Worried About My Cat

yourpinkoverlord

yourpinkoverlord

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Sorry for the downer topic, I could just use some advice right now.

My sweet baby, my kitty, has barely been eating for weeks now. No matter what food we gave her she wouldn’t touch it. She’s been getting thinner and her fur has gotten less soft. We took her to the vet and they couldn’t find anything definitive, but we couldn’t afford an ultrasound so there could be something wrong with her pancreas and we just don’t know it. She’s always been pretty tiny, but she’s been getting dangerously thin and we’ve had to resort to force feeding. But the reality is that she’s probably very sick and has something terminal, and no amount of force feeding will save her.
She lived a pretty difficult life before we adopted her. She used to be a feral cat in a cat colony, but she got beaten up a lot. Since she got along with humans she was put into a shelter for adoption. Because she’s pretty she got adopted a few times but was ultimately returned because of how reserved she was. When I saw her at the shelter it was like love at first sight, and my mom agreed. Naturally, when we adopted her it took her a while to warm up to us. For a while it was as if we didn’t even have a cat, because she would just hide for months on end, only coming out in the middle of the night to eat. But once she warmed up to us she really came out of her shell. She follows us around everywhere and prefers being in the same room as one of us. We know that she loves us as we love her, and she’s the sweetest little thing. She usually wakes me up in the mornings, and she would sit attentively and always paw at us like a dog whenever she wanted attention. And of course we would pet and cuddle with her every time. She drives my dad crazy because of her invasive ways to get attention from him but he still loves her. I know she’s lived a good and long life.
I haven’t lost a pet since I was 11 years old, and I’m not sure how well I’ll be able to handle the grief of her passing, and that’s the main reason I’m making this post.
F1F4C140-2A3D-41AF-A3C9-232AA079A604.jpeg

Here she is kinda posed like a shrimp, sleeping next to me on the couch.
 
I’m sorry to hear about your Kitty. Do you know approximately how old she is?

DLH cats have a tendency to loose the “softness” to their coats as they age. Especially if they over groom. Do you know if your vet ran a full senior blood panel? This blood work would show any concerns with her pancreas, as well (while not as good of an image) x-rays can tell a vet a lot of information, including if the pancreas has abnormalities. Some vets push the ultrasounds because they’re extremely expensive machines for clinics to have, so they will often tell families to ultrasound vs radiographs. I don’t condone this practice in my profession but it unfortunately happens, especially in the last two years.

To encourage your cat to eat you can try nuking her wet food in the microwave for 5-10seconds. This often brings out the scent of the food. You can also purchase a “recovery diet” from your vet that is typically used in animals who’re in recovery from surgical procedures but it’s very high in fats so most sick pets will eat it with enthusiasm and vigorously. You can also try low sodium canned fishes from the grocery store. I typically recommend tuna or salmon. The biggest thing is she needs to eat. You can offer her lunch meats, chicken breast, etc. Even if it’s a little bit a day, cats can go into renal failure after 24-48hrs of not eating. So it’s very important to have her eat something. Anything. At this point it doesn’t matter.
 
Skybreeze said:
I’m sorry to hear about your Kitty. Do you know approximately how old she is?

DLH cats have a tendency to loose the “softness” to their coats as they age. Especially if they over groom. Do you know if your vet ran a full senior blood panel? This blood work would show any concerns with her pancreas, as well (while not as good of an image) x-rays can tell a vet a lot of information, including if the pancreas has abnormalities. Some vets push the ultrasounds because they’re extremely expensive machines for clinics to have, so they will often tell families to ultrasound vs radiographs. I don’t condone this practice in my profession but it unfortunately happens, especially in the last two years.

To encourage your cat to eat you can try nuking her wet food in the microwave for 5-10seconds. This often brings out the scent of the food. You can also purchase a “recovery diet” from your vet that is typically used in animals who’re in recovery from surgical procedures but it’s very high in fats so most sick pets will eat it with enthusiasm and vigorously. You can also try low sodium canned fishes from the grocery store. I typically recommend tuna or salmon. The biggest thing is she needs to eat. You can offer her lunch meats, chicken breast, etc. Even if it’s a little bit a day, cats can go into renal failure after 24-48hrs of not eating. So it’s very important to have her eat something. Anything. At this point it doesn’t matter.
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Thank you so much for the helpful reply.
We believe she’s about 11-12 years old. If her fur’s loss of softness is normal I am relieved, but I was concerned that it was from lack of nutrients. The blood test showed some iffy results which is why they wanted to do an ultrasound. We’re hoping to call them tomorrow to see if they’ll do anything other than an ultrasound since she’s only gotten worse since. I honestly feel manipulated that was the only option they gave us at all, even at the time (a few weeks ago) I thought they were taking advantage of our lack of pet insurance and that there were probably other options.
They gave us cans of the recovery diet food and she really liked it at first, ate a ton of it, but now she’s not touching it and it’s what we’ve been force-feeding her. She used to love luncheon meats and steak but now she sniffs it a little bit, looks up at us and then walks away. The most she does is lick it. Sometimes she’ll lick up a little wet food but it’s barely anything before she loses interest. We don’t know if eating is painful for her or if she just doesn’t feel hungry.

