Eating related muscle contractions and trembling

[Biomehanika]

Getting into this late. Has he been scopes for esophageal ulcers or stomach ulcers? If he was my cat, I would try to avoid any extra ingredients in cat food, such as fruits or vegetables. I would feed a canned diet with limited ingredients. I would also feed small meals and make sure the Carafate is dissolved into water like a thick slurry and given 1 hour before or two hours after meals or medications. Also, and food should be served room temperature.

Hello thanks. No endoscopy yet but my vet mentioned that’s something we could do, especially if it progresses or doesn’t resolve on its own with the help of the Sulfacrate. There has been pretty significant improvement as of late though so I’m not sure how I feel about putting him under and sticking a scope in him with how things are right now. He has an appointment with the ophthalmologist who originally suggested we treat with the doxy this coming Friday (26th), so I am planning to run this all by her as I assume she’s prescribed a lot of doxy dealing with eye/conjunctiva issues constantly and has therefore probably seen a myriad of side effects from it, and she may be better able to gauge what’s going on and what the best next step is. I won’t put him on doxy again though as it seems to have done nothing for him but cause problems. His eye thing is also very minimal and besides looking a bit odd causes no problems, he has no symptoms of infection, ect. I think that’s just how it healed after his bad URI as a kitten months before I got him, and am hoping she will conclude the same once actually seeing him herself in person, and that saga will be over with.

He does eat mostly limited ingredient canned though there are a few/minimal fruits/vegetables in two of the brands he gets sometimes, one of which is the Farmina that has pumpkin and blueberries and his trembling has always been super minimal when he has that. Surprisingly I have noticed the worst refluxy-ness after he eats the most purely meaty food (haven’t tested it much but he seemed the worst after the Feline Natural which has zero fruits or veggies). He does only have these issues with wet food though, zero issues with dry. He gets wet 3x a day and a little bit of dry once a day right before I go to sleep. The wet is always served at or close to room temperature, comes out of the fridge sometimes but I will nuke it for a few seconds in the micro and/or add some hot water to bring it up to temp.

The sulfacrate came in liquid/pre-mixed form and I was instructed to give it 30-40 minutes before his morning and evening wet food, but if you think waiting a full hour would be more beneficial I don’t think it would hurt to try that instead. He doesn’t have much of it left now, though.

P.S The trembling was very light/minimal with breakfast this morning, not quite as subtle as with yesterday’s lunch but definitely the #2 runner-up spot for improvement thus far

Attached are some pictures of his persistently visible little strips of upper conjunctiva (that the rescue thought were a big nothing-burger) that I just thought haaaaad to be investigated, that started this whole mess lol

 

[fionasmom]

When I used Sucralfate for a dog, I was told to use it one hour before anything else was given. However, I am not telling you to ignore your vet's instructions.

 

[Biomehanika]

Moose has been off the Sulfacrate for a few days and is still very lightly trembling while eating his wet food meals but overall the improvement in the intensity is huge. They are very weak and mild always now.

I haven’t noticed any refluxy-ness from him or the weird muscle contractions afterwards for some time now and he just seems much more comfortable after meals.

We saw the board certified ophthalmologist on Friday and she said his eyes/conjunctiva look great and healthy. She ran some (creepy) eye tests that involved poking his eyeball and putting tear test strips into/under his lower eyelids (!!!!) and his tear production is good. No signs of conjunctivitis and the excess visible strips of conjunctiva are probably just due to stretching from the severe chemosis he had during his URI back in September/October before I adopted him, so no need to do anything further there! Chances are he never had chlamydia in the first place and the doxy was unnecessary so I feel bad for putting him through all that but he seems OK/improving a lot so I’m a lot less worried now. Based on his symptoms and their improvement, and the fact that he has been totally fine eating dry food, and that the doxy was liquid and not pill form, she does not think it did any real damage/this is not a stricture type situation that would require an endoscopy to diagnose, and is probably more so related to his gut microbiome being thrown off from the long course of antibiotics, which they can take awhile to recover from, so to keep up with the probiotics. He is off the Sulcrate now but she said it would be totally fine and safe to put him back on it for awhile if he starts acting refluxy or having the weird contractions after eating again. So HOPEFULLY this is mostly the end of this saga, but I’ll definitely update if things change or if the trembling completely stops.

 

[DeesCats]

Thanks for the update on Moose and I hope he continues to improve.

 

[Alldara]

Really good news from the vet! O hope his tummy feels better soon.

 

[fionasmom]

That is great news!