Cat owner for 30+ years VS. the vet

[Vulky]

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Thank-you!

 

[Alldara]

Thank - you, I will look those up. I already order most of my food through chewy, so if I can find it there I'll give it a try. Getting him to eat at all is different right now.

Whew! I've been there. Hopefully you find something that works.

 

[iPappy]

Vulky I hope things are better today!

 

[Vulky]

I will never forget meeting someone when I was volunteering for a rescue at petco. She told me her cat had had an anaphylactic reaction at her first Dvm visit from a vaccine. So, she never took her back to the Dvm again and never got any more shots. This cat ate dry friskies her whole life and was an indoor only… she lived until she was 22.

I don't know what's up with food and vets these days, but your story reminded me of my two childhood cats I took with me when I moved away from home - they went to the vet maybe half a dozen times in their lives, ate Cat Chow from the grocery store and a can of Friskies every night and they lived to be 19 and 25. Never went off their food, never had much sickness, never had their teeth cleaned.... etc. etc. The old gal who lived to be 25 finally moved on to Fancy Feast the last 5-6 years of her life and refused dry food. They wore old fashioned flea collars in the summer if a flea got in until Advantage was invented, but they needed it maybe once a year. They rarely went outside and never left the front porch if they did. Both of them were happy until the last year of their life, when they slowed down and mostly slept until diabetes got one and just old age the other. I often wish I could go back to those days!

I'm sorry you are battling mold - we used to rehab houses and it is the devil to get rid of. I hope you have it on the run and it never returns!

 

[Vulky]

Vulky I hope things are better today!

Well, they are different. Cornflake has me confused - he seems a little better all on his own, is eating the Science Diet and drinking water sparingly, and having firm but weirdly colored putty-like poop that stinks the house out. No diarrhea from him, eating tiny amounts and happy to spend most of the day laying belly down on a heating pad and passing gas. He seems uncomfortable, but not on death's door like he was a couple days ago. I'm giving him a breather before calling the vet again.

My old boy is determined to drive me to the looney bin - after the first round of terrible diarrhea, and after consulting the lovely people here and feeling like maybe I wasn't insane to feed the cats plain food for bad stomachs, I put everyone on chicken and rice (well, every cat - the hubby isn't that keen on chicken and rice every night) with a small serving of their regular dry (except for Cornflake who is in isolation with the SD food). Yesterday, he was doing better, less grumpy with less awful poopy and acting o.k. Then today he snuck into Cornflake's room while I was cleaning and gobbled at the SD, then later door darted outside and got into the stray cat's cheap Cat Chow Naturals! He was stopped and corralled a.s.a.p. both times, but the damage was done and tonight we are back to the diarrhea! And tired, poorly, old cat misery.

As for the fleas, we bit the bullet and bathed everyone but Mr. Black, who tends to both go insane in water and get mats on his semi-long hair that he will NOT let anyone comb out. Then we vacuumed, again! and washed all the beds and blankets and rugs.... We threw out cardboard scratchers that looked like they could be flea condos and sprayed in places the cats are around, but not directly in or on - under the sofa and piano, behind furniture, etc. I think I made to bed around 4:30 am. This morning when everyone was dry and over being offended by the bath, I applied Advantage and hoped for the best. So far, we have no reactions, I think - Mr. Black has his diarrhea, but I think that's from his idiot desire to eat some thing different. We certainly have less itching everywhere and so far no fleas on the flea comb. Woohoo!

Fingers crossed we get Mr. Black to eat HIS food tomorrow and Cornflake farts his way to recovery. Not to sound like a broken record, but thanks, everyone, who has helped me get through this without having a non-stop panic attack. I don't always have time to be here, but I love this site!

 

[Vulky]

Well, poo. Literally. Now Cornflake has diarrhea of epic smelly proportions. Mr Black, still, too. More than seems proportionate to the amount they eat. I called the vet and got the whole "oh, the Science Diet doesn't do that!" speech and a promise to call back with what to do that never happened. I am lost and scared for my poor cats. I have taken up all the food and today I am feeding just small amounts of dry food only when they ask - with nothing for Cornflake, I thought his gut could have a rest for the afternoon.

I have NO IDEA what to do now. And I need to feed poor Cornflake something soon. The only food available around here is whatever Walmart has, very cheap, basic stuff. I was leery of the SD because it is full of grains and I think Cornflake was one of ours that didn't do well on corn or wheat, something else I told the vet that was dismissed. I don't know if its the food I have, or the treats, or the water (we have had bad water before - I bought several gallons of bottled today and swapped out all the water bowls and fountains), or a visit from the f*** up fairy that started all this, but I don't think the SD helped. Pretty sure it made it worse.

Does anyone think the Advantage be doing this? Making it all worse? I noticed Mr. Black has a definite twitch all along his back to day that is making him "don't touch me" angry, that I am sure is from the stuff, and I feel awful about it, but I also kind of feel like I had no other choice as he is impossible to groom, things like DE aggravate his upper respiratory issues, and the fleas were winning. He spent 8 years of his life feral, then he decided he liked me, but he definitely has strong opinions on what he deems inappropriate touching.

