As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
Options
My cat is not eating. Need help urgently. [UPDATED]
Rend
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Alright here's the skinny, people.
This is my cat, Lucy.
She is a big sweetheart and I love her to bits. She also has evidently developed a fierce hatred for food, as she has not eaten in about two weeks now. About 3 days in, I called the vet. About 5 days in was her first appointment. The diagnosis was infection in her mouth. Poor girl. They said she was probably not eating due to pain, which made sense to me, because I had seen her take a piece of food into her mouth, try to chew it, spit it out startled, and then sprint away.
About 7 days in was her dental work, in which they took two of her teeth out.
Twice daily I have been giving her antibiotics for the infection, pain meds (for the pain), and appetite stimulants (so she'll eat). She hasn't eaten this whole week except once when she had just come back from the vet. So i think maybe the pain medication isn't quite working? She was heavily medicated coming back from the vet, so maybe the meds they gave me just aren't cutting it.
In any case, I am basically at my wit's end. She hates soft food, won't eat it. She can't eat her hard food. She has basically the cat version of aids (FIV) , so this infection is already dangerous enough, and her immune system is already weak enough without literally no food in her whatsoever to fight it.
She's still affectionate, still walking around, basically looks like a kitty skeleton though. I was actually forced to attempt to force feed her her hard kibbles, crushed and softened with water.
This exercise was largely a failure.
I managed to get the occasional bit of nutrient into her mouth and swallowed, which was triumphant, for sure, but very little, and all she did was look sad. Most of it just ended up on the towel I wrapped her in, and the process was so painfully slow that I only got through maybe six or seven crushed kibble's worth of food (of which maybe two or three made it into her mouth) in almost 20 minutes or so. Considering I would expect her average meal to be three to five times that much, I find myself at a loss for what to do.
My poor little Lucy is going to waste away if this does not get addressed, and soon. I am going to give the vet a call and ask for advice obviously, but I don't know if they will be able to do anything they haven't already done. Any help or advice would be much appreciated.
This is my cat, Lucy.
She is a big sweetheart and I love her to bits. She also has evidently developed a fierce hatred for food, as she has not eaten in about two weeks now. About 3 days in, I called the vet. About 5 days in was her first appointment. The diagnosis was infection in her mouth. Poor girl. They said she was probably not eating due to pain, which made sense to me, because I had seen her take a piece of food into her mouth, try to chew it, spit it out startled, and then sprint away.
About 7 days in was her dental work, in which they took two of her teeth out.
Twice daily I have been giving her antibiotics for the infection, pain meds (for the pain), and appetite stimulants (so she'll eat). She hasn't eaten this whole week except once when she had just come back from the vet. So i think maybe the pain medication isn't quite working? She was heavily medicated coming back from the vet, so maybe the meds they gave me just aren't cutting it.
In any case, I am basically at my wit's end. She hates soft food, won't eat it. She can't eat her hard food. She has basically the cat version of aids (FIV) , so this infection is already dangerous enough, and her immune system is already weak enough without literally no food in her whatsoever to fight it.
She's still affectionate, still walking around, basically looks like a kitty skeleton though. I was actually forced to attempt to force feed her her hard kibbles, crushed and softened with water.
This exercise was largely a failure.
I managed to get the occasional bit of nutrient into her mouth and swallowed, which was triumphant, for sure, but very little, and all she did was look sad. Most of it just ended up on the towel I wrapped her in, and the process was so painfully slow that I only got through maybe six or seven crushed kibble's worth of food (of which maybe two or three made it into her mouth) in almost 20 minutes or so. Considering I would expect her average meal to be three to five times that much, I find myself at a loss for what to do.
My poor little Lucy is going to waste away if this does not get addressed, and soon. I am going to give the vet a call and ask for advice obviously, but I don't know if they will be able to do anything they haven't already done. Any help or advice would be much appreciated.
Rend on
+1
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
Satans..... hints.....
They have told me before that baby food is fine as long as it doesn't have ingredients in it that are toxic to cats (onion, etc) so I guess that is the next step.
I would have called the vet again before this, but for the past four days it's been Thanksgiving weekend As it stands, I'm going to call them sometime this morning when they open, and follow whatever they instruct when I get off work today, but again, if people have any advice whatsoever, it would be welcome.
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
Get a vet to install a feeding tube, stat.
When cats stop eating, eventually they will lose all appetite, and develop fatty liver disease, and then die.
If you can get food into her stomach and get her digesting and pooping again, then her appetite can return and she will show interest in food and the feeding tube can be removed.
