Gill & George
Member Since 2015
Last Post
Well it's been nearly two weeks since George's last condo, and it's been a tough couple of weeks.
I took George to another vet which involved a one hour journey each way, not great for him as he hates the car, but I had become very frustrated with his regular vet, George was in pain, his symptoms were getting worse, appetite was going south (this the most worrying for my food obsessed BFG), and her approach was just wait and see.
I took him to see Dr M, he gave him the once over and was pretty certain all his problems stemmed from the mouth, so he was started on antibiotics Stormogyl with a view to having a dental once the infection is under control.
Initially no pain meds were given, and three days after the AB's, he was in obvious pain, it broke my heart to see him that way. Here in Spain, my experience has been that they are not keen to use the pain relief that is more commonly used in the US, so in the end, and with much worry he was given a metacam injection as a loading dose, and he's been having oral metacam daily. (note here in Europe it is licensed for use in cats, and there is a specific concentration for cats/ unlike the US where it carries a black box warning and it's of label use is not recommended, the concentration available in US is 3 times higher http://vetbook.org/wiki/cat/index.php?title=Meloxicam)
We have been reducing his dose gradually and now he is on only half the maintenance dose. He is back to eating without encouragement, I was having to spoon feed, offer multiple choices just to get him to eat a bit, there was many tears, and this time last week I wasn't hopeful that he would make it to surgery day which is tomorrow, to the extent that I had the talk (through blubbering tears), with the vet about options for helping him cross if it came to that (I want to have it done at home/not an option here)
It was too hard to post updates as everything seemed so black, though SS has been kept updated with all goings on, and I know that some of you will have been looking at it from time to time to see how he has been doing, I know that you worry if you have no news and ss is blank.
Well here we are big day is tomorrow, I won't lie, I am terrified he won't make it, so many things against him, his age, fd, ckd, weight, heart murmur.
On the plus side he has always been a strong healthy cat, and he is a fighter, so DH and I have decided to try and give him a chance, as doing nothing is ultimately going to kill him, and there is a reasonable chance that he will come through the op and recover. Dr M felt it was the best option, he is going to have at least 3 extractions, I wouldn't be surprised if more. No such thing as a feline dental specialist locally, otherwise that would be where we would go, but at least Dr M does a lot of dental work and works with a lot of cats (something not to commonplace in my part of the world)
Today his BG is up a bit, not sure why, could be new food?? Pain??? or FS?? I'm not touching the dose today, I'll see where his BG is at tomorrow after the procedure and take it from there. I've reverted to some of his regular food that I know doesn't affect BG, to take that out of the equation.
I'll keep you all updated on the procedure, but I probably won't be around much, after tomorrow depending on how it all goes, I'm imagining my hands will be pretty full and we leave for a vacation on the 26th May (all being well with George), I am very fortunate to have a neighbour/friend who is very capable and is coming to stay at our house to look after George, she's given him insulin and tested him when we've been on vacation before.
Vines and Prayers for all those kitties in need.
Well it's been nearly two weeks since George's last condo, and it's been a tough couple of weeks.
I took George to another vet which involved a one hour journey each way, not great for him as he hates the car, but I had become very frustrated with his regular vet, George was in pain, his symptoms were getting worse, appetite was going south (this the most worrying for my food obsessed BFG), and her approach was just wait and see.
I took him to see Dr M, he gave him the once over and was pretty certain all his problems stemmed from the mouth, so he was started on antibiotics Stormogyl with a view to having a dental once the infection is under control.
Initially no pain meds were given, and three days after the AB's, he was in obvious pain, it broke my heart to see him that way. Here in Spain, my experience has been that they are not keen to use the pain relief that is more commonly used in the US, so in the end, and with much worry he was given a metacam injection as a loading dose, and he's been having oral metacam daily. (note here in Europe it is licensed for use in cats, and there is a specific concentration for cats/ unlike the US where it carries a black box warning and it's of label use is not recommended, the concentration available in US is 3 times higher http://vetbook.org/wiki/cat/index.php?title=Meloxicam)
We have been reducing his dose gradually and now he is on only half the maintenance dose. He is back to eating without encouragement, I was having to spoon feed, offer multiple choices just to get him to eat a bit, there was many tears, and this time last week I wasn't hopeful that he would make it to surgery day which is tomorrow, to the extent that I had the talk (through blubbering tears), with the vet about options for helping him cross if it came to that (I want to have it done at home/not an option here)
It was too hard to post updates as everything seemed so black, though SS has been kept updated with all goings on, and I know that some of you will have been looking at it from time to time to see how he has been doing, I know that you worry if you have no news and ss is blank.
Well here we are big day is tomorrow, I won't lie, I am terrified he won't make it, so many things against him, his age, fd, ckd, weight, heart murmur.
On the plus side he has always been a strong healthy cat, and he is a fighter, so DH and I have decided to try and give him a chance, as doing nothing is ultimately going to kill him, and there is a reasonable chance that he will come through the op and recover. Dr M felt it was the best option, he is going to have at least 3 extractions, I wouldn't be surprised if more. No such thing as a feline dental specialist locally, otherwise that would be where we would go, but at least Dr M does a lot of dental work and works with a lot of cats (something not to commonplace in my part of the world)
Today his BG is up a bit, not sure why, could be new food?? Pain??? or FS?? I'm not touching the dose today, I'll see where his BG is at tomorrow after the procedure and take it from there. I've reverted to some of his regular food that I know doesn't affect BG, to take that out of the equation.
I'll keep you all updated on the procedure, but I probably won't be around much, after tomorrow depending on how it all goes, I'm imagining my hands will be pretty full and we leave for a vacation on the 26th May (all being well with George), I am very fortunate to have a neighbour/friend who is very capable and is coming to stay at our house to look after George, she's given him insulin and tested him when we've been on vacation before.
Vines and Prayers for all those kitties in need.
So so stressful. I'm sorry
not food since I reverted to old favourite. Seems comfortable, looks like a carb spike, I run a curve so it doesn't look like I missed any lows, but I've been thinking he looks like he is nadiring late. Will need to watch that.
Great news!!!!!