

Hope there are no more incidents and it was just a one-off thing! :cross:

Thank you very much, @LDG! I just remembered again that I had also been feeding my cat rotisserie chicken with a bit of skin for 1 meal on 3 continuous days before she got seriously ill. Since the vet and then the vet specialist didn't say anything about the rotisserie chicken I told them about and/or the 7 days of low-fat turkey breast & bit of raw egg with olive oil one time, I forgot about the possibility of her illness being food-related, especially when the vet specialist jumped to cancer...my baby's doing okay again for now. No more vomiting. I have been giving her Petromalt chicken flavor for the past few days in case it's hairballs. Just waiting for the samples of Primal to arrive. I really hope it was a one-off thing because of the human food I suddenly started feeding her. 

I thought my cat was 4...but after the ultrasound and x-ray, the vet specialist thinks she is 6 or 7 because of the early arthritis on her spine they found. I feel sad about that. It feels like I lost 3 years with her all of a sudden. But just got to keep her healthy and not do stupid things again like feeding her so much human food all of a sudden!