Any ideas, good people? I have baby food, but in the past that has given Cornflake a bad stomach, probably because I can only find the kind with starch in it. I have homemade chicken with a small amount of rice. I have more chicken in the freezer for some potentially without rice. I have some cat treat vacuum wrapped tuna fillets and Stelly and Chewy's freeze dried raw rabbit in the emergency cat go-kits, I thought about giving that to Cornflake and Mr. Black (in tiny portions at first), but I don't want to make things worse by playing musical foods. I will say my other two cats who eat the dry and drink the water do not have diarrhea (at least not yet) and Mr. Black didn't until he ate the SD - he was just off his food.

I have a huge sale for the local fall festival here I am supposed to be preparing for this weekend and today has been a big litter box scrubbing festival instead.

If anyone has any thoughts on what to try next, I would be delighted down to my pet-friendly disinfecting soap-soaked knees to hear them.

 

[Alldara]

Probiotics? Probiotics


Each cat is different when it comes to food. My childhood cat did 25 years on grocery store food, but the first cat I raised had tummy issues.

Sometimes it's really hard to tell what the issue is. It could be the SD. It could be the diet change and will sort out over tine. For a vet to say, "it doesn't do that." is not reasonable. "It shouldn't do that." Is a perfectly fine statement but again, cats are individuals.



Did a poo make it to the vet for testing?

 

[Vulky]

Probiotics? Probiotics


Each cat is different when it comes to food. My childhood cat did 25 years on grocery store food, but the first cat I raised had tummy issues.

Sometimes it's really hard to tell what the issue is. It could be the SD. It could be the diet change and will sort out over tine. For a vet to say, "it doesn't do that." is not reasonable. "It shouldn't do that." Is a perfectly fine statement but again, cats are individuals.



Did a poo make it to the vet for testing?

Thanks for the reply.
And yep, one of the first things I did when I could get a poo fresh enough. I had to request the poo be tested, the vet didn't think it was necessary. They told me they would contact me if they found anything of interest and that they wouldn't if they didn't. Because I've been in touch a couple times since then with the ongoing problems, I've asked if they found anything at all (especially considering that before I turned in the sample the Dr. wanted to give Cornflake three days of de-wormer "just in case," then changed his mind for fear it made matters worse), and for some reason they just keep talking about other things and I have yet to get an answer. Frustration isn't a strong enough word right now for how I feel about dealing with this vet clinic.

You are so right about the individuality of cats, something I can't seem to get across to my vet. I have told him before about two of my cats needing a lid or simple food (Cornflake is one of them), because it seems the foods with lots of extra ingredients (chicory root or vegetables, herbs or multiple meats, multiple grains, etc.) just lead to extra vomiting. He has dismissed that on multiple occasions, saying its all about the balance of protein, fat, and fiber, and the sources of those things don't matter. All I know is what I see, and I see a cat who makes me a mess and is sore and unhappy without his plain chicken and rice, no wheat, no corn, no soy, no berries or other odd stuff food.

When it comes to probiotics, I don't know what ones are good and what ones aren't. I have had foods with them in in the past and they haven't impressed me much.

 

[Alldara]

This is link to another thread where people recommend ones that have worked for them: Probiotics

probiotics baked into foods aren't particularly helpful as they are likely no longer alive. I use a generic human brand. Magnus does well on acidophilus, Ghost takes just a regular human one. The same human one that makes Magnus vomit.

i will have to agree about the balance of things also contributing...but some cats have sensitivities. It's just how it is.

Its unfortunate about the vet. But the way I see it is this: I can't imagine a human doctor having to have knowledge on multiple different species and keep up to date on all of that information. My first vet was really great with cats but the only one in the city who did pocket pets at the time. There was a pocket pet rescue who started to go there and the adopters would go there....Eventually, updated cat knowledge fell to the wayside. It didn't mean he stopped being good, but it did mean stuff got missed or protocols that had been updated didn't get followed (according to the directives on the VCA website). Keeping up on pocket pets newest info like the rescue kind of demanded in a way was most vital to his business. He hired new vets trained mostly in pocket pets, and Nobel's favourite vet moved to the Cat Hospital.

for those vets like my former one, there's those who will converse and be open to new information and those who are too prideful. It's unfortunate when the prideful ones are in the areas where there no other options.

 

[Fergusboy]

Science Diet is expensive and full of things like rice. Cats need to eat meat. The only Science Diet i have used recently is A/D canned food, which they seem to love. I only use it when someone is sick. My old kitty girl has colitis & loose poop, so she gets whole psyllium seed mixed in her canned good at every meal. Her poop is much firmer now. As for flea treatments - Frontline is well known to not be very effective. I use Advantage sparingly (not a big flea problem around here and my cats are all indoors). I like that it is a topical and does enter their bloodstream like Revolution does. None of my zillion cats have had a bad reaction to it.