Hi - I was hoping to gain some information. Anything at all would be acceptable, really. This story may get a little TL;DR, I'm sorry!
My 11 year old cat, Pepper, has been sick a little over seven weeks. During the period of May 27th until June 6th, I was out of town, leaving her in the care of my mother. Over the course of my vacation, I was receiving updates on how she was doing/what she was doing, which all seemed perfectly normal. Only thing that wasn't normal was the fact she 'wasn't eating that good.' Now, our first thoughts was that the cat was stressed and missing me. My father had just recently moved into the home after being absent for about a half a year, but she didn't get sick/stressed when he left... then again, my mother and I are her primary caregivers so it seemed plausible. Anyways, my mother told me she wasn't eating dry food very well, if at all, and that she was putting two types of wet food in her bowl which was picked at very sparcely. When I arrived back home the night of June 6th, Pepper seemed like the cat I left for a little over a week, pretty much. She missed me so much she actually slept with me a few nights. The next morning, I came down with a cold and was in bed from Mon-Thurs. I was not monitoring how my cat was eating and my mother passed it off as "her just being picky" until it was too late - she wasn't eating at all. This prompted my mother to tell me to do some research. Admittingly, I was unaware of most illnesses older cats can get, which was completely my fault. Pepper's regular vet wasn't in on that Friday, so we went to another vet. That Friday, Pepper had blood work and urine samples taken. Her bilirubin was high but she was not jaundiced. There was no indication of a hyperthyroid or diabetes or any of that. The vet was actually a bit perplexed as to why she stopped eating in the first place, but was not very helpful with us in determining what could be done. She sent Pepper home that evening telling us "get her to eat whatever you can." Time kept passing into the weekend and we were told we could try syringe feeding, so we bought Hills A/D from the vet for about.. two weeks. Sometime after that weekend, or perhaps even during it, Pepper became jaundiced, whereas she wasn't when she went to the vet. Every day the vet would suggest something new... which could have been told to us in the beginning. The last time we spoke to this vet, she suggested milk thistle. Well, we put that in her food for weeks, but it seems like to no avail. Or it didn't help quite enough.
Fast forward to now. It's been seven weeks this Friday since she went to the vet. After Hills A/D became a bit too expensive on the regular, we switched over to Fancy Feast. Fancy Feast had higher levels of protein, of which we were sure would be better for her. She's been taking it rather well, and I'm convinced the yellow in her skin is decreasing. She's definitely not a deep yellow, but she's still a very sick cat. There have been days where she has picked up and ate on her own! Well, one day in particular - she ate a little bit out of the can and even tried some dry food. She only did it one day and ever since then it's rare to get her to eat something on her own. A treat, maybe. Licks the gravy off the top of the food, maybe. But never genuinely eating on her own. Is it normal for cats with HL to have ups and downs like this? She shows an interest when she knows you have food, but she puts her nose to it and walks away. She does not vomit every day, something that cats with Hepatic Lipidosis are supposed to do. That's not to say that she doesn't vomit - in fact, she just did it earlier, but I'll get to that in a minute. She definitely was vomiting more in the beginning of all this. She might vomit once or twice a week now.
Notable things going on with her:
-Not drinking water (she was in the beginning, a few days after the vet visit but not on her own now). We have been giving her water in the food, to get it in the syringe of course, and giving her regular water also through a syringe daily.
-Not eating. She has tried a few things off and on, a pinch of tuna for instance.
-She seems to be urinating quite a bit. It's hard to tell how much but when she's not laying around, she frequents the bathroom. When she went to the vet, her urine was orange, but it doesn't appear to be as orange anymore. It's hard to tell from the cat litter, but it's not orange-orange anymore, definitely.
-She is constipated. If she spends too long straining to get something out, she will, after leaving the box, throw up her food. That's not to say she hasn't been getting hardly anything out though. In the beginning, she was barely getting anything out at all. But when she does get some out now, it seems pretty normal in length and size. I can't comment on if the color is off, however.
-Her breathing is a bit heavy. This started.. well, a couple weeks ago. I don't think she had it in the very beginning. I read that a cat might have a bit of heavy breathing as a result of the jaundice; I could be wrong. When I pick her up to prepare her for her feeding, she starts breathing heavier since she's nervous. It seems like an off and on thing in terms of how heavy she is breathing. Her voice seems a bit cracky as does her purr.
-As I said earlier, she is jaundiced but it seems to be getting lighter now. She's not extremely yellow but she is not a desired pink either. Her nose is dry.
-She has not been grooming herself outside of cleaning her paws a bit. Before she vomited earlier, she was having trouble with the constipation issues and after she got something out, she tried to lick her behind but stopped herself. I know at least this much that when a cat is trying to lick down there specifically, there might be something bothering her there. Is it worrisome when a cat strains, does nothing, jumps out of the box, a few minutes later repeats the process, and then eventually does something?
