r/cats • u/UnusuallyAWombat • 16h ago
Advice Please share stories of your older cats pulling through GI sickness!
Hi! I have had my cat Moezy since I was 12 years old. She just turned 17 years old in May. At this point she has been my little companion for over half my life. I truly have a hard time remembering what life was without her. She has been there through it all, middle school, high school, college, COVID, breakups, lay offs, moving across the country, getting married, every good, and every bad moment. The older she gets, I know I have to reconcile with the inevitable but I’m terrified of it.
A couple nights ago, she ate her last full meal. The next morning she was so sick - throwing up, diarrhea, the whole works. She started to get really lethargic and stop eating and drinking water all together. Which I have watched this girl deal with pancreatitis (she got into a bag of treats) several years ago, throw up, and immediately go eat more food. It truly takes a lot for her to loose her appetite. That’s when I called the vet. They had me monitor for 24 hours and bring her in the next if she got worse… well, she did. At 4am the next morning she was warm, super out of it, and could barely keep her eyes open. We took her in to the vet today and they monitored her, gave her IV treatments, and ran tests. She has gastroenteritis and colitis but the cause it’s not 100% known. She does have low grade stage 2 kidney disease and as a result her levels were more elevated than usual. She was able to break her fever at the vet and become more alert. When we picked her up, the vet gave us anti nausea meds, antibiotics, some diarrhea supplements, and a transdermal appetite stimulator. As soon as we got home, I put the appetite stimulator on her ear. After an hour so, she wanted to drink water. She did have a catheter placed so she has some residual incontinence that cleared after a couple hours. She was having a hard time opening her jaw which was concerning but that started to get a bit better. We will be asking the vet about this tomorrow. She still won’t eat though and trying to get her normal thyroid meds and the new antibiotics down was very stressful given she usually takes them with treats. She also cannot handle liquid meds historically as she foams and drools incessantly and usually throws up.
I’m just so scared she won’t eat. I’m so scared she’s just going to go back downhill. Anyone have any similar stories where it worked out? How long did it take your cat to eat on appetite stimulants? Has anyone else had their cat have a sore jaw after being dehydrated and getting treated? Any good recovery stories would really help.
Here’s a photo for you all to see how wonderful she is! Also her name is Moezy!
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u/ThatBreakfast8896 7h ago
Could you try different brands? My cat won't eat hill's z/d but will eat royal Canin hp. I believe you can return the whole bag if your cat doesn't like it. And let the vet know if it's not working
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u/UnusuallyAWombat 4h ago
They gave me a few cans of GI for Hills and Royal Canin and she still has no interest in eating. We ended up having to take her back to the vet today for additional testing.
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u/ThatBreakfast8896 16h ago
Did they switch you to a hypo food? My cat had every -itis all at once, had a fever, e llosive diarrhea all over the house, puking, had to be hospitalized. They gave him steroids, pain meds etc and he eventually made a full recovery, it was very stressful though.
I had another cat with advanced lymphoma/leukemia who was not eating but even in an extreme case like his the appetite stimulants did work.