A real concern here is hydration. If she's not eating she may not be drinking, and that is actually way worse than not eating.
I've had to nurse my cat back from an extended bout of not eating or drinking. You can manage this from home (and if she's not an easy cat you'll have a lot more success at home than the techs at the hospital). I had to give subcutaneous saline fluids and fed via tube using a syringe. Fluids got her more active/awake, tube feedings reactivated her appetite.
I'm so sorry.
Is there nothing else she likes? Tuna or Chicken would be my first go-to's, with the first being straight forward (in water, not oil) and the second being plain baked chicken you shred up. Coordinate with the vet on best dietary options, but for now it just sound like she needs to eat so try approaching cat-friendly human food.
Try leaving a couple small plates with random bits of soft chicken, small tuna bits, maybe some smoked salmon or other new flavors, alongside/mixed with a few of her beloved kibbles and put them around her usual hangouts. I know how picky cats can be, but you never know what will peak their interest, especially when they aren't feeling well. Sometimes it can also be the context in which they get food that matters, (i.e. they don't like eating around others or will only eat in one spot). Does she have some hiding spots or hangouts you can tuck some plates/bowls in?
Alternatively, is she still drinking? Maybe try some of the milk like products for cats (no real milk/lactose), so she is at least getting some calories and nutrients. I have not used them, but check at your local pet store. A quick google brings up several like Nutri-Cal. Just be sure to also keep water out if you try this as staying hydrated is even more important for her health.
Cat Sure is another liquid diet plan for adult cats (looks like a lot of the replcaments are for kittens) if you want to give it a try.
Did you hear anything back from the vet?
They said to bring her in later today, so I have that trip to look forward to after work. They didn't say anything else over the phone, but they did sound worried. (talking behind phone etc)
So I came home early today in order to get her to the vet. I take her box down, put the towel inside it, get my little girl, and put her in the box. She starts crying, as she does, cause, you know, scared and such. I realize I've forgotten something, so I put her down in the kitchen and go to retrieve it. When I get back, she's still crying of course, and it's breaking my heart, so I tell her "alright kitty, I've been fighting with you for a week since your visit, you get one more chance or else it's back to the vet again.
So I take her out of the box, put her next to her food, and try all my general strategies for coaxing her to eat. Letting her sit there, petting her, moving the food around so it sounds like I'm pouring it into her bowl, setting some out of the bowl onto the floor into a little pile, and lastly, lifting up her hind legs so her face is right next to the food.
It took about seven minutes of solid coercion but she finally took one into her mouth and... spat it out again. I cursed the fates at my luck, but kept trying. "You gotta go to the vet if you don't eat, and that's scary. So eat."
So she takes another kibble into her mouth, crunches it, and swallows. I stop in my tracks, eyes wide. "Good girl... You just-"
But I stop.
I stop for this:
I stop because she has begun gobbling down her food like it's going out of goddamned style. I am nearly in tears at this point because I have been running dread through my mind all day trying to cope with the fact that my cat might just refuse to eat until she dies, but this is a major victory. While continuing to praise her and pet her and keep her chowing down, I called the vet (since she is almost certainly still in poor health because of this), and I am told she no longer needs a vet visit, but that there are several things to watch out for, and to call back if I see it- namely yellowness in any of several places, watch her appetite the next while, etc.
So I hang up the phone and thank my lucky stars (and my star-eyed Lucy) that, at the eleventh hour, she's decided food isn't actually all that bad, she guesses.
I am still in the market for advice, since I am under no delusions that I am quite out of the woods yet, but, at the very least, I am no longer deathly afraid that I won't have a cat tomorrow.
0431-6094-6446-7088
What we do when the cat stops eating is get canned food (actually, we always have it because she's on a special diet now), mush it up super fine and mixed with water, and squirt it down her throat with a syringe to ensure taht she's getting food.
I only ask because I had a dog with a bowel obstruction that refused to eat anything for nearly a week. And I mean anything. This is a dog that would go crazy for a dry cracker and he was turning his nose up at chicken and steak.
Warframe: TheBaconDwarf
Hang in there as it sounds like you both are going to be just fine.
My personal experience with this has been that it's usually a two person job. One person wraps the cat in a towel and tries to hold the cat's head still. The other sneaks the syringe into the cat's mouth and tries to squirt the food quickly, before the cat jerks it's head away, and far enough back that the cat has not choice but to swallow. It's a messy pain in the ass, but I love my kitties.
If your cat handles it like mine does, a thick towel wrapped around the cat like a swaddle will save you from many painful scratches.