-She lays on the bathroom floor or behind a particular couch a lot. Doesn't want to look outside too much or lay in the sun (something she probably needs to do for the jaundice but it's... not to her liking). When she goes outside, she does attempt to eat grass.
-Her head seems a bit warm at times.
-She seems a bit bloated, but seems to be picking up some weight that she lost.
-She has good and bad days. I wasn't awake to witness it, but my mom claims she jumped up on my mom's bed at a fast-paced run only to stand up on her back legs trying to catch something in the window. And yeah, she sporadically tries to eat on her own but only to not show interest the next day. She started 'love-biting' again the other day, too, which seemed to be an improvement but hasn't done it again since.
That's all I can remember off the top of my head. The only thing my mother and I have to go on is the hope that she only has Hepatic Lipidosis and that the jaundice combined with the illness is causing all these other symptoms. She's a pretty strong cat, so I have faith in her, but the clock is ticking and I'm constantly worried. It's my responsibility to take care of her, and when I can't do that to the fullest extent, I feel heartbroken. I feel bad that I left her that week and a half and wasn't able to catch this problem in time. Regardless, I will keep feeding her daily and see if her condition improves within the next week. If she has HL, which is still the most likely candidate, then giving up now would be senseless. But... if by next Friday she's still not eating on her own, can this be considered something other than HL? (I read typical feeding time would be 6-8 weeks..) Is it normal for cats with HL to have up and down days? Is this a slow yet steady improvement on her way to eating again?
Finally, is it imperative that she get to her regular vet immediately and what can they do for her? Stupid question, I know, but the least they could do is take blood and urine samples again and I don't know what good that would do us in terms of finding out the extent of her condition. It'd be like repeating steps A and B again, but is that for the best with this condition? It's been seven weeks, so things could have changed, but forking out another $250 for that bit of information when something else could be done better wouldn't be good. I'm answering my own question here, but only a vet can tell me what to do indepth; I'm just trying to get some possibilities. The vet we took her to that Friday never looked at her teeth, so I've been wondering if she might have a tooth problem. And can her condition take a turn for the worst at any moment, with these symptoms? I've read many things on each particular symptom but not when they're in correlation with liver disease.
If you managed to read this far, I take my kitty ears off to you. Any comments would be appreciated - any at all. I understand the circumstances and am getting ahold of the vet for her opinions here shortly.
~ This is my furry sister; she means the world to me: http://i26.tinypic.com/2upwsiu.jpg ~
My 11 year old cat, Pepper, has been sick a little over seven weeks. During the period of May 27th until June 6th, I was out of town, leaving her in the care of my mother. Over the course of my vacation, I was receiving updates on how she was doing/what she was doing, which all seemed perfectly normal. Only thing that wasn't normal was the fact she 'wasn't eating that good.' Now, our first thoughts was that the cat was stressed and missing me. My father had just recently moved into the home after being absent for about a half a year, but she didn't get sick/stressed when he left... then again, my mother and I are her primary caregivers so it seemed plausible. Anyways, my mother told me she wasn't eating dry food very well, if at all, and that she was putting two types of wet food in her bowl which was picked at very sparcely. When I arrived back home the night of June 6th, Pepper seemed like the cat I left for a little over a week, pretty much. She missed me so much she actually slept with me a few nights. The next morning, I came down with a cold and was in bed from Mon-Thurs. I was not monitoring how my cat was eating and my mother passed it off as "her just being picky" until it was too late - she wasn't eating at all. This prompted my mother to tell me to do some research. Admittingly, I was unaware of most illnesses older cats can get, which was completely my fault. Pepper's regular vet wasn't in on that Friday, so we went to another vet. That Friday, Pepper had blood work and urine samples taken. Her bilirubin was high but she was not jaundiced. There was no indication of a hyperthyroid or diabetes or any of that. The vet was actually a bit perplexed as to why she stopped eating in the first place, but was not very helpful with us in determining what could be done. She sent Pepper home that evening telling us "get her to eat whatever you can." Time kept passing into the weekend and we were told we could try syringe feeding, so we bought Hills A/D from the vet for about.. two weeks. Sometime after that weekend, or perhaps even during it, Pepper became jaundiced, whereas she wasn't when she went to the vet. Every day the vet would suggest something new... which could have been told to us in the beginning. The last time we spoke to this vet, she suggested milk thistle. Well, we put that in her food for weeks, but it seems like to no avail. Or it didn't help quite enough.
