11/27 AMPS 151. Results are in. Olive home and strangely back to her old self

11/25 Olive AMPS 86, 73+2, 65+3 | Feline Diabetes Message Board - FDMB

Olive has continued not to want to eat and I've had to force feed every single bite despite trying different proteins, going back to Primal, warming the food, not warming, pureeing, not pureeing. I've been watching her BG rise at the same time so I know something is wrong. She hasn't been this high in a long time. We're suspecting a UTI as a possible explanation as she's been drinking more and peeing a bit more with a smaller urine ball yesterday. So I'm going to try and get a urine sample today and get it to the vet for a urinalysis. If I can't, I'll have to see if I can get her in for a bladder tap/exam. Because I've been having to force feed her she's really ticked with me. I've never seen her so mad. She clamped down on my finger this morning and sliced it open. I hope we'll get some answers soon.

 

I’m sorry Olive is feeling bad. I hope you’re able to help her resolve it soon.

 

C'mon Olive, perk up and eat. So sorry to read this. Hope the vet can help solve this mystery.

 

There are some good ideas about things to try here:

Stimulating your kitty's appetite

Ultimately, you do need to get to the bottom of why she doesn't want to eat, so a urinalysis may only be partly helpful, she may need a proper vetty visit. Pancreatitis also comes to mind, and your vet would need to do a blood sample and run a Spec fPL. Hope she feels better soon.

 

Sorry your kitty isn't feeling well. A vet visit is in order. Hopefully it's something minor that can be all fixed up easily. Hope your baby feels better soon

 

I'm so sorry she's not eating.

When George stopped eating it turned out it was his teeth.
One way I got him to eat was hand feeding him, with a teaspoon. He would take it from that but not the bowl.
If she's feeling a bit icky sometimes raising the bowl can help. He's difficult to assist feed, he's real strong.

Also if she is not eating you may want to try the Liver shake, my civie was ill and he was getting upset with the assist feeding so I gave the liver shake a go. First go he wouldn't eat it from the bowl. So I dipped my fingers in it, and put it to his mouth, the then started licking it from my fingers we did that for the first two meals then he started lapping up from the bowl all by himself.
It's quite watery so it is also easier to syringe feed, you only need a max of 60ml a day. I've included the link for the recipie below and the link for viedeos on assist feeding(the videos are really helpful, made it a lot easier for me)

• Syringe/Assisted Feeding (Video and Tips)
• THE '~LIVER SHAKE~' FOR SICK CATS

It's advisable to find out what might be making her feel unwell. Hope the vet finds some answers.

 

So sorry to hear that your poor Olive is not eating (I have a civvie tuxedo named Olive!). It's a little scary when it happens. Can you get Ketostix or Ketodiastix from your local pharmacy and test her pee? It's an easy way to rule out ketoacidosis.

 

Hi Robyn So sorry to hear about Olive. I hope you can figure out the root cause. I know Olive is being feisty but she'll forgive you.

 

I hope you get to the cause of her not feeling well. We hurt for them so much when something is off.

 

So sorry Prayers for healing being sent

 

I’m sorry Olive isn’t feeling well. I would get her to the vet. If a UTI you need it confirmed with a sterile sample which is not possible by free catch. As mentioned if pancreatitis you need a blood test. I hope it’s something easy to fix. Using the litter box more could be from a UTI or just higher bg but it’s not that high.

 

Poor Olive, I hope you might be able to get to see a vet today
and pick up some ketostix , I hope she will feel better , please keep us updated

 

So sorry to hear. I think a trip to vet is a good idea if you can do it. Besides uti, it can be pancreatitis or teeth.

Seems quite a few kitties are having pancreatitis issues lately. It wouldn't surprise me. Getting it under control sooner so they don't get so bad and have long recovery.

 

Thanks everyone for your feedback. Olive is at the vet right now. Olive's vet was booked up until next week and I didn't want to wait that long, so had to take her to the vet I DON'T like which is a mile away and they were booked as well but said if I dropped her off they'd work her in between clients. oh, how I hated leaving her there. She was so scared. I told them to check for a UTI, pancreatitis, and whatever other labs the vet suggested since her last labs were done at diagnoses the middle of August. I hope they'll keep an eye on her BG while there. My stomach is in knots. I hate waiting. We've had so much bad news this year...praying for this to be something simple to fix.

