Cat stopped eating

Good morning everyone! I'm getting pretty concerned because my cat, Starbuck, has not eaten since at least around midday yesterday. I'm about 80% sure that she ate the night before (the 10th), I'm not sure whether she ate yesterday morning. She is a regular ole tabby cat, about 4 years old, very overweight. 

I feed her hill's science diet dry indoor adult cat food. Have been for a couple of years now with no problem. She's never been much interested in eating anything other than dry kibble (I've failed miserably to get her to eat wet food). I did just get a new bag of the food. However, I'm fairly certain I switched to the new bag on the 9th, and she ate that day and Monday normally. 

She's definitely displaying signs that she's hungry. She tends to get aggressively affectionate when she wants me to feed her, which has been happening. She keeps going to the bowl, sniffing, turning away, going right back. She also tends to chew on plastic or paper when she's hungry/wants me to feed her. She started doing that yesterday early afternoon, which is how I realized she wasn't eating, because she was doing it despite having food in her bowl. Sometimes she does have food but doesn't start eating, so I dump it back in the container and reserve her food, which almost always works. She also sometimes won't eat unless I'm in the apartment or even in the room with her. I've fed her before going to class and come back to find the food mostly untouched, and as soon as I walk into the bedroom she headbutts me a couple of times and then starts eating. None of that is working right now. 

I don't know that this is relevant but I'm going to include it anyway. I generally keep her food and water bowls to the side of a bookshelf in my bedroom, on top of the bookshelf is my humidifier, which I started using again for the season a couple of days ago. At first I thought the mist from the humidifier was irritating her, or maybe making the food damp. So I tried moving both the food and the water to several locations, both in my bedroom and in other rooms. She also sometimes will wait until I am actually in the room with her to eat, so I tried to keep the bowl in the room I was in, but it didn't help. I turned off the humidifier and moved the bowls back to see if it helped, but it did not. 

I spoke with a vet tech at the animal hospital I take her to for check-ups who said if she hasn't eaten by this afternoon I should make an appointment. I was sort of surprised that he didn't seem to be suggesting I would have to bring her in today, as it already seems to me like too long that she has gone without food (but I am also slightly panicking...). 

He also recommended I try to entice her with other foods like chicken. She's never really been interested in other food other than dry kibble, even treats that she will eat are few and far between (and the one's she used to love - the my little lion tuna - she also stopped liking). I think I've seen her eat a minuscule piece of beef jerky a couple of times, but that's not good for her. Does anyone have a suggestion for what I should try to entice her with? Should it be cooked or raw chicken/fish/etc.? 

I have some cans of tuna and salmon in the house, I have a couple of cans of the wet food that she has rejected in the past. The grocery store is down the block, so anything you think might be a good idea, throw it at me. Thanks so much for your help!

EDIT: Oh, and I meant to add that she's being quite playful this morning. Running around chasing the little foam balls which are the only toy she really seems to go for, and fetching them back to me to throw again. She still seems energetic, if I didn't know that she wasn't eating she would seem just fine. 

EDIT EDIT: there's a part of me that wonders if she's just stopped liking this food, or there's something funky with this bag. I'm tempted to just go grab a bag of random cat food from safeway just to see what happens. I put out one of the wet cat food cans (sheba tuna, the rest I have are science diet wet food), she sniffed it but then walked away. 

I do wonder if for whatever reason she just doesn't like this food anymore, or this bag. she stuck her face in the bowl and even started to bite a piece of kibble, then just stopped and walked away, but she keeps circling around the food. I'm going to run over to safeway and grab whatever they have there and try that. Obviously it won't be any sort of good quality cat food, but I don't think I can get any of that on such short notice. I was sort of hoping to go through this bag of science diet that I bought unfortunately a few days before I realized it wasn't all that great of a brand, but if she doesn't like it, she doesn't like it. 

Even as I'm typing this she's just circling between head butting me and walking around the food and sticking her face in the bowl. A couple of times she has started digging, but then she just walks away again. 

When she was a kitten she was very sick and I had to syringe feed her wet food. I've always wondered if that's why she won't eat wet food now, but I don't know if that's even a thing. I don't think I have the syringe anymore, but I'm wondering about that as well. 

It may not be a bad idea to try buying a new small bag of her food. It is possible to get a bad batch. If she continues to go to her food and not eat then I would take her the vet. She may have nausea from something and that would cause her not to eat.

You could also try plain cooked chicken breast. I also have a Starbuck.

catlover73 said:

It may not be a bad idea to try buying a new small bag of her food. It is possible to get a bad batch. If she continues to go to her food and not eat then I would take her the vet. She may have nausea from something and that would cause her not to eat.

