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- Aug 4, 2023
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Hi everyone! I've been browsing this forum for the past few days and I decided to join because I could really use some advice. I'm sorry this post will probably be quite long because of all the background info. I just want to give you all the info I can so that I can best help my cat.
We adopted Paisley from a rescue in 2017 when she was approximately 5 years old. She is an only cat and she is indoor only. She was a bit overweight when we adopted her and she also had some issues with overgrooming but otherwise she was perfectly healthy. She is a very sweet kitty at home, but we soon found out that she is a terror at the Vet. This info might be helpful later in this post.
About a year ago, she became ravenously hungry. At the time we were feeding her 3 oz of wet food twice daily, at 4am and 4 pm, and I gave her treats once or sometimes twice a day. She started waking us up at 2-3am and sometimes even earlier because she was so hungry and she would start bugging me for her dinner at 1pm. Then she started losing weight. And avoiding her litterbox.
I scoop her box several times a day and wash it out once a week, so I didn't think it was a dirty box issue. I moved her box to a new location and that seemed to help momentarily, but then she started pooping on the carpet again about once or twice a week. I got her a new box and new litter which seemed to not help at all, so I switched back to the regular litter and now she has two boxes. Then she started vomiting. She has always had difficulty coughing up furballs but this was different. She would vomit several times a week and sometimes she would then eat the vomit. By now she was pooping outside of her litterbox almost every time, she was losing weight and she was still ravenously hungry.
I made an appointment with the Vet for July 11, which was about the same time she would have her yearly senior exam plus rabies shot and bloodwork for Revolution flea treatment. Because of the symptoms and behavior I had told them about, they wanted to get a full blood workup done on her, so they had to sedate her with Ketamine (because she tries to kill them every time she goes in). She was there for about 5 hours and they were unable to do her rabies shot or her test for the Revolution at that time.
The bloodwork showed that she was pre-hyperthyroid (which makes the always hungry and losing weight thing make sense) but what was most concerning was her elevated liver enzymes. They prescribed Hill's Prescription Thyroid food y/d (dry and wet) which I bought immediately and that's all I've been feeding her since. They also recommended an abdominal ultrasound which we scheduled for July 31st. They prescribed 2 capsules of Gabapentin for me to give her in a syringe mixed with tuna juice -- one the night before and the other the morning of her appointment. The dosing went surprisingly well and she was very well behaved all morning until I dropped her off at the vet at 8am. They were going to do the ultrasound and possibly a needle aspiration, her rabies shot and the bloodwork for her Revolution. They said they would call me when she was ready to be picked up, but I didn't hear from them until after 3:30pm, where they told me to pick her up at 4:30pm. They did give her the rabies shot, but only for one year rather than the three year she had been getting. They did not do the bloodwork for her Revolution, so I will have to bring her in again for that within a couple of weeks.
The ultrasound showed inflamation of her pancreas, liver and intestines. The vet called it Triaditis. They prescribed Prednisalone to reduce the inflamation, twice a day for 7 days, then once a day for 7 days, and then every other day until it's gone. As easy as it was to syringe her with the Gabapentin, let me tell you that the Prednisalone has been a complete nightmare. Paisley now seems to hate me, I'm a scratched up mess, and she has Prednisalone all over the fur of her neck. And this is only day 4!
And now I find out that I'm also supposed to give her 1 tablet of Denamarin by mouth once a day AND Ursodiol Soft Chew (compounded) once a day. I would probably be losing my mind right about now if she wasn't starting to gain weight, pooping in her box more often and not vomiting at all for the past few days. She is still ravenously hungry, though.
I like the vet that Paisley sees, but I have been wondering if I should take her to a different vet. Not because I think her current vet is incompetent, but because I feel like there's a disconnect somewhere in our communication. Yes, they do eventually call me back and try to answer my questions, but I just wonder why they didn't originally tell me some of the things I'm having to call them about later. For example, I had the vet tech come out and explain how to syringe the Prednisalone. However, she didn't tell me that there was a plastic cap inside the bottle with a small hole in it that the syringe didn't seem to fit into, so I was taking that thing off to draw up the medicine. I later found out that the syringe had to be really shoved into the inner plastic cap for a tight fit. Little things like that make me wonder if Paisley is getting the best care or if I'm just a complete idiot.
