Creative ways to force-feed a cat?

My cat is very sick. She is about 11 years old, and has rapidly dropped to skin and bones. She used to be 12 pounds, and now she is 6 pounds. She hasn't been diagnosed, but the veterinarian is treating her with prednisolone, cereinia, and the chemo drug, chlorambucil. She had an ultrasound, and a needle sample was taking of the fatty tissue in her stomach, but the sample didn't reveal anything to us. I am trying desperately to put weight on her since she won't eat. She didn't eat before I started the chlorambucil, and her appetite seems to have worsened since I started chlorambuicl.

I am currently using syringes to feed her. I use the Wellness cat food brand because it is quite watery, and squirt 3 syringes into her mouth in the morning, and 3 at night (she is difficult to feed so not all the food gets into her mouth). Despite this, she has dropped from 7.2 pounds to 6.0 pounds in a month's time. (she has been on the chlorambucil for only a week now). I tried finger feeding her, but I am working alone, and it requires more than 2 hands. Is there any other method that someone out there has figured out that works well? Thank you.

Hi, and welcome to TCS I'm sorry it's not for a happier reason.

First of all, it sounds like you really need to get your girl diagnosed. It's very hard to give effective treatment without a diagnosis. As she's losing weight so fast, it might be worth cbecking her liver function (assuming you havent already), as cats who aren't eating much are at risck of developing hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver disease). This is very dangerous on its own, but can be reversed if caught early enough.

With food, go to your vet and ask for some Hills a/d. It's designed specifically for sick cats and for syringe feeding. Another advantage is that it's very calorie and nutrient dense, so that you need to get less of it into the cat.

As far as technique, this thread is the best explanation/demonstration I've found [thread="227858"][/thread] These articles are helpful too [article="32998"][/article][article="33011"][/article]

I really hope you find out what's going on with her soon, and that she is able to recover

Have you tried smearing some food on your cat's front paws and see if she'll lick it off?

It's obviously not ideal, but when you only have one person available for a two-person job, you just have to do the best you can to get some calories into a sick kitty as quickly as you can.

Our cats are very much control freaks (probably like most cats), so the more control they feel they have, the more cooperative they are.  So instead of holding them while trying to feed them with a bottle or a syringe, sometimes it helps to let them retreat to a paper sack, a cardboard box, under a towel, or wherever they feel safe -- but you can still reach them.  Then lie down on the floor or otherwise contort yourself so you can squeeze a few drops at a time into the side of your kitty's mouth.  And if you have a blender, you can better maximize the nutritional value of each drop of food by dumping the food into the blender (like the Hill's a/d) without adding extra water to thin the food down (or as little as possible, anyway), and keep blending until the food has liquified enough to easily put into a bottle or a syringe.  Again, it's not ideal, and requires a bit of effort and ingenuity (not to mention physical flexibility!).  But just thought I'd toss out the idea on the outside chance it might be of help. :-)

Hope your vet gets this figured out, and your kitty feels better soon.  (((((HUGS)))))

Hi. As far as diagnosis is concerned, I don't know what else I can do. I took her to my regular vet. They guessed it was IBD. The predisolone wasn't helping. So I took her to a second family vet. They gave her an injection of water. This helped immensely. I don't know why my regular family vet didn't think of this. But nevertheless, the second family vet recommended I take her to the emergency/specialty vet. They did an ultrasound and various blood work. This visit alone cost me over $1000. No diagnosis came from this visit. I wasn't able to have a biopsy done because I only work part-time. I guess a biopsy would be the next step. But even if the biopsy revealed some type of lymphoma, her treatment would remain the same as it is now. I'm not sure what else to do at this point. I am going to start giving her 8 syringes per day of food. I will check out the Hills brand food that was mentioned. Thank you for your help. 

IBD is a notoriously difficult condition to treat I might go back to the vet and reassess the chlorambucil - especially as it's made her eating even worse. If you knew for certain she had cancer I wouldn't question it, but given that the biopsy was inconclusive it's worth asking about. An appetite stimulant might be worth asking about too. [article="32479"][/article] This thread might be helpful to you, too [thread="331720"][/thread]

stephenq @mrsgreenjeens Can you help at all?

I'm so sorry you and your cat are in this predicament.

We once had a cat whose health took a sudden nosedive and lost a lot of weight, and the vets never were able to figure out what was wrong either.  The best they could come up with was to show us how to administer subcutaneous fluids at home, and prescribe some old-school Elavil (amitriptyline) to stimulate her appetite.  It took about 3 weeks for the amitriptyline to kick in, and it was a real challenge to get her to eat enough until then.

IIRC, we had to buy the Hill's a/c from our vet's office, but the slight inconvenience and the price were well worth it.  It's been awhile, but if I can remember anything more that might be helpful, I'll let you know.

ETA:  Oops.  That should have said a/d, not a/c. *blushes*

myfamily said:

 
Hi. As far as diagnosis is concerned, I don't know what else I can do. I took her to my regular vet. They guessed it was IBD. The predisolone wasn't helping. So I took her to a second family vet. They gave her an injection of water. This helped immensely. I don't know why my regular family vet didn't think of this. But nevertheless, the second family vet recommended I take her to the emergency/specialty vet. They did an ultrasound and various blood work. This visit alone cost me over $1000. No diagnosis came from this visit. I wasn't able to have a biopsy done because I only work part-time. I guess a biopsy would be the next step. But even if the biopsy revealed some type of lymphoma, her treatment would remain the same as it is now. I'm not sure what else to do at this point. I am going to start giving her 8 syringes per day of food. I will check out the Hills brand food that was mentioned. Thank you for your help. 