You could also try plain cooked chicken breast. I also have a Starbuck.

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Thanks - I'll try both of those. I forgot to mention that she kinda sorta threw up yesterday. It wasn't substantial, it was clear, just bile or something, with a single piece of food in it. That had already happened by the time I woke up yesterday morning. For a while she was throwing up regularly, possibly from eating too fast - I had taken her to the vet for that several months ago and she checked out completely healthy, so I didn't think anything of it yesterday. 

And awesome! It's a great name  . 

If she is throwing up bile then you are not likely to get her to eat because she is definitely dealing with nausea. Have you told the vet she threw up? This same issue happened with my Starbuck and the vet gave her injectable medicine for the nausea. She started eating again on her own. If your vet will not see her today then I would find one who will. The throwing up and going to the bowl are signs of an upset tummy.

catlover73 said:

If she is throwing up bile then you are not likely to get her to eat because she is definitely dealing with nausea. Have you told the vet she threw up? This same issue happened with my Starbuck and the vet gave her injectable medicine for the nausea. She started eating again on her own. If your vet will not see her today then I would find one who will. The throwing up and going to the bowl are signs of an upset tummy.

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I told the person I spoke to on the phone that she had thrown up once. I had forgotten about it until he asked, so I may not have done a good job of communicating it. I don't know whether he was a vet tech or what level of knowledge he had. My impression is that all of the people who work there, even just on the phones, seem to have at least a basic level of knowledge, but he didn't sound super confident in what he was saying to be honest. 

I can call back, and they also have walk-ins, but there are other vets in the area. The bile only happened once (I mean, I have seen it happen before, once in a while, instead of regular cat puke, but it has never been followed by her not eating before), but the more that I think about it, the more that I think she hasn't eaten since that occurred, so I think you're on to something. 

Thanks so much. I'm going to call my vet back again now. 

catlover73 said:

If she is throwing up bile then you are not likely to get her to eat because she is definitely dealing with nausea. Have you told the vet she threw up? This same issue happened with my Starbuck and the vet gave her injectable medicine for the nausea. She started eating again on her own. If your vet will not see her today then I would find one who will. The throwing up and going to the bowl are signs of an upset tummy.

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I called back, got an appointment with my vet for early afternoon today. Do you think it's still worth grabbing some random cat food at the grocery store and seeing if it helps? It's only a few hours away, so probably not. I strongly suspect you are right about the nausea. I have never seen this behavior in her before. 

catlover73 said:

If she is throwing up bile then you are not likely to get her to eat because she is definitely dealing with nausea. Have you told the vet she threw up? This same issue happened with my Starbuck and the vet gave her injectable medicine for the nausea. She started eating again on her own. If your vet will not see her today then I would find one who will. The throwing up and going to the bowl are signs of an upset tummy.

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Well she just started eating...

I kind of want to wait and see if she keeps it down. I will go google this, but any idea how long it takes for a cat to digest food? Do you think it's still worth taking her to the vet if she keeps it down? If she's eating, that's great, but it was still very weird for a significant period of time. 

I'm sorry, I have no idea why I kept quoting you - my brain is just not working right now! I think it was just out of habit. 

I am not a vet but based on my personal experience if the puke was from eating too fast there would be a lot more food in the puke. My Starbuck used to eat too fast when she was a young kitten and the puke always had a decent amount of food in it. When she got sick and had to go to the vet for nausea as an adult the puke was all bile and little or no food. She was also acting like she was hungry but would not eat and was sniffing the food like you mention. I would really get her to the vet today if she does not eat or throws up again.

catlover73 said:

I am not a vet but based on my personal experience if the puke was from eating too fast there would be a lot more food in the puke. My Starbuck used to eat too fast when she was a young kitten and the puke always had a decent amount of food in it. When she got sick and had to go to the vet for nausea as an adult the puke was all bile and little or no food. She was also acting like she was hungry but would not eat and was sniffing the food like you mention. I would really get her to the vet today if she does not eat or throws up again.

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Thanks, I really appreciate your getting back, and your advice. I always feel like I am overreacting to this sort of thing. I had thought she was improving, she went to her bowl and ate twice and kept it down. But I just looked at the bowl and she couldn't have eaten more than a few pieces. I'm going to take her into the vet, I'll let you know how it goes. 

When it happened to your Starbuck, was it just general unspecified nausea or was there a diagnosable issue, if I may ask? (btw, I keep forgetting, are you a BSG fan, or a Moby-Dick fan, or...?   