Anyway, long story longer, if any of you have any experience with this sort of thing, I'd really appreciate any and all help I can get. Thanks in advance
Oh, and if the lab results would be helpful, I can post them too. Thanks again!
We adopted Paisley from a rescue in 2017 when she was approximately 5 years old. She is an only cat and she is indoor only. She was a bit overweight when we adopted her and she also had some issues with overgrooming but otherwise she was perfectly healthy. She is a very sweet kitty at home, but we soon found out that she is a terror at the Vet. This info might be helpful later in this post.
About a year ago, she became ravenously hungry. At the time we were feeding her 3 oz of wet food twice daily, at 4am and 4 pm, and I gave her treats once or sometimes twice a day. She started waking us up at 2-3am and sometimes even earlier because she was so hungry and she would start bugging me for her dinner at 1pm. Then she started losing weight. And avoiding her litterbox.
I scoop her box several times a day and wash it out once a week, so I didn't think it was a dirty box issue. I moved her box to a new location and that seemed to help momentarily, but then she started pooping on the carpet again about once or twice a week. I got her a new box and new litter which seemed to not help at all, so I switched back to the regular litter and now she has two boxes. Then she started vomiting. She has always had difficulty coughing up furballs but this was different. She would vomit several times a week and sometimes she would then eat the vomit. By now she was pooping outside of her litterbox almost every time, she was losing weight and she was still ravenously hungry.
I made an appointment with the Vet for July 11, which was about the same time she would have her yearly senior exam plus rabies shot and bloodwork for Revolution flea treatment. Because of the symptoms and behavior I had told them about, they wanted to get a full blood workup done on her, so they had to sedate her with Ketamine (because she tries to kill them every time she goes in). She was there for about 5 hours and they were unable to do her rabies shot or her test for the Revolution at that time.
The bloodwork showed that she was pre-hyperthyroid (which makes the always hungry and losing weight thing make sense) but what was most concerning was her elevated liver enzymes. They prescribed Hill's Prescription Thyroid food y/d (dry and wet) which I bought immediately and that's all I've been feeding her since. They also recommended an abdominal ultrasound which we scheduled for July 31st. They prescribed 2 capsules of Gabapentin for me to give her in a syringe mixed with tuna juice -- one the night before and the other the morning of her appointment. The dosing went surprisingly well and she was very well behaved all morning until I dropped her off at the vet at 8am. They were going to do the ultrasound and possibly a needle aspiration, her rabies shot and the bloodwork for her Revolution. They said they would call me when she was ready to be picked up, but I didn't hear from them until after 3:30pm, where they told me to pick her up at 4:30pm. They did give her the rabies shot, but only for one year rather than the three year she had been getting. They did not do the bloodwork for her Revolution, so I will have to bring her in again for that within a couple of weeks.
The ultrasound showed inflamation of her pancreas, liver and intestines. The vet called it Triaditis. They prescribed Prednisalone to reduce the inflamation, twice a day for 7 days, then once a day for 7 days, and then every other day until it's gone. As easy as it was to syringe her with the Gabapentin, let me tell you that the Prednisalone has been a complete nightmare. Paisley now seems to hate me, I'm a scratched up mess, and she has Prednisalone all over the fur of her neck. And this is only day 4!
And now I find out that I'm also supposed to give her 1 tablet of Denamarin by mouth once a day AND Ursodiol Soft Chew (compounded) once a day. I would probably be losing my mind right about now if she wasn't starting to gain weight, pooping in her box more often and not vomiting at all for the past few days. She is still ravenously hungry, though.
I like the vet that Paisley sees, but I have been wondering if I should take her to a different vet. Not because I think her current vet is incompetent, but because I feel like there's a disconnect somewhere in our communication. Yes, they do eventually call me back and try to answer my questions, but I just wonder why they didn't originally tell me some of the things I'm having to call them about later. For example, I had the vet tech come out and explain how to syringe the Prednisalone. However, she didn't tell me that there was a plastic cap inside the bottle with a small hole in it that the syringe didn't seem to fit into, so I was taking that thing off to draw up the medicine. I later found out that the syringe had to be really shoved into the inner plastic cap for a tight fit. Little things like that make me wonder if Paisley is getting the best care or if I'm just a complete idiot.
Anyway, long story longer, if any of you have any experience with this sort of thing, I'd really appreciate any and all help I can get. Thanks in advance
Oh, and if the lab results would be helpful, I can post them too. Thanks again!
