30/01 - Gremlin - AMPS 176, +5 81, PMPS 216, +4 221

Laura and Gremlin (GA)

Laura and Gremlin (GA)

Member Since 2015
Yesterday
Grem's been a little weird today and later yesterday. Yesterday afternoon he kept licking one spot on his chest (roughly where his leg amputation scar would be) over and over. Twice I picked him up and the spot was drenched! He doesn't wash very much anymore so this behaviour is extra strange. I haven't seen him doing it today yet.
Today he's not been cuddly. He didn't wake me up for cuddles before breakfast, didn't come when I went back to bed, I didn't see him at all overnight, no purrs, just distant. He's still eating and moving fine.
And he's just had lunch, I've picked him up while typing this and he's settled on my lap purring and happy, phew! He just needed to prove me wrong, apparently!

I also not long got back from Grem's new vet that has just advised me that the old vet gave me a dog dosing syringe for Meloxicam last time which means Grem has been getting under dosed for the last few months... I only questioned because I opened a new one to find a completely different syringe that is bigger. I'm so glad I asked so that now Grem will get the correct size and hopefully feel even better. I'm so angry with the old vet! I'm sure it was a simple accident but poor Grem. He's too old for this. So he starts back on the correct dose tomorrow morning.

Vines to all that need them.
 
Hi Laura and Gremlin! It’s evening here i the eastern United States. I’m wondering what time it is for you there now. I hope Gremlin is back to more normal activity now. It’s always a worry when they start changing their routines, isn’t it?
What does Gremlin take meloxicam for? Is it the arthritis? I’m afraid of using this in cats, but I guess you must be careful about the dose. It seems like a dog syringe would be larger than a cat syringe? Anyway, I am wishing all good things for you and Gremlin.
 
Gremlin is still behaving funny. He just tried to curl up in an old cat bed that was full of toys, that he's never slept in and he's too big for (even with the weight loss). After I moved toys, he got back out and stared at his hut but wouldn't go in. He layed on my lap for 10 seconds (no purrs or interaction) and wanted to get back down. I've now popped him on my bed and he's layed down but his eyes are still wide. I'm not panicking, but I'm worried.

Suzanne Williams said:
Hi Laura and Gremlin! It’s evening here i the eastern United States. I’m wondering what time it is for you there now. I hope Gremlin is back to more normal activity now. It’s always a worry when they start changing their routines, isn’t it?
What does Gremlin take meloxicam for? Is it the arthritis? I’m afraid of using this in cats, but I guess you must be careful about the dose. It seems like a dog syringe would be larger than a cat syringe? Anyway, I am wishing all good things for you and Gremlin.
Click to expand...
It's now 2.20pm Saturday 30th here in Australia!

Dogs are usually given more Meloxicam but I believe their per kilo dose is lower.
I am always careful not to overdose Meloxicam which is why I had to check the syringes I was given. I didn't want him underdosed but also definitely didn't want to overdose long term.
Gremlin has been on Meloxicam for approximately a year. It's for the arthritis which has been made worse by the front leg amputation. He has muscle wastage from the arthritis now too. He was given Gabapentin previously but he reacts to it so I said no more. Fortunately, just as I found he definitely needed something, a new study was done that shows Meloxicam beneficial in cats with kidney disease. Grem is a testament to that! His kidney values improve EVERY time he's tested which is approximately 6 monthly. Because Grem can't have Gabapentin, the next thing for him is an opioid pain killer but I'd rather that be a last resort, not a long term thing. Gremlin and one of my GA cats, Buzz, both thrive/d happily on Meloxicam!
 
Wow. I was unaware of that study. I would like to read it. All I have ever seen is that meloxicam can cause sudden kidney failure in cats. So now I am confused. I wish I had known about this in 2019 when I was trying to extend the life of my sweet Tabitha who had CKD. If you have, or can find, a link to the study or an abstract, I would love to read it.
Poor Gremlin. Why did he have to have his leg amputated? Was it cancer?
 
Hi Suzanne,
Yep, he had fibrosarcoma. He had surgery to remove the tumour (we knew that doing a biopsy could make it spread faster so opted straight for removal) but it was wrapped around his tendons and such in his ankle. They sent it for biopsy and we found out what it was after that. It grew back rapidly and at that stage Grem was still doing so well that I opted for amputation. That was just over a year ago. He was doing really well up until he developed hypertension. He's still doing okay, you can just tell that he's old now.

There's a lot of information online and the study was published fairly recent. Also, I don't think many countries have changed anything since and still won't prescribe it to CKD cats. It can only be prescribed in cats that are healthy and stable, with hydration being a huge factor. Here are a couple of articles.
Article 1
Article 2
I can't find the study itself, done by the World Small Animal Veterinary Association ‐ Global Pain Council (WSAVA‐GPC), but the articles offer some info.
Grem may actually be heading to the stage where he can't have it anymore as he has started to lose weight and may need to start on fluids in the near future.
 
Wow. I'm amazed that he has not been on fluids already, considering it's been since 2018 that he was diagnosed with CKD. You must do an amazing job of caring for him.

Aren't fibrosarcomas caused by vaccines? That was what I had read. My Tabitha, that I lost January 2, 2020, had CKD and was doing fairly well. Then she got a cancerous growth around her hock. The vet said that she wasn't a candidate for surgery because of her kidneys... that the anesthesia would "finish off" her kidneys. So we did not treat it. We did a fine needle aspiration and the pathologist said that she could not find any cancer cells, but the thing grew and grew... well... it was like a hole in her foot. She lived on about six months after that. What really killed her was a pleural effusion. When they discovered it, they told me she had dilated cardiomyopathy. We drained it one time but it just came back. The vet had me giving her 200 mLs per day of fluid... which I believe was way too much... I have a lot of guilt about doing that... no cat of mine will ever get that much sub-q fluid again. But the cancer was getting pretty bad and she would have died from that anyway. It killed me to euthanize that sweet girl.

Thanks for sharing that information at the meloxicam. I would like to discuss this with my vet... even though I don't have a CKD cat right now. With as many cats as I have, it's pretty much inevitable that another one of them will have CKD.
 
As I said, since that first CKD diagnosis, every test he's had only shows improvement. I don't know how but he hasn't declined! From CKD anyway. The only thing I changed was to ensure his food was both low carb and low phos. Grem had three surgeries after his CKD diagnosis. All were life saving treatment. There was a huge risk his kidneys would fail but without the surgeries, he'd have died anyway. I'm glad I took those risks. Now that he has a heart murmur as well, he absolutely can not have any more.

Fibrosarcoma CAN be caused by vaccines, usually the rabies vaccine. Grem has never been vaccinated in all his life so it wasn't caused by that for him. He was just unlucky. The fortunate thing for him is that fibrosarcoma is locally aggressive and due to it being on his leg, we were able to get rid of it. Any other cancer, and it almost certainly would have shown up somewhere else.

I'm so sorry you had to go through all that.
 
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