Just got back from the vet. Her physical exam was clear, although she's definitely a fighter so they couldn't manage a full oral exam. They gave her a an anti-nausea med, some sort of appetite enhancer and they took some bloodwork. The vet said that in her experience often the trip to the vet is traumatizing enough to restart the appetite, but whether because of that or the meds, when we got home she went straight for her food bowl. 

I'm going to keep an eye on her for the next day-ish to make sure she's eating and to watch out for throwing up, etc. She said it could have been just a bug or maybe she managed to swallow something weird. She seems to be back to normal, so fingers crossed. 

Thanks again - really appreciated your advice. 

I am glad Starbuck is feeling better. My vet told me the same thing as yours did when I went through this. Injectable nausea meds work quickly and hopefully her tummy settled now. Just keep an eye on her and follow-up with the vet if there are anymore issues.

So far, so good! She's still pretty pissed at me for the whole ordeal, particularly after I took her band-aid off, but she'll get over that soon, I'm sure. 

Ajjaxx said:

Thanks, I really appreciate your getting back, and your advice. I always feel like I am overreacting to this sort of thing. I had thought she was improving, she went to her bowl and ate twice and kept it down. But I just looked at the bowl and she couldn't have eaten more than a few pieces. I'm going to take her into the vet, I'll let you know how it goes. 

When it happened to your Starbuck, was it just general unspecified nausea or was there a diagnosable issue, if I may ask? (btw, I keep forgetting, are you a BSG fan, or a Moby-Dick fan, or...?   

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My Starbuck is named after the character on BSG. Also have a male cat named Apollo. We have 4 cats. My other two are males named Sonny and Casey.

catlover73 said:

My Starbuck is named after the character on BSG. Also have a male cat named Apollo. We have 4 cats. My other two are males named Sonny and Casey.

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Awesome - all fantastic names! My Starbuck is named after the BSG character as well. I considered Apollo - I think it's a great name, but the character bugged me a bit so I didn't want to go with that heh. 

Unfortunately, I may have spoken too soon re: Starbuck being out of the woods. She was great through pretty late last night (I'm quite an insomniac), and was eating regularly through at least like midnight or 2 am. Usually I have her on a diet, but the vet said best thing for now was to get her back to normal and give her plenty of food. She was very energetic and playful the entire time, and still is. But I woke up briefly to feed her breakfast, dumped the excess back in and gave her a regular serving. When I finally got up I realized she hadn't actually gone for it. And is now doing the same thing where she sniffs the bowl then walks away.

The vet suggested adding something like the juice from a tuna can or drippings from cooked chicken to the dry food to give it a stronger, more enticing smell, as well as lightly heating the dry food. I tried both, so far no dice, although she's never been much interested in actual meats. 

The vet called to touch base this morning before I saw that she had stopped eating again and to tell me her bloodwork was clear except for elevated blood glucose level, which she said could be attributed to the stress of having gone to the vet yesterday. I told her that Starbuck was better, but called back and left a message when I realized she stopped eating again. 

Previously the vet had said to see how it goes through today and if she wasn't eating bring her in for another exam and maybe some x-rays or an ultrasound. So I guess I should just keep trying things to get her to eat and then bring her in. It really seemed like the anti-nausea meds had gotten her going again. 

If the vet thinks this is a stomach bug ask if it is possible that the nausea meds wore off. I get migraines and my nausea meds work for about 6 hours. I am not sure if this could be an issue with cat nausea meds.

Yeah, that's a definite possibility. She actually just ate a few bites a few moments ago. I'm feeling slightly more hopeful but it still wasn't all that much that she ate, so I'm going to keep watching. This is turning into a bit of a rollercoaster. I feel like it's most likely a stomach bug. 

But I realized when the vet was asking questions that I had forgotten that I had caught her chewing on a rubber band a few days ago, I have no idea when - probably Sunday or Monday. I took it away but she had already broken it so I have no idea if she managed to eat any of it. The vet said if there was an obstruction it would not just be the loss of appetite, but also throwing up or trying to throw up, lethargy, neither of which she has. 

But yeah, if it doesn't go back to normal soon, I think the next step is x-rays. 

I don't know how sensitive cats are to medications - if it's a bug, can she just keep taking anti-nausea meds until she's better? 

I am not sure about if nausea meds in a cat can be repeated that is something to ask the vet. Nausea meds in humans can be repeated but I am not sure about cats. Check her litter box to see if there any rubber band pieces. Sometimes stuff like that can come out with poop. If you are not seeing the pieces in the litter box then I would mention that issue to the vet.