Flowerbelle's turn: Heart problem? Asthma? Megacolon

[alleygirl]

Laurie, I want to point out that way back when... on Riley's first x-rays they were thinking his heart was enlarged also but just as with Flowerbelle, it turned out to be a position thing. Apparently, its hard to get cats to lay perfectly flat on their back for an x-ray. Who would have though? :lol3::lol3: Riley did later have a heart ultrasound by the cardiologist which confirmed no heart problems. As for the lungs though, the word they used over and over to describe his x-rays was "Cloudy". Hopefully Flowerbelle won't have to deal with life-long asthma treatments but its my understanding that the bronchitis can be chronic also. Not sure of the details since its been a while since I read the info but I believe the treatment is different for the two conditions also.

Keep us posted and sending mega vibes to your girl

 

[feralvr]

:cross: for the cardiologist to concur with all of the positive finding's on Flowerbelle's heart :cross: I am sure he will :nod: AND Let's just hope the "DANG GIRL, GONE WRONG" does it's job and makes everything RIGHT .....

 

[jcat]

It's good to hear it's probably not her heart, and hopefully everything else can be cleared up. More for Flowerbelle. :cross: that the doxy helps.

The xrays are difficult even with a very docile cat, so it doesn't surprise me that they're not as clear as desired.

 

[momto4kitties]

Hi Laurie  I'm so glad to heat Flowerbelle doesn't have a heart problem, that is the best news.  I'm sorry she is sick though, I know you had your plate full dealing with Lazlo and his condition, it can't be easy, but you are a wonderfyl Meowmy and I know your babies will be ok.

Hugs to all the kitties

Tammy

 

[ldg]

Paula, thanks for sharing that. :nod: Makes sense.

Actually, her xray was clear. It's just the Doc thought her heart was enlarged because of how much of it sat on the sternum. The radiologist doesn't think it's an issue. Her records weren't transferred to her regular vet yet - probably tomorrow. :nod: He'll decide whether or not he wants the xrays sent to him, or if he wants to send the old xrays to the radiologist for comparison. :nod:

As to the liquid Doxy.... we picked it up today, and I have to give her 5ml a day. I HATE giving liquids to cats, especially Flowerbelle, she is the WORST with her flailing little paws and her teeney little head. AND it's raspberry flavored. (It's for kids LOL).

Well, since we've worked out our "arrangement" for my syringe feeding her the pumpkin peacefully, I figured I mix it with a/d and syringe her with it.

But I forgot she loves strawberry ice cream and yogurt! As it turns out, I can squirt a little from the syringe onto my finger (like it's a treat), and she'll lick it up. She ate most of the syringe. (She'd just eaten dinner though). So now I know - feed her doxy mixed with food on my finger instead of one of her meals. :lol3:

But yes - I've got LOTS of alarms set to remind me when to do what. Between Flowerbelle, Lazlo, Chumley, and Baloo I'm administering 9 meds/herbs 21x a day (some are two pills at the same time, I didn't count those as additional times a day - if I did, that number goes up a lot LOL), and Lazlo gets an additional two pills every three days (and chemo every other week at the vet). :lol3: And that's not counting the L-lysine supplement I have to remember to add to which cat's food twice a day, the ferals' food, the pumpkin that has to be syringed into Lazlo and Flowerbelle daily, and the Revolution and Frontline being put on Dot and Baloo alternating every two weeks.

Speaking of which... Lazlo's "pepcid a/c" alarm just went off....

 

[feralvr]

each kitty needs their own alarm with bells and whistles. Girls can have the bells and the boys can have the whistles :lol3: You have a lot more than I have to give each day and I can barely keep it straight. You are running your own little care clinic at home , just make sure you give the right pills/herbs to the right patient. Oh and you forgot to add Gary's meds and he needs a special alarm too. Maybe a Gong for Gary . You need a big huge [COLOR=#Yellow]HUG[/COLOR] for all you do for your babies :sun::sun::sun:

and :rub: all around for the patients tonight :heart3:

 

[jcat]

OMG, Laurie, and I've been nervous about giving one cat the right pills on time!!!

 

[ldg]

Oh Tricia, I HAVE to use that scaredy cat!!!!!! :lol3:

THANKFULLY the medications/herbs are all SO different, I don't have to worry about mixing them up:

