Senior Cat not eating after surgery

[jhcore]

This is my first post here, so thanks in advance for any help you can provide (and thanks for reading such a long post!).
Luna, my 13-year old cat, has never been a big eater, and I've actually had to start giving her Mirataz every 7-10 days to get her appetite to where it should be. Mind you, this is PRE-SURGERY. Her vet is cool with that, and everything's been going fine.

But she had cruciate ligament surgery almost 3 weeks ago; leading up to that, she was behaving and eating normally (despite the limp!). After the surgery, it was so traumatic--she had to have a e-collar, she was drooling badly, and wasn't eating. She went back to to the vet, they ditched the collar, syringe-fed her, and I was able to bring her home. But feeding her that way was also awful, so back to the vet she went, where she was medically boarded. They ultimately put an e-tube in, and now she's finally home.

I'm seeing signs of nausea, but no one seems to be able to tell me where it's coming from. She's on Cerenia, Famotidine, and we're about to try Zofran. She has no interest in food (and I've tried all sorts of things), and I'm thinking that the nausea is just completely overriding her desire to eat. Would anybody have any insight on this? Any way to help to coax her to eat again?

 

[tyleete]

Poor gal. I don't know about that surgery, but is it possible something went wrong? If so, doubt those who did it will tell you that. Might be worth a shot to get a 2nd opinion?
As for help, I have an IBD gal that had it turn into cancer in the gut and while she gets chemo once weekly, she also has to take a combo of Ondanesetron (Zofran 1/2 a tab twice daily) & cbd for cats (0.15mg twice daily) to keep up her appetite and down her nausea. She also takes 1/2 tab (2.5mg) of prednisolone every 3rd day. I have tried to cut each one of those out at different times over the last 2yrs, because I don't like her being on so many things. But this is what I have to do to ship her from throwing up & her wanting to eat.
Prednisolone is actually very good about perking them up, even if I hate giving steroids. Hopefully it wouldn't be permanent? Another IBD I have needs Pred whenever he gets flare ups and stops eating completely. I don't know exacting what it does, but it seems to make them want to eat. He only needs it a few times a year.
Also, the cbd might help in more than one way. Cbd (thc free for cats) helps do the following:
Fights nausea,
Helps against inflammation,
Stimulates appetite,
Helps aches & pains-especially associated to arthritis,
& helps with anxiety and depression.
I had one gal that got it to help her scl gi & arthritis. After 2 weeks on it, I was able to take her completely of her steroids forever! She no longer threw up & it was great! She also not only started moving around easier, even jumped on the couch for the first time we'd had her (we adopted her at age 10) and started socializing!
This is a cat we thought just didn't like the fuss of younger cats and want to be out in the open because of them. She had a really nice set up in the laundry room including cat tower, litter box, beds, and tons of toys and see even fed her in there. She had open access to the rest out the house, but never strayed far.
Then suddenly she came out and couldn't get enough of being out with us! Turned out she must've been suffering from anxiety all this time and I didn't even know that could happen in cats.
So cbd can help a lot in many different ways. And it's all natural, so you don't get the bad medicine side effects. Worst we've had from too much was over grooming and we cut the amount back till it stopped.
Just in case you're interested, these are 2 I've gotten good results with.
Lazarus Naturals has a salmon oil flavored one:

ORGANIC PET CBD TINCTURE, 20MG/ML

Ease your furry friends' anxiety when you're out of the house or you want to help boost their overall well-being with our Classic Calming Pet CBD Oil Tincture.

www.lazarusnaturals.com

And if you have a brat like one of mine and need it disguised in food, there's a catnip flavored one by cbdmd. But they have supply issues regularly & cost more for much less than Lazarus.

CBD Oil Tinctures & Drops for Cats

Elevate your cat's well-being with our CBD Oil for Cats. Specially formulated to support feline health, our CBD oil tinctures offer natural benefits.

www.cbdmd.com

 

[fionasmom]

There are other appetite stimulants for cats, namely Elura which is the newest and cyproheptadine which has been around for a long time.