05/28 - Sick Civie Allie-cat - long

Hello FDMB Peeps!

Our ~ 9yr old female civie Allie is sick. She is indoor/outdoor although she does not go out as often as in her younger days. She was last out on Wednesday. Thursday morning I found her appearing "off" - she was not doing her usual breakfast "feed me" dance and showed no interest in eating her breakfast. I then discovered she had barfed up her entire Wednesday evening meal (thankfuly in the basement). She did not eat or drink all day Wednesday or Thursday. The only litterbox action was 1 pee. I called her regular vet and they could not see her and advised to go to the emergency clinic, which DBF did. The vet that admitted her said she was dehydrated and that they would run bloodwork and give her sub-q fluids. They called 2 hours later (a shift change had taken place) and told us to come to the clinic, we thought to pick her up.

DBF arrived to find they had not yet given her fluids, which really pi$$ed us off. We asked them to hydrate her and told them we would bring her home and take care of her rather than leave her there. Although the Dr. said she did not have a diagnosis, the discharge papers state "Anemia, azotemia". They gave her 75mls LRS subq, 4mg Cerenia SQ and 8mg prednisone IM. Her CBC revealed low RBC,HTC, HGB, WBC, NEU, PLT and AMYL. BUN and GLU (297 = stress?) are high and ALT is off the charts high. PCU/TS= 20/6.5.

Thr Dr. suspects possible hemobart (test result is pending) or that her body is attacking/destroying her red blood cells. She advised not to give her food or water for 8 hours oor so and then see if she will eat. If she will eat and keep it down for 2 hrs we are to give her 1/2 5mg prednisone every 12 hours and 0.4mls doxycycline once every 24hrs for 3 weeks. The Dr. also wants her PCV/TS rechecked today.

I have an appointment for Allie at the clinic I take BK to today at 5pm. I want another opinion. I don't like the ER Dr. who treated Allie last night - a couple years ago, when BK had his first DKA episode, I took him there and she was on duty. The first thing out of her smart mouth at that time was "You know trying to treat an FIV+ cat with diabetes is an uphill battle"...
like I should not have bothered...and I am looking at my happy healthy handsome 7 mos.OTJ play play crazy boy right now!

Anyways, I last checked on Allie a couple hohurs ago and she had drank quite a bit of water. I thought that was good and offered her a small sliver of roasted chicken breast (which she loves) but she sniffed it and gagged. I'm goiong to check on her now and see if she might like a little baby food. (I am at TBP.)

Any input would be greatly appreciated. I want to go to the 5pm appointment as prepared as possible and make sure we are looking for the righit things here.

Thanks in advance!

 

dang. i remember that vet. glad you're taking her in elsewhere. where are you going? southpaws?

any chance she could have gotten into something bad like a toxic plant or poison? just throwing thoughts out there; i don't know what to look for. i'm not familiar with hemobart.

hope the 5 pm visit comes with answers.

ps - there's pretty low traffic on this board. put a post up on health or community and link it back here?

 

Check the skin on the inside of her ears, also gums and whites of eyes for signs of jaundice. You will see yellowing. If so, she is going into fatty liver and needs something to help her keep food down plus syringe feeding or better yet, a feeding tube. I always look at the skin on the ears for signs of yellowing. Sometimes a feeding tube is the best way to go even though you don't have a reason why she is not eating yet. Her liver needs the food to turn itself around.

 

I suppose there is a chance she got into something. Also, she is dooing this weird drooling and every so often she just starts looud crying for a spell... I'm taking here to Paradise (nearby).

...I thought I was posting on health -- I have not gotten the hang of this new fangled board....

 

no, you posted in the right place - general cat health
but it's lower traffic than feline diabetes health or community, sometimes ppl don't check here
although i know jess does

 

The drooling could indicate possible poisoning, or something stuck in her mouth/throat- can you get a look inside it to check? If it were me, drooling, along with the crying (pain/nausea) would have me at the closest ER right now...

 

Hi Sandy

This sounds serious, to be honest. Is she at the vet now, or can you get a referral to a vet that will take her? How bad is the azotemia? How low is her PCV? If a cat is destroying his/her own RBCs, s/he can develop life-threatening anemia very, very quickly. (Cats are efficient at just about everything they do, good or bad, unfortunately.) I'm also very concerned about her liver and her drooling. Someone needs to figure this out very quickly. If your regular vet can't see her, can you take her to a vet with 24 hour care, or a specialty hospital? I don't know where you live or what's available to you, resource-wise.

 

gosh, sandy, i just saw this. hoping your vet visit at 5 was good.
i can't believe that vet said not to feed. why have HL on top of everything else. that just sucks. i'm guessing my ER would have said to give a little chicken baby food on your finger, and keep spacing it out so she gets something in.
let us know how it went. (((SANDY)))

 

(((((((((((((Allie)))))))))))))))
Sandy wasn't there an ER that Lynn and Bear or KT and Buckwheat used near by? I can't remember but is back when we hooked up at Southpaws.
Many snowflakes to you guys.
Jess, Sandy is in Baltimore.

 

(((( Sandy )))), I'm sorry your pal ((((( Allie )))) is sick.
Hope you got some answers at the vets.

sending healing wishes,

 

sending prayers...