 

I’m glad she’s at the vet but sorry it’s that vet. Catching pancreatitis early for me at least made it shorter in duration . Ditto for a UTI. Keep us posted.

 

Update: The vet just called. I can pick Olive up in about 15 minutes. No UTI, but she's going to send it out for a culture to rule out a low lying infection. It would seem that her issues are with her kidneys. She went from normal kidney values to high SDMA since August. Only thing is, she said the other two markers they go by don't coincide with the SDMA values. The Creatinine is normal and the Bun is only slightly elevated. That's why I opted to have her send out for the culture. She's giving her fluids and an appetite stimulant gel (She's double checking to make sure this won't be a problem for her diabetes). Otherwise, her behavior simply doesn't match with why she won't eat. Unless it's simply the fact she doesn't want the food she's getting. The good news is that we had a long conversation about her diabetes and the vet did check her as I hoped. She looked at her numbers compared to August at diagnoses and was blown away by the fact she's only on 1/8th a unit twice a day and has BG's as low as they are. She said most cats never dip below 250 she tries to treat and Olive is stabilizing ..(up till now, anyways) so she told me Olive stands a great chance of getting weened off insulin altogether. She just couldn't get over the fact it's only been 3 months since diagnoses. I told her it was raw food doing it. Which isn't what kidney cats are told to eat. I told her I've already been down this road with a kidney cat. I KNOW what they say not to do, but I put Sophie on an all raw diet once the standard KD diet failed to make her eat and she thrived. In the end it wasn't KD that claimed her. I told the vet I'd researched high protein diets on KD cats and if you can catch it early before the disease worsens, that high protein actually stimulates the kidneys to function BETTER. This isn't true at the end stages once the kidneys are too damaged to do their thing properly. She had no idea but said it made sense. Because Olive's Bun/Creatinine don't jive with the SDMA there's really no way of telling how far the KD is, but since she was fine in August who knows... She said since her diabetes has responded so well to raw, she'd personally hate to pull her off it. So I'm going to begin the holistic approach I did with my sweet Sophie and pray for the same great results. I'm going to go pick up Olive now....oh, and she said her weight looked great, so I don't need to continue trying to get more on her. Yes! She'd like to do more labs in a month to check her kidney values. Would really appreciate your prayers.

 

Just wanted to answer this...I already do test for ketones.

 

Sounds good. I printed it out. Thanks!

 

printed this out too. Thank you! It's the Mirtazapine the vet gave me to try. Cost $54. Ouch! I think I should try these other things too cuz that cost blew me away when they handed me the receipt. Hopefully one tube last a while.

 

Are they checking for pancreatitis?

 

BUN being elevated just means the cat is dehydrated; it doesn't necessarily mean the cat's dehydrated due to kidney disease.

Is there any chance you could post her results here? I'm curious to see what was tested and what her results were.

 

That's what I asked for in addition to the urinalysis. They did a mess of blood work on her. Hold on...I'm back. I looked at the paperwork and then called the vet's office to confirm they did and she said after all the other lab results surrounding the pancreas looked totally normal, she didn't want to stick me with another test checking for it when she knew it was fine.

 

Bummer, you really need the Soecfpl test for p’titis. Do you have the urine specific gravity number? That’s another piece of the CKD puzzle.

I hope Olive is back home now.

 

Test Value Range Units Status: GLU 109 Normal Range: 71 - 159 mg/dL / SDMA 27 Normal Range: 0 - 14 μg/dL / HIGH CREA 1.9 Normal Range: 0.8 - 2.4 mg/dL / BUN 49 Normal Range: 16 - 36 mg/dL HIGH BUN/CREA 2

 

Raw fed cats often have higher BUN numbers.

 

Yes, she's home and happy to be so. What's a urine specific gravity number? What initials will that go by as I don't understand the specs on her chart. I wonder why they wouldn't do that test then when I asked specifically for it. Surely something would have indicated a problem for them to see in the other lab work that would have shot up a red flag to make them do it if it was her pancreas. Now I'm worried.

 

USG under urinalysis results is the urine specific gravity. Do you have any other test results?

 

I don't see anything that's USG, just the UBG under the urine section.