Small capsules (Dong Gui Cong Rong - now rechristened "Dang girl, gone wrong!" - Flowerbelle two, 2x/day),
large capsules (Jade Lady - Lazlo one pill 2x/day),
1/4 orange oval pill, Lazlo (Cerenia - am, 1x/day)
and square pink pill (pepcid a/c - pm), Lazlo (1x per day);
little white tablet (pred), Lazlo (1x per day);
gigantic white tablet (sucralfate), Lazlo (1/2 tablet 2x/day);
gigantic herbal tablet ("Propserous Farmer"), Chumley & Baloo (3x/day);
tincture (Consolidate Qi), Chumley & Baloo (in ALL meals, 4x/day);
brown powder (slippery elm), Chumley & Baloo (1/4t in food 2x/day);
Aloe vera juice, Chumley & Baloo, (1/4t in food 2x/day)
Probiotic - capsule in fridge - sprinkled on Chum & Baloo's food, 2x/day (when I give them the slippery elm/aloe vera juice)
white powder (L-lysine), Ming Loy, Billy (1/8t in food once a day); Flowerbelle (in food, 2x/day);
Syringe Laz & Flowerbelle with a tablespoon of pumpkin mixed with a/d once a day (evenings)
...and now Flowerbelle, 5ml of bright pink liquid (Doxycycline) mixed with food, fed on my finger once a day.

...and 1/4 orange capsule (Yunnan Baio) for Lazlo every three days, and
1/4 of mirtazipine for Lazlo every three days.

It's a lot of herbals... but they are SO working. :nod: Lazlo's gingivitis is GONE. (Jade Lady). Chumley's not itchy at ALL (Prosperous Farmer). I know for SURE the Consolidate Qi has fixed the diarrhea, because I just got a bottle that's not labeled correctly, so I'm waiting for the replacement, and he and Baloo haven't had Consolidate Qi for five days - and the diarrhea is back. So no question it's doing the job. As to the Dang girl, gone wrong! herb... Doc says it may take a few months for the nerves in Flowerbelle's colon to ... regrow? .... but we'll probably do a follow-up xray in 4-6 months to check in on her GI system, and we'll know whether it worked or not. I'm confident it will - everything else she's prescribed has really helped. :nod: I also know she's not selling us smoke... because we don't buy the herbs through the vet. She tells me where to buy them cheaper online.

*********************************

Flowerbelle update. Cardiologist report is in. No sign of CHF. He does recommend we have her blood pressure taken... but if she does have chronic bronchitis, we can use steroids to manage the inflammation. :bigthumb: Her records are being sent to Stan (the great vet that saved her life and Tuxie's life). Today is his surgery day, so I don't know if we'll hear from him tonight or tomorrow morning, but we'll get next steps from him. Holistic vet said we should go ahead and get her BP done with him.... and we'll just see what he has to say about next steps. Basically I think we need to figure out if she has early stages of asthma OR chronic bronchitis. Treatment is different.

In the meantime... she'll be on the doxy for 20 days, and we'll see what happens.



But she's running around here playing like a maniac - and showing NO signs of any respiratory distress. No coughing episodes, and no vomiting recently.... :cross:

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

What about Gary's pills?

Holy Cow!  I'm with Tricia...stressing out over giving Sven his Pepcid AC twice a day, and here you are dosing out what appears to me to be thousands of pills daily.  Most times the only way Sven will take his Pepcid is if I non-chalantly leave the room while his "spiked" treat is in a pile of other treats in front of him, but the problem with doing that is I can never be absolutely 100% sure where it went!  For all I know he has a little pile of pills hidden somewhere, that sneaky little devil. 

Well, all I can say is...what a great nurse you are...they are all lucky to have you, and I'm sure they know it.

 

[ldg]

Stan called. WE LOVE THIS MAN! :lol3: He started with this, "There is nothing on the radiologist report that is going to keep me up at night." He boiled it down: basically with digital xrays, the method used affects what you see (how you set it up to look for what). The radiologist believes her lungs are within completely normal range. Though UNLIKELY, there is a potential pattern of interstitial bronchitis, but radiologist thinks it has to do with the xray, not her lungs.

As to her colon, there were a lot of air pockets - meaning she was gulping air - something very common in nervous cats. There was NO mention of megacolon by the radiologist. Stan says that's something hard to diagnose from an xray, and not with just the one series. However - the facts are that she had small hard poops, and there was a bunch stuck up in her small intestine. Stan does concur - that could definitely have been the cause of her throwing up undigested food. So keep her on the pumpkin, and since the herbs Dr. Cheng has prescribed for everyone else for various things have done so much good, he sees no harm in following her advice here. :lol3:

He says this radiologist is "quite frankly, just brilliant," so he sees no need to bother comparing the old xray with the new one. If Dr. Goggin has reported that her heart is not enlarged, her heart is not enlarged, period.

The cardiologist report was NOT faxed. So we'll get that sent up tomorrow. If he recommends we get her bp taken, then it's probably a good thing to do. But taken in context of radiologist report and blood work, there is no urgency, and we have no reason to worry.

He sees no harm in finishing the 20 days of doxy... it covers "most" lung infections in cats, so might as well finish it up now that we've started it.

