? 3/18 Dimmu. AMPS: 308; +1.75: 353. Poop (ahem!) report and dose question.

3/17

Good morning!

We couldn't get Onsior anywhere yesterday, and had to do with Metacam for his fever. We live in a small town now and Onsior won't get here until Monday... Metacam helped a bit yesterday evening, but Dimmu's temp raised again and stayed high through the night.

His temp came down a bit this morning. Still didn't wanna eat on his own, but didn't resist as much as yesterday when we tried to feed him. He went to the LB to pee, then lay in there for 15mins. We were making him a clean littler box to lie in, then he started shuffling around and without much difficulties, THE LOGS CAME OUT! WE GOT POOPS! 4 perfectly formed logs with a stench that was way beyond my ability to describe..... We were worrying sick because he didn't pass anything since he came home from the feces elimination, which was 4 days ago, and Metacam seems to make his constipation worse. We were so so so relieved we almost went Piero Manzoni on it, but we were thinking about gold plating it rather than canning it......

His left forepaw is hurting less, he's not so angry or in pain when we try to touch it. We started giving him Traumeel right after we found out about the sprain, and it seemed to help.

He is back in the pinks today, and tonight is his 6th cycle on the reduced 2.75U. Should we increase tomorrow? After his hypo episode on Thursday, we are so convinced of the saying "better a day too high than an hour too low". He is reluctant to eat and we can only get about 1/2 of his normal food intake in him everyday, and on top of that he still has a fever, though we are not sure it impacts the BG's. Another thing to note is he is mainly on LC canned food with little to no raw food for now. The raws we have at home all have bones in it, and we thought for the time being it's better to be sure he doesn't get constipation problem again from undigested bones again. We are learning more about feeding raw to IBD cats, and if everything goes alright, we'll slowly transition him back to raw later.

I am gonna change my laptop's password, every time I brag about his progress here on FDMB, he goes the opposite direction, I think he's on my laptop when we are not looking.... Just for the record, I didn't say he's doing good today!

 

sounds like the vet is trying to make things better.

I am curious about the lactulose. If it is the one made for cats, that has sugar in it and would explain the pinks.
You would be better off using vaseline/petroleum jelly. It's practically the same thing without the sugar.

You probably don't have a heating pad specifically made for cats ( they have a temperature control that doesn't let it get too hot ) but if you have a human one
you could set it on low and see if you can get his paw over it. (or even a hot water bottle under his blanket)

I hope that fever goes away quickly.

 

If you don't see blue tonight, you can increase to 3.0 tomorrow morning. I rather suspect you will have to go rather higher eventually, since he wasn't even seeing blue on 6 units. There might have been a bit of the 6 undepot causing those greens you got. Plus I am suspicious of what the clinic dosed. But let's see what happens when he gets his appetite back.

Thank goodness for poo logs! That'll make him feel much better. We have a few other cats here on lactulose. If that's what he needs, and if it has sugar, we just work the dose around it.

Did the vet have any idea why he has a feve? Infection and inflammation can raise the BG's. Perhaps also the sore foot.

 

The vet suspected either viral or bacterial infection, but when she was here, there were no clear symptoms to really help making the diagnose. So she wanted to treat the fever first and if that didn't work, a blood test. Dimmu's temperature is going up and down the whole day, and he's got the chills sometimes. What is considered a mild fever for cats? I am worried he runs too high for too long.

I have read somewhere that the sugar in Lactulose is not absorbed by the body, but even if it is, we'll just have to work with that until the constipation problem is resolved. I sure hope the fever goes away quickly, too. His appy needs to return soon! How long can he go on eating (actually assist fed) only half of his regular food intake?

 

I tried to get at least 2/3 of Neko's daily calories in her each day. To do that, I tried feeding higher calorie foods so it was less volume to feed. What are you feeding now? Also be aware that he may develop food adversions to whatever he is assist fed, so if you offer food for him to eat by himself, it should be something completely different. I had a hepatic lipidosis kitty I fostered who went completely off of chicken after assist feeding Royal Canin Recovery. Neko, on the other hand, liked Recovery and was one of the few foods she's eat on her own when she wasn't doing well.

 

I feed him a mix of raw and LC wet food now. Gonna look into higher calorie food.
I was worried he'd lose interest in food because of assist feeding, so glad you brought this up. So does this mean as long as he's being assist fed I should feed him the same food to avoid him develop food aversions to a wider range of food?

 

Not all cats get food adversions. Neko was fine eating on her own what I assist fed with. But just in case, try assist feeding a food that is different from what you want him to eat longer term. He could associate feeling icky with the particular food he is assist fed with.