Cat Tries To Drink Water But After Sip, Stops

[Pixie Perfect]

She just tried a couple times to drink water, still doing the tongue thing. My goodness I wish I could get some answers with that....

 

[foxden]

Can you feed her with an eyedropper or a syringe? I know she's wild, but she might take a little at a time -- if you put a drop of water on her nose, she might catch on and let you drip water in her mouth.
If you make a weak slurry of the cat food in water, you could try this the same way if she takes a little water

 

[Furballsmom]

Hi - did she stop dripping/drooling? have you had a chance to try the kitchen sink anyway? unseasoned broth? tuna juice?
I know you said the vet looked, but is there something caught inbetween her teeth towards the inside of her mouth or stuck in the roof of her mouth?

 

[Pixie Perfect]

Can you feed her with an eyedropper or a syringe? I know she's wild, but she might take a little at a time -- if you put a drop of water on her nose, she might catch on and let you drip water in her mouth.
If you make a weak slurry of the cat food in water, you could try this the same way if she takes a little water

I was actually able to administer some liquid antibiotics that way. She spit quite a bit out but she did a lot better than I thought she would. I'll try later, but I'm actually a little encouraged with her now because she just sipped from the water bowl a little and did not do the tongue thing. Maybe she just has a fear she needs to get over.

Hi - did she stop dripping/drooling? have you had a chance to try the kitchen sink anyway? unseasoned broth? tuna juice?
I know you said the vet looked, but is there something caught inbetween her teeth towards the inside of her mouth or stuck in the roof of her mouth?

I had to let her fast for the antibiotic I just gave her. In an hour I'm gonna try to give her a spoon of yogurt. She has stopped drooling ... until I gave her the antibiotic of course. She probably just hates the taste of it. But at least her tongue went back in her mouth and she's not drooling a lot anymore.

As far as something in her mouth, I don't know. I'm having a hard enough time getting her to cooperate to look at her gums to make sure they aren't too pale. Fortunately her belly (they shaved it) and what I saw of her gums look almost what they normally look like. Much improved from yesterday anyways.

I'm getting mixed signals that she's improving. I hope she can last til tomorrow so I don't have to pay a fortune to the hospital to get the blood work, and I can just take her to her normal vet for the lab.

 

[Furballsmom]

she can last til tomorrow so I don't have to pay a fortune to the hospital to get the blood work, and I can just take her to her normal vet for the lab.

 

[Pixie Perfect]

She didn't vomit the antibiotic up. She went and laid down on a box of Mardi Gras beads (never laid on em before, but they're rough and they don't seem to be upsetting her stomach in any way). She's probably still a little angry at me, but I have a feeling she's turning around. I'm just keeping hope alive. I really wanna see her eat soon.

 

[Furballsmom]

She went and laid down on a box of Mardi Gras beads

 

[Pixie Perfect]

She just drank a little more than just a sip. Not her usual amount, but I think she may be trying to ease herself into drinking cautiously. She's laying on her side with her belly exposed completely exposed, she hasn't done that in days. It's without a doubt more pink than it was yesterday. It pretty much looks like it normally does. Hopefully her anemia is reversed. Now if she'd just eat the yogurt I laid next to her food bowl...

 

[Furballsmom]

Oh my goodness -

 

[Pixie Perfect]

So her antibiotic is Veraflox. I'm starting to suspect that it's the cause of her drooling. She's drooling now 3 hours after giving her the dose. Has anybody else experienced this with their cat on Veraflox?

 

[Pixie Perfect]

... make that 4 hours after her dose. Is it possible to edit posts?

 

[1 bruce 1]

Goodness, I'm so sorry. This is hell. I don't envy you at all. I really hope they find out what's going on.

They mentioned that they're afraid it could be an immune mediated anemia. I believe the technical term is immune mediated hemolytic anemia, but I may be wrong. What I do know, is that if that's the case, it's when the immune system kills the red blood cells that the cat produces. It's also rare in cats. They were saying if she has they'd need to get her started on steroids.

Yeah, IMHA can be really difficult to deal with, we've unfortunately dealt with it. Ours didn't fare very well due to outside complications of ill health (cancer). Had they not had cancer, I feel like they would have made it.
Keep gum color in check, you can't check gum color too often!
It's been a very long time since I've dealt with IMHA but it seems like they were able to separate red blood cells and look under a microscope, and were able to tell by the shape/size or something.

 

[Furballsmom]

Is it possible to edit posts?

Not until a certain amount of posts (I don't know the number) but it's a site rule due to some educational threads getting deleted because the original poster didn't like the feedback they were getting.

 

[mojomom]

So happy to hear she might be improving! Lots of good thoughts for both of you overnight, and hoping for good news tomorrow!

 

[tinydestroyer]

I'm so sorry to hear about your cat feeling badly. I'm also from NOLA originally, and was wondering if your kitty's been checked for heartworms. You may have already answered this, sorry if so, but the anemia and nausea symptoms seem similar to what I've seen before. My dog and my parents dog both got heartworms, even though they were on preventative, because there are so many dang mosquitos down da bayou. Since she had a case of fleas, it could've passed on. If so, I'll also say that both dogs recovered with treatment, but I've never had a cat with heartworms yet (possibly also since i live in CA now.)