*******************************
Gary's upset that Dr. Cheng seems to be a bit of an alarmist LOL. BUT... I pointed out, we did just have the experience with Lazlo where we didn't take the most conservative approach first, and it turns out we should have. So while we may have been worried.... the bottom line is that we have addressed Flowerbelle's issue with constipation that had been going untreated, probably was causing her to throw up, and we learned there's probably nothing else wrong with her.

 

[carolina]

YEAH!!!!!! Relief is all around, it seems! :cross: for more good days to come :cross:

 

[feralvr]

For the brilliant group of vet's you have!!!!!!!!!! For this wonderful news about our sweet beauty Flowerbelle. I am just ALL smiles and beaming with :sun: :sun: :sun: that she is feeling so great too!!!!!!!!!!

p.s. I am all worn out reading the LOOOOOOOONG list of herbs/meds you have to dole out each day!! Guess I can't complain to you about my list :lol3: You have a full-time job, around the clock, Kitty Clinic running out of your home. You are doing such an incredible job of caring for your furbabies. Just seriously AMAZING :heart3: :heart3:

 

[momto4kitties]

OH I'm so relieved to know Flowerbelle results are good, Yay!  That girl will get better, she has wonderful parents who care about her.  I think sometimes it is good when a vet gets worried and seems a little alarmist because that means they really care.  I'm just so glad things are looking good for her. 

 

[ldg]

What about Gary's pills?:lol3:

Holy Cow!  I'm with Tricia...stressing out over giving Sven his Pepcid AC twice a day, and here you are dosing out what appears to me to be thousands of pills daily.  Most times the only way Sven will take his Pepcid is if I non-chalantly leave the room while his "spiked" treat is in a pile of other treats in front of him, but the problem with doing that is I can never be absolutely 100% sure where it went!  For all I know he has a little pile of pills hidden somewhere, that sneaky little devil. 

Well, all I can say is...what a great nurse you are...they are all lucky to have you, and I'm sure they know it.

I am lucky. :nod: Lazlo I just pop them down his throat. Flowerbelle squirms, but I get them in there LOL. Chumley and Baloo eat theirs in the pill pocket with cat food smooshed on the outside. Everyone's eating the stuff mixed in or sprinkled on their food.

In fact... those herbal pills I have to give Chum and Bill - there must be something tasty about them, because when Chum eats the outside of the pill pocket and I don't see he left the pill behind, Shelly eats them.

 

[ldg]

OK. Flowerbelle is a regular little pooper now (and a stinker, though thankfully her poops aren't stinky :lol3: ). But we finished the doxy... the end of the week before? A while ago. A little cough started up a couple of days after it was done. Just a little cough, once a day maybe.

Well, now it's up to several times a day - and we have the humidifiers blasting in here. We're keeping it about 35% humidity despite the heater.

So we're off to Stan (the amazing non-holistic vet LOL) on Monday. She needed her blood pressure taken anyway.

It seems like she's got chronic bronchitis. Not quite sure how we want to treat it. May take her to Dr. Cheng too. Don't know if there's a holistic alternative - I know steroids are usually the drug of choice (when not contraindicated because of a heart condition, that it seems she does not have).

 

[jennyr]

Catching up on this thread,Laurie! and hoping you can find the right balance of meds/herbs for Flowerbelle. I do admire you, how you can follow that regime. I have three on meds right now and it is a nightmare remembering who gets what when (and sometimes I forget my own three daily pills!).

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.  Coughing is always an alarm to me.  So...are we sure it's not asthma?  I'm so glad her heart has been checked and given the AOK. 

for you and Flowerbelle, (and everyone else there!)

 

[feralvr]

For sweet, darling Flowerbelle.... Odd how she started coughing a few days after the Doxy was finished. HMMMMM - I wonder - if it could be a chronic bronchitis or even an allergy issue :dk: You will see on Monday :cross: I am sorry to hear she has a little bit of a cough though again. BUT the good news is that she didn't cough on the Doxy, right? So that means to me anyway - that it is not anything really serious :nod:. I think you will be able to manage this with the help of Dr. Cheng too - and the raw diet might just help her out as well :cross:

and :heart3: and :rub: and :sun:

 

[ldg]

Yeah, the pattern was bronchitis, not asthma. The radiologist report says her heart is normal, the cardiologist report agreed. We're having her blood pressure taken as a precaution.

I did speak to Dr. Cheng today. She's pleased on the raw food update :lol3: , but was (of course) sorry to hear about Flowerbelle. After we see Stan on Monday, we'll probably go see Dr. Cheng the following week. She says she has a lot of herbal options for chronic bronchitis, most work really well. So that's very encouraging! I expect Stan will recommend the normal course of action, steroids. We'll go that route if we need to, of course, but we'll start with the alternatives. :nod:

But she's doing well on the poop front. Dr. Cheng suggested we use the Dang Girl Gone Wrong herb for at least a few months, so we're off to pick up some more tomorrow. :lol3: