Alice 10/8 AMPS 263 - excessive grooming, loss of fur

Yesterday Alice started out lower, got some greens, then bounced. The last 24 hours saw all the colors but lime and black!

Yellow is a good start. She threw up her breakfast again. She gets hungry in the mornings. She knows what her alarm sounds like and won’t let me not get up for her. But she eats too fast. Back in her early youth when she ate corn-filled junk.... kitty puke used to be so much easier to clean up. Never the morning I want when I have to bail crushed bits of meat out of the rug.

Here’s to Alice for making me get up. Good morning!

 

I hope Alice slides down and surfs today. Can you try feeding her breakfast in smaller parts so she won't eat so fast?

 

Oh...I hear ya...I don't know why they always have to puke on the rug...it's as if that hardwood or tile just won't do...have to run to get to the rug!

I hope Alice finds her way back to the lagoon today

 

Bring it on down there Alice, sending prayers, hope she feels better
Have a great day Cassandra

 

Feel better soon Alice and grab your surf board and head to the lagoon again today
Have a wonderful day Cassandra!

 

Her appetite is so huge. She begs me for food through the day and I am trying to get her within only two 5.5oz friskies cans a day, she adamantly tells me she needs more. I’m always trying to give her enough without it being too much.... and the days when her sugar is realllly high at PS I tend to mix a little more water in with it to help her with all the extra glucose. I didn’t today but it’s always a guessing game how much is enough. She gets fed many times in the day, too, so it’s not like I am trying to get it in all at once.
I need to be more firm and say, “no miss, you may not have any more food right now.” Even with those big green eyes.

If only she weren’t so precious.

 

I love when she decides she owns the whole bed. Such a princess.

 

So I wasn’t sure at first but I am now.
Alice has been excessively grooming and she has caused fur loss at this point.
Is her belly perhaps itching from her surgery? Could the stress of the return to the vet last month be the cause? In the past year she has had more vet time and the hospitalization and then painful surgery.
She gets sensitive if my hand goes near her belly now.

I googled. Cornell suggests it could also be due to things like a food allergy, they could be licking areas where they experience pain or discomfort when they do this. I already have one excessive groomer but I can’t watch Alice do this too. This is very new for her so maybe there’s a chance to fix it.

 

Healing from surgery can cause her to be itchy. If this is the surgery from June, I doubt that's causing the itching. It could also be allergies -- either seasonal or food. If Alice isn't sensitive to fish, I'd try Omega-3 which has anti-inflammatory properties. Nordic Naturals is a good brand and comes in a pet specific formulation (i.e., the eyedropper is calibrated for small animals). Alternatively, talk to your vet. Zyrtec can be used for environmental allergies.

If the allergy is to a food, you will want to try a novel protein. ZiwiPeak makes a high quality food that includes some novel proteins (e.g., venison, a lamb and rabbit combo). See if that helps.

In terms of amount of food, how much does Alice weigh? If she's always hungry despite 11 oz of food per day, you might ask your vet to test her thyroid levels. If she's hyperthyroid, she could be burning through calories. (Since she's been to see the vat a good bit, you might want to check her labs to see if there's a thyroid test there.)

 

Such a sweet photo of Alice.

 

Those eyes! It's impossible to say no.

 

There are several things here that could be addressed, but first I went to look at her lab work from June and September, which one is the thyroid test? On human labs I thought it usually says TSH???

We are so low income I really have wanted to explore other food options but she just gets the chicken and liver friskies. I browse other things but they are so expensive. I prefer not to feed rabbits to my cats, if avoidable. Her fecal score hasn’t been right since her diabetes. When she was super unregulated she also would lose bile color in her stool and sometimes she has lighter stool when her sugar is high. So I figured it might be harder to rule out if something in her food is bothering her tummy if she is having bowel issues regardless?

She is sensitive when I go near her belly and it’s just been noticeable that she has been licking around this one area since her last vet visit in September.

I fed her an eighth of a can about 20 minutes ago and she’s still running around begging and hungry. She has kept down at least 3/4 can already.

Thank you for your response.

Eta labs were posted here but are hard to read ish http://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/...-3-month-post-tumor-bloodwork-is-good.219192/

 

Oh! And Alice currently weighs 3.5kg (we have a baby scale).

The friskies cans she eats are 183 kcal/can. Effectively enough for a 12 pound outdoor cat or an 18 pound indoor cat, if you go by 20-30 kcal per pound of body weight. So she’s getting around ~200% of what she needs.

 

You want the T4 value to start. At least in Canada, it’s not part of the basic blood panel, but done as part of a senior or Geri panel. The labs you posted are a bit fuzzy. The fourth tab of the spreadsheet is a Labs page. If you enter your lab results tonthe soreadsheet, it will be easier to see and to spot trends.

Enough with the rainbow Alice.

 

Thyroid is often separate test and if she had been high the vet would have pointed that out. Maybe call your vet and ask if they ran a Thyroid test on her last bloodwork. Hope you find out easily and soon what is going on

 

To figure calories needed Dr Lisa Pierson has this formula on one of her sites.

(13.6 x ideal weight cat should be) + 70 = required daily calories needed.

Those eyes would get me every time.

 

I called my vet and had them check all of Alice’s records, apparently we have not ever done a thyroid test.
Now I need to decide which version of testing she should get. There’s in house or expensive. Obviously the more expensive one tests more. Otherwise I think they just do... T4?

Can anyone recommend if it is worth spending over $100 for the more expensive one? Will a simpler one still point me in the right direction?

Thanks! It still works out about the same, roughly! ~200, and she’s still eating twice as much!

 

I cant believe what a similar morning we had... excessive grooming and cat puke? how did we win this lottery

 

Moving this from Mowgli’s condo:

I understand....it’s not an inexpensive test. At that point, where you can’t do the Nutriscan, then the best thing is to try an elimination diet. This is really a pain but can be most helpful in determining if food is an issue and which food might be.

 

My first thought was hyperthyroid
Abby did same thing, constantly

 

I would go with the more expensive sent out labs.