Puzzled, obstruction or constipation?

Hello everyone,

I'm new! Needed to find a forum to hopefully get some opinions on our cats symptoms right now.

She is a 10 year old russian blue, we've had her since she was a kitten. She's strictly an indoor cat, has two cat sisters and the only other health problem she's ever had was gastroenteritis about 5 years ago. That was treated by a vet. She *is* overweight, we're trying to get that under control.

About a week ago, she started becoming very lethargic, sleeping a lot and not eating or drinking. We let a couple of days pass to see if it would work itself out. She started drinking and eating again but not as much as before. When I feed her sisters in the morning, she'll jump off the bed and come to the top of the stairs but she usually won't go down. She's still urinating normally, still alert, still "talking" (she's a chatterbox!), still playing, still grooming, not hiding at all, no vomiting, no diarrhea. She just doesn't seem to want to eat much or move a whole lot.

We don't think she's been going #2 so we are thinking possibly constipation or an obstruction? She did hack up a good sized hairball right after the symptoms started so we're thinking maybe there is more in there. She shares the litter box with her sisters so it's hard to tell who is doing what. We've only witnessed her go #2 once but it was small. Normal, no blood. I made a second litter box for her upstairs so I can monitor that. We bought a Sentry hairball/laxative treatment and hairball control treats, she ate some a couple of hours ago.

We just had her sister in the hospital a few months ago with vestibular disease (she's healthy again), that was a $1200 bill so we are trying all options before taking her in. I know we cannot wait much longer though. I'm worried to death about megacolon after everything I've read.

I'm wondering - for anyone who has had experience with a constipated cat or dealt with bowel or intestinal blockage, does this sound familiar?? Or if anyone has any idea of what this could be?

Thank you for reading!!

I don't really know, but not eating is not a good sign.  I think you should see a vet.  If it's been a week, so soon.  the longer you wait the worse it can get.

You could try giving her canned pumpkin (no spices added) as a probiotic or olive or veggie oil to help move things along.

Do you feed canned or dry?

Is she eating at all and if so how much?

Her poop was small due to lack of food. Wish you would have picked it out with a paper towel and squeezed to see if it was hard.

Stab in the dark here, but possibly the beginning of IBD.

I would get her a senior blood panel done asap to see if something shows up there.

I seriously doubt an obstruction. 10 yr olds don't do much in the way of ingesting things they're not supposed to.

She is not a long haired so I would doubt there is any hairball going on.

She's very cute by the way!

What a sweet baby!  Any change in behavior, eating habits, or litter box habits indicates something is going on and a trip to the vet is in order.  It could be an upper respiratory infection or something else.  Best to have her looked over by the vet to see what's going on.  You might also want to get a senior blood panel done on her to check her bloodwork and make sure nothing is amiss there.  I had a kitty who had chronic kidney disease and constipation and little poops were one of the indicators. 

To help her lose weight, I'd switch to grain-free canned food.  (Not that you asked, but thought I'd throw that out there for you.)

You really should get her to the vet if she's not eating. Not eating enough can get very dangerous for cats very quickly, and those are difficult symptoms to diagnose without more info from the vet. I'd feed canned food if she likes that to make sure she stays hydrated. If she won't eat anything, jars of meat baby food (Gerber stage 2) are easy to consume and tasty and good to get some calories in her.

When my cat was constipated she was still eating well initially but I did catch her straining in the litter box, yelping in pain, and throwing up white foamy liquid. Her stool was dry and hard and full of fur, and it was often outside the litter box because she associated the litter box with the pain. Her appetite didn't slow down until well after I noticed she was constipated (and had already taken her to the vet a couple times for it), but she's one of those cats who really loves her food.