Device: UA_Analyzer Run Date: 11/27/2020 11:15:48.140 AM Test Value Range Units Status Collec Cystocentesis /Color Colorless / Clar Clear /SG 1.020 /pH 6.0 / PRO neg /GLU neg / KET neg / UBG norm /BIL neg / BLD 250 Ery/μL

 

Device: ProCyte_Dx Run Date: 11/27/2020 11:17:52.187 AM Instrument Note: Monocytosis - consider inflammation (if lymphopenia, consider glucocorticoid response) Test Value Range Units Status RBC 6.83 6.54 - 12.20 M/μL HCT 34.5 30.3 - 52.3 % HGB 11.0 9.8 - 16.2 g/dL MCV 50.5 35.9 - 53.1 fL MCH 16.1 11.8 - 17.3 pg MCHC 31.9 28.1 - 35.8 g/dL RDW 19.9 15.0 - 27.0 % %RETIC 0.3 % RETIC 17.8 3.0 - 50.0 K/μL RETIC-HGB 16.9 13.2 - 20.8 pg WBC 14.40 2.87 - 17.02 K/μL %NEU 85.8 % %LYM 6.9 % %MONO 4.7 % %EOS 2.5 % Page 1 of 3 %BASO 0.1 % NEU 12.35 2.30 - 10.29 K/μL HIGH LYM 0.99 0.92 - 6.88 K/μL MONO 0.68 0.05 - 0.67 K/μL HIGH EOS 0.36 0.17 - 1.57 K/μL BASO 0.02 0.01 - 0.26 K/μL PLT 228 151 - 600 K/μL MPV 17.7 11.4 - 21.6 fL PCT 0.40 0.17 - 0.86 %

 

Device: SediVue_Dx Run Date: 11/27/2020 11:18:44.597 AM Test Value Range Units Status WBC <1 /HPF RBC 4 /HPF BACr None detected BACc None detected sqEPI None detected nsEPI <1 /HPF HYA None detected nhCST None detected CRY None detected CaOxDi None detected STR None detected BIURAT None detected BILI None detected

 

Test Value Range Units Status GLU 109 71 - 159 mg/dL SDMA 27 0 - 14 μg/dL HIGH CREA 1.9 0.8 - 2.4 mg/dL BUN 49 16 - 36 mg/dL HIGH BUN/CREA 25 Page 2 of 3 PHOS 4.2 3.1 - 7.5 mg/dL CA 9.7 7.8 - 11.3 mg/dL TP 7.4 5.7 - 8.9 g/dL ALB 2.6 2.3 - 3.9 g/dL GLOB 4.8 2.8 - 5.1 g/dL ALB/GLOB 0.5 ALT 74 12 - 130 U/L ALKP 15 14 - 111 U/L GGT 1 0 - 4 U/L TBIL 0.3 0.0 - 0.9 mg/dL CHOL 163 65 - 225 mg/dL AMYL 1597 500 - 1500 U/L HIGH LIPA 463 100 - 1400 U/L TT4 2.6 0.8 - 4.7 μg/dL

 

SG in post 30 is specific gravity, value is 1.020. It’s a measure of how well the urine is being concentrated and how well the kidneys are working. Morning pee is usually more concentrated.

 

Is that number good or bad?

 

The urine is more dilute than usual. It seems likely Olive has some degree of kidney disease. Something to settle her stomach like prilosec or pepcid AC could be helpful.

 

Did vet have any idea what it might be?

 

Chronic kidney disease is really common with senior cats, so I would assume Olive has some degree of CKD.

 

I'm glad the urine is being cultured; false negatives for bacteria are more possible with dilute urine.

 

oh sorry I got Olives confused!

 

Sending prayers.

 

I'm actually Paula. Olive was my sugar cat.

 

If you haven't been to Tanya's site yet, it's the go to for all things CKD. Here is the page on USG: http://www.felinecrf.org/diagnosis_urinalysis.htm#usg

It's a bit low, but also depends whether she'd just had a big drink of water. As Tanya's page says, a second test is a good idea. If you can get a first in the morning pee sample at home, and run it into the vet for testing on their refractometer, that might be a less stressful way to get that second test.

 

She already gets pepcid

 

Nope. Just the KD angle, but I had a KD cat and NEVER experienced this problem and she was much worse than Olive.

 

Olive goes all night long so there's no true first pee sample of the day. If the culture comes back clean I'm going to see about getting her to Cindy's new holistic vet. We just don't have the money right now. Between both girls they've totally drained our pocketbook for the next few months.