How long should we force-feed her (I’ve seen some articles call it “helping [her] eat” but really it just feels like force-feeding)? As long as she’s not eating should we keep going until she gains more weight and move on from there, or do we do something else?
 
Aww she’s beautiful, I’m sorry to hear that she’s not well. One of my kitties has something called mega-colon and he often has times when he just doesn’t want to eat because of it but we managed to find one thing he’ll eat no matter what (all my cats love it actually). Maybe your pretty kitty would like it too? It’s called Hartz Delectables Squeeze Up with Chicken, my cat licks it straight from the tube but you could also put it in a bowl
F81A8413-6656-4CE8-9208-E86463A96DC1.jpeg
 
AzaleaArt said:
Aww she’s beautiful, I’m sorry to hear that she’s not well. One of my kitties has something called mega-colon and he often has times when he just doesn’t want to eat because of it but we managed to find one thing he’ll eat no matter what (all my cats love it actually). Maybe your pretty kitty would like it too? It’s called Hartz Delectables Squeeze Up with Chicken, my cat licks it straight from the tube but you could also put it in a bowl
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Oh, thank you! We’ll give it a try!
 
yourpinkoverlord said:
Thank you so much for the helpful reply.
We believe she’s about 11-12 years old. If her fur’s loss of softness is normal I am relieved, but I was concerned that it was from lack of nutrients. The blood test showed some iffy results which is why they wanted to do an ultrasound. We’re hoping to call them tomorrow to see if they’ll do anything other than an ultrasound since she’s only gotten worse since. I honestly feel manipulated that was the only option they gave us at all, even at the time (a few weeks ago) I thought they were taking advantage of our lack of pet insurance and that there were probably other options.
They gave us cans of the recovery diet food and she really liked it at first, ate a ton of it, but now she’s not touching it and it’s what we’ve been force-feeding her. She used to love luncheon meats and steak but now she sniffs it a little bit, looks up at us and then walks away. The most she does is lick it. Sometimes she’ll lick up a little wet food but it’s barely anything before she loses interest. We don’t know if eating is painful for her or if she just doesn’t feel hungry.

How long should we force-feed her (I’ve seen some articles call it “helping [her] eat” but really it just feels like force-feeding)? As long as she’s not eating should we keep going until she gains more weight and move on from there, or do we do something else?
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I sent you a dm to discuss further. ;)
 
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I wish I could add more. I'm sorry you're going through this. Skybreeze is way more knowledgeable than I.
 
I’m going on a trip with a friend tonight so I won’t be able to keep an eye on kitty myself, but I know my mom will keep a close eye and keep me updated. Kitty hasn’t been throwing up food we give her which is a good sign and she slowly ate some chicken we gave her. Fingers crossed that everything will be okay.
 
Update:
Kitty’s been doing better since I made the first post. We give her a pill to try and heal her ailment and we have anti vomiting pills she takes so the food stays down. She’s been gaining weight. Her (healthy) weight when we first got her was about 5 1/2 pounds. When I made the original post she was at 3 pounds. We have now been able to get her to 4 1/2 pounds. She’s been eating a ton of salmon on her own too.

Despite this, there’s still concerning things going on with her. But overall she seems to be improving. If anything major happens (good or bad) I’ll update again. Thank you for the support everyone.
 
Yes, it is nice to see some improvement!
 
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Hey guys, thought I should update. It’s not good news.

Kitty isn’t going to make it. She’s been on intensive medication and eating normally but despite this she has only gotten worse. We don’t know if she’ll make it through the week. At the very least, she doesn’t seem to be in pain. We don’t know yet whether we’re going to put her to sleep or not.

Once again, thank you for the support.
 
yourpinkoverlord said:
Hey guys, thought I should update. It’s not good news.

Kitty isn’t going to make it. She’s been on intensive medication and eating normally but despite this she has only gotten worse. We don’t know if she’ll make it through the week. At the very least, she doesn’t seem to be in pain. We don’t know yet whether we’re going to put her to sleep or not.

Once again, thank you for the support.
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I'm so sorry, I know how you feel and it's a very sad place. Hugs your way :xmashug:
 
yourpinkoverlord said:
Hey guys, thought I should update. It’s not good news.

Kitty isn’t going to make it. She’s been on intensive medication and eating normally but despite this she has only gotten worse. We don’t know if she’ll make it through the week. At the very least, she doesn’t seem to be in pain. We don’t know yet whether we’re going to put her to sleep or not.

Once again, thank you for the support.
Click to expand...
I’m so sorry to hear this news. :xmashug:
 
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