Ongoing Mystery Issue

[olivemarie]

Over the past two years, I’ve taken my cat to three different vets who can’t identify a known issue with my cat so I’m hoping someone here might have ideas.

A while back, Olive started leaving behind tan liquid marks. Took her to the vet and they would express her anal glands, which would help for about 3 months before we needed to do it again. About a year ago, they’d fill up right away and several expensive tests and procedures later, it’s gotten worse - to the point that she always had poop on her butt and constantly leaves behind marks. Even though I try to clean her up each day, it’s impossible to keep up with so the vet shaves her butt each time we visit. And now, her glands are too enlarged and hardened to express. The vet said she has never seen anything like it, especially since they are evenly enlarged.

She suggested 3 options:
1) Schedule an appointment with a specialist, she’s guessing an internist
2) Schedule a Cytology procedure where they will pierce the glands to express them and take a cell sample to rule out cancer (she had to have them expressed this way about 3 months ago when they were impacted, but it clearly wasn’t a long term solution)
3) Have a surgery to remove the anal glands (my concern here is that it’s something beyond the glands)

Here is a little extra background info:
- Olive is 4 years old, she’s had other health issues like ringworm and feline HIV when she was found in a dumpster as a kitten
- She’s overweight, 14 pounds now, but even with a reduced diet she doesn’t lose weight and she’s always hungry
-She doesn’t act like she’s in pain or uncomfortable and she’s pretty active
-She doesn’t have diarrhea so I don’t understand how she gets so much poop in her fur
-She had been on a purely dry diet until about three weeks ago, now it’s dry food in the morning and wet food at night

Thank you in advance for any ideas or similar experiences you’ve had!

 

[maggie101]

Is she using the litter box? If it's covered,take the top off. Long or short fur? Give wet in the morning since she has been without food since her last meal at night

 

[olivemarie]

Is she using the litter box? If it's covered,take the top off. Long or short fur? Give wet in the morning since she has been without food since her last meal at night

She’s using the litter box and doesn’t act like it bothers her. Long fur but she gets groomed in the summer and they trim her fur.

I will switch the wet food to morning, thank you!

 

[stephanietx]

I had a cat who did this. Her poops were too dry and hard and most likely hurt when they came out. We suspect she was scooting to scratch herself. We increased her wet food servings and added a little bit of plain canned pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie mix) to her wet food and it helped soften her food. We also added some water to her wet food so that it was the consistency of thick oatmeal. Those 2 things seemed to help her.

 

[silent meowlook]

I would schedule a visit with an internal medicine veterinarian. I would also cut out any dry food or treats, but let her have the canned food. Use a pate variety, not the kind with gravy. Very important is that she has to eat. Overweight cats are more likely to get hepatic lipidosis ( fatty liver disease) if they stop, or reduce eating.

Getting weight off of her is going to help, but there may be a bigger issue going on. When cats anal glands are manually expressed it is very easy to injure them. Also if you take a large anal gland, think of it like a balloon, empty it, it will fill back up again. L

 

[olivemarie]

I would schedule a visit with an internal medicine veterinarian. I would also cut out any dry food or treats, but let her have the canned food. Use a pate variety, not the kind with gravy. Very important is that she has to eat. Overweight cats are more likely to get hepatic lipidosis ( fatty liver disease) if they stop, or reduce eating.

Getting weight off of her is going to help, but there may be a bigger issue going on. When cats anal glands are manually expressed it is very easy to injure them. Also if you take a large anal gland, think of it like a balloon, empty it, it will fill back up again. L

I think you guys are right about switching to wet food, but I’m curious why the vet has never mentioned it. Both prescription foods they recommended were dry (and ineffective).

 

[maggie101]

Just a wild guess, but dry is what they mostl sell. And since that's what most people feed,they mostly sell. My vet has 2 cats of his own so he is more aware how important moisture is

 

[silent meowlook]

Hi. Vets actually make very little money on food sales. They can’t compete with the larger stores but to stay close, they hardly mark up food at all.
When I was working for a vet and got food at cost plus shipping, I paid roughly $20.00 less per case than I do now, paying full price.

The following link is a site written by a veterinarian about a decade ago, but it still holds true. When she first started going against the Rx diets she got allot of backlash. I have seen her posts on VIN get ignored or shit down. Here she explains what is going on with veterinarians and cat food. She has basically been shunned by the veterinary community as far as what I have personally seen. I haven’t heard of anything about her lately.

 

[silent meowlook]

Feeding Your Cat: Know the Basics of Feline Nutrition – Common Sense. Healthy Cats.