Whatever the cause, I hope y'all figure it out fast, and your baby gets better soon!

 

[Pixie Perfect]

I'm so sorry to hear about your cat feeling badly. I'm also from NOLA originally, and was wondering if your kitty's been checked for heartworms. You may have already answered this, sorry if so, but the anemia and nausea symptoms seem similar to what I've seen before. My dog and my parents dog both got heartworms, even though they were on preventative, because there are so many dang mosquitos down da bayou. Since she had a case of fleas, it could've passed on. If so, I'll also say that both dogs recovered with treatment, but I've never had a cat with heartworms yet (possibly also since i live in CA now.)

Whatever the cause, I hope y'all figure it out fast, and your baby gets better soon!

Thank you.

They're checking for all parasites that cause anemia. Their biggest suspicion is a parasite that kills red blood cells. The test has to be shipped to Tennessee, we may get the results as early as today, or as late as Wednesday. That sucks, because my cat is kind of dying and I need that information to know where to go.

We're having labs drawn on her now to see if she's rebounding from her anemia. I'll know the results in a couple hours. If she doesn't need a blood transfusion, we may be in luck. If she needs one, I just don't know. It's gonna be $1800 to do that, and that doesn't even include a feeding tube if she needs it. And still, there's no guarantee that she'll rebound from any of this if it's something besides a parasite. After all of that, we're talking about $3500 spent on all of this treatment and we may end up having to put her to sleep anyways?

I just don't know what to do. If she doesn't need a transfusion, an overnight hospitalization is $1000. A little easier to swallow and much more promising, I think, in a recovery. I would love some advice on what someone would do if they were in my position. We have money but we need that money for a lot of other things (home renovation), and we're willing to spend the money if she will get better. But if it turns out that we spend all of this money and it's immune mediated and she's just gonna die anyways, or if she needs surgery to have a permanent feeding tube put in her neck, we will be wrecked.

This sucks, hard. I can be decisive but this is just so overwhelming and difficult.

 

[Pixie Perfect]

BTW, she still hasn't eaten or drank anything. Woke up and she was in another room with her tongue slightly hanging out. She's still nauseated. She didn't fight me much picking her up, she's certainly lost weight over all of this (which she needed to do but certainly not at the expense of being this ill). Got her in the carrier and she peed a little (luckily on a towel). She did get feisty with the vet though, so she's still got energy at least.

I want nothing more right now than her full recovery. She's only 9 and she was full of life Wednesday morning. She still has a lot of fight left in her. I just feel like it'd be such a crime to put her to sleep right now, but seeing her like this is breaking my heart and if she's just gonna slowly decline, that's also not fair to her either.

 

[Furballsmom]

When you get the results, I'm hoping and praying for you and with you that she doesn't need a blood transfusion. That will go a far piece in your decision making. And, that the other results come back soonest.

A little easier to swallow and much more promising, I think, in a recovery.

This, praying for this for you!!

 

[Pixie Perfect]

Her blood cells are stable. Saturday the number was at 23%, now they're at 24%. Target is in the high 30s. That's good news, and she won't need a blood transfusion for now. We're trying to avoid putting a feeding tube in her neck, and we brought her home for now.

They gave us some anti nausea medication and steroids. We're hoping the steroids stimulates her appetite and desire to drink while at the same time maybe keep her red blood cells from being destroyed by whatever is causing this anemia while the antibiotic works. We'll go back to our regular vet on Wednesday to check on her, hopefully by then the results will be back on what's causing this. The doctors strongly believe it's a blood parasite causing all of this. We seriously hope it is too.

We're running the risk of her developing fatty liver disease if she doesn't eat. I hate making that decision. But we really want to avoid having a tube hanging out of her neck for the rest of her life if we can. Basically it was either hospitalize her today and put a feeding tube down her nose, and she'd be hospitalized for a few days while the food is administered (thousands of dollars depending on how many days she'd be hospitalized), hospitalize her today and have a tube put in her neck and she'd only be hospitalized overnight (about $1200), or take her home and hope she eats for $150.

We brought her home. She ran out of her carrier and gave her the anti-nausea medicine. After that, we let her go and she ran to the door wanting to go out. Realizing we weren't gonna let her out, she went to her water bowl and is now laying her head on it. She's taking an occasional sip. She's actually looking a lot more alert right now than she has the past few days, she's even adjusting her ears to chirping birds. Hopefully the antibiotic is kicking in and she's getting better, we can get her to eat without having to get a feeding tube placed in her neck.

But if those labs come back and show negative on everything, I just don't know ....

 

[Pixie Perfect]

I will say, she swallowed almost every bit of the anti-nausea medicine. She's not trying to throw it up. Haven't seen her do the thing with her tongue since we got her back today. They administered her daily antibiotic for us while she was checked in.

I'm very surprised with how alert she is even after being sedated. Maybe the 3rd day of antibiotic is getting her over the hump.