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Biopsies aren't effective once you've started prednisilone so that window has closed unless you took her off  the pred and waited a couple of weeks or a few weeks which may be a bad idea.  Did the ultrasound show thickening of the bowel?  If yes, that suggests IBD or lymphoma and the treatments your cat is on are specifically for both advanced IBD or lymphoma.

I would talk to your vet about a great intervention that my vet used, fluids (as you've described) along with cerenia and zofran (both for nausea) and injectable pepcid and B12.  Can jump start a cat for eating but isn't a cure. Force feeding doesn't solve the problem if she was previously eating and losing weight, the problem being her bowel can't absorb nutrients due to the underlying disease.  A cat with advanced IBD or lymphoma could eat 6 meals a day and still lose weight.  Forcing her to eat when she feels this poorly is possibly just increasing her discomfort.

Your cat has lost 50% of her body weight and isn't responding to treatments and if you can't get IBD or lymphoma into remission then it is fatal.  I'm very sorry that you are dealing with this and that your cat is suffering.  It may be time to start a discussion, painful as it is on potentially letting your cat go before too much more time has past.  How long has she been on the chlorambucil   (Leukeran) ?

Have other diseases like other types of cancer and pacnreatitis been ruled out?

Thanks for your reply. She had B vitamin blood work done. Her B vitamins looked good. She was low on folic acid. I didn't realize that she would still lose weight with her disease if I was force-feeding her often. That's disheartening to hear. She has been on Chlorambucil for a week.

I don't know if other cancers have been ruled out. The ultrasound showed a thickening of the stomach, as you suggested or asked about. They took a needle sample of this thickening, but it showed nothing. I don't know how they would find out about other cancers besides the ultrasound and bloodwork, both which she has undergone.

myfamily said:

 
I don't know if other cancers have been ruled out. The ultrasound showed a thickening of the stomach, as you suggested or asked about. They took a needle sample of this thickening, but it showed nothing. I don't know how they would find out about other cancers besides the ultrasound and bloodwork, both which she has undergone.

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OK then it sounds like those results are consistent up to a point with upper GI IBD, a needle aspirate of the stomach is not a definitive way of obtaining a result, not as good as a full biopsy, but better than nothing although in your case it didn't t help.

B12 is to help her absorb nutrients which is why it is given weekly to IBD cats.

There is still time to get results with the medicines, so I'm sending vibes.

Is it possible this kitty could have the dry form of rip?

Regarding feeding, when I had a sick kitty (fip) I was unable to force feed her. Kitty did not like the distress of it. What she did lile was sardines packed in oil (stinky and even sick kitty's usually will garner an interest) And turkey baby food. I mixed the baby food into a slurry with water to increase her fluids. Sometimes a little sardine oil on dry food. Obviously not an ideal long term diet but it was the only thing I had success with. Good luck to you [emoji]10084[/emoji]

StephenQ said:

 
OK then it sounds like those results are consistent up to a point with upper GI IBD, a needle aspirate of the stomach is not a definitive way of obtaining a result, not as good as a full biopsy, but better than nothing although in your case it didn't t help.

B12 is to help her absorb nutrients which is why it is given weekly to IBD cats.

There is still time to get results with the medicines, so I'm sending vibes.

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Thank you for your reply. You may be on to something about her not being able to absorb nutrients because of her suspected IBD disease. I am force-feeding her 8 Walmart syringes (in case you know the type of syringes Walmart uses) a day. But she is not gaining weight. Right now I have been able to keep her at 6 pounds for the past three days. The doctor gave her a TLI test (I think it was TLI), and it didn't reveal that she was deficient any vitamin B. She was deficient folic acid. I bought some folic acid, but I keep forgetting to give it to her.  I am giving her the Hills a/d cat food that someone earlier suggested. She acts like her teeth are hurting her. She has always been a crunchy food only cat (no soft foods). But I noticed that her teeth started grinding when she ate, and now she just plays with the crunchy food kibble inside her mouth before it drops back to the plate uneaten. I am taken her back into the vet on monday to look at her teeth. The doctor suspects she may have teeth or gum soreness, but it is just an added complication and not the cause for her drastic weight loss. I might ask her about getting a biopsy when I see her again. I have already spent $2000 on vet bills for her, what's another couple hundred, or whatever it cost. My understanding, though, is they don't take the biopsy from the right place, then they still won't get an answer. I wonder why my doctor didn't suggest B12 for absorption. Is B12 something I can buy over the counter? Or is it a veterinarian product? Thank you for your help.

How is your kitty? The tossing around of the dry food then spitting it out can also indicate nausea. Maybe she needs something for that to help her.

Thank you, why didn't my veterinarian specialists know this? I took her to a specialist and told her exactly what I said here about her tossing her dry food around in her mouth before it falls back to the plate. She is on Cerenia for nausea, and this is working very well. But maybe the urge to vomit is still with her, and this is why she makes funny movements with her head like she is trying to spit something out. She is still losing weight. She is 5.5 pounds now. I have just started force feeding her 1 1/4 cans a day of food. The larger cans, not the smaller cans. (5.5 ounce cans). I am giving her Hills a/d and also Evo. So it's a lot of force feeding, I hope it helps her gain weight. Thanks for asking and caring. 

My family, wondering how your kitty is doing?