Fast forward to now. It's been seven weeks this Friday since she went to the vet. After Hills A/D became a bit too expensive on the regular, we switched over to Fancy Feast. Fancy Feast had higher levels of protein, of which we were sure would be better for her. She's been taking it rather well, and I'm convinced the yellow in her skin is decreasing. She's definitely not a deep yellow, but she's still a very sick cat. There have been days where she has picked up and ate on her own! Well, one day in particular - she ate a little bit out of the can and even tried some dry food. She only did it one day and ever since then it's rare to get her to eat something on her own. A treat, maybe. Licks the gravy off the top of the food, maybe. But never genuinely eating on her own. Is it normal for cats with HL to have ups and downs like this? She shows an interest when she knows you have food, but she puts her nose to it and walks away. She does not vomit every day, something that cats with Hepatic Lipidosis are supposed to do. That's not to say that she doesn't vomit - in fact, she just did it earlier, but I'll get to that in a minute. She definitely was vomiting more in the beginning of all this. She might vomit once or twice a week now.
Notable things going on with her:
-Not drinking water (she was in the beginning, a few days after the vet visit but not on her own now). We have been giving her water in the food, to get it in the syringe of course, and giving her regular water also through a syringe daily.
-Not eating. She has tried a few things off and on, a pinch of tuna for instance.
-She seems to be urinating quite a bit. It's hard to tell how much but when she's not laying around, she frequents the bathroom. When she went to the vet, her urine was orange, but it doesn't appear to be as orange anymore. It's hard to tell from the cat litter, but it's not orange-orange anymore, definitely.
-She is constipated. If she spends too long straining to get something out, she will, after leaving the box, throw up her food. That's not to say she hasn't been getting hardly anything out though. In the beginning, she was barely getting anything out at all. But when she does get some out now, it seems pretty normal in length and size. I can't comment on if the color is off, however.
-Her breathing is a bit heavy. This started.. well, a couple weeks ago. I don't think she had it in the very beginning. I read that a cat might have a bit of heavy breathing as a result of the jaundice; I could be wrong. When I pick her up to prepare her for her feeding, she starts breathing heavier since she's nervous. It seems like an off and on thing in terms of how heavy she is breathing. Her voice seems a bit cracky as does her purr.
-As I said earlier, she is jaundiced but it seems to be getting lighter now. She's not extremely yellow but she is not a desired pink either. Her nose is dry.
-She has not been grooming herself outside of cleaning her paws a bit. Before she vomited earlier, she was having trouble with the constipation issues and after she got something out, she tried to lick her behind but stopped herself. I know at least this much that when a cat is trying to lick down there specifically, there might be something bothering her there. Is it worrisome when a cat strains, does nothing, jumps out of the box, a few minutes later repeats the process, and then eventually does something?
-She lays on the bathroom floor or behind a particular couch a lot. Doesn't want to look outside too much or lay in the sun (something she probably needs to do for the jaundice but it's... not to her liking). When she goes outside, she does attempt to eat grass.
-Her head seems a bit warm at times.
-She seems a bit bloated, but seems to be picking up some weight that she lost.
-She has good and bad days. I wasn't awake to witness it, but my mom claims she jumped up on my mom's bed at a fast-paced run only to stand up on her back legs trying to catch something in the window. And yeah, she sporadically tries to eat on her own but only to not show interest the next day. She started 'love-biting' again the other day, too, which seemed to be an improvement but hasn't done it again since.
That's all I can remember off the top of my head. The only thing my mother and I have to go on is the hope that she only has Hepatic Lipidosis and that the jaundice combined with the illness is causing all these other symptoms. She's a pretty strong cat, so I have faith in her, but the clock is ticking and I'm constantly worried. It's my responsibility to take care of her, and when I can't do that to the fullest extent, I feel heartbroken. I feel bad that I left her that week and a half and wasn't able to catch this problem in time. Regardless, I will keep feeding her daily and see if her condition improves within the next week. If she has HL, which is still the most likely candidate, then giving up now would be senseless. But... if by next Friday she's still not eating on her own, can this be considered something other than HL? (I read typical feeding time would be 6-8 weeks..) Is it normal for cats with HL to have up and down days? Is this a slow yet steady improvement on her way to eating again?
Finally, is it imperative that she get to her regular vet immediately and what can they do for her? Stupid question, I know, but the least they could do is take blood and urine samples again and I don't know what good that would do us in terms of finding out the extent of her condition. It'd be like repeating steps A and B again, but is that for the best with this condition? It's been seven weeks, so things could have changed, but forking out another $250 for that bit of information when something else could be done better wouldn't be good. I'm answering my own question here, but only a vet can tell me what to do indepth; I'm just trying to get some possibilities. The vet we took her to that Friday never looked at her teeth, so I've been wondering if she might have a tooth problem. And can her condition take a turn for the worst at any moment, with these symptoms? I've read many things on each particular symptom but not when they're in correlation with liver disease.
If you managed to read this far, I take my kitty ears off to you. Any comments would be appreciated - any at all. I understand the circumstances and am getting ahold of the vet for her opinions here shortly.
~ This is my furry sister; she means the world to me: http://i26.tinypic.com/2upwsiu.jpg ~