Gina & Yittle (GA)
Active Member
Well, my beloved zaftig calico civvie Tailte has decided she wants to play another round of "stump the vet". She won the last round, but like I told her then I don't care if you play and win as long as you a. end up getting better and b. it doesn't cost a lot of money. Having said that, this time seems more serious then last times odd lumps on her neck that looked exactly like she had alien worms crawling under her skin (minus the motion - it was a fluid wavy pattern). We couldn't get anything out of them with a needle aspiration, or rather we got stuff which dissolved immediately on the slide when they put the liquid on it to view - the vet tech said it was there one moment gone the next with nothing to view on the slide. We put some topical itch cream on her for awhile and they vanished.
This time she's decided to up the ante and I had 2 vets with many years experience stumped today. I noticed a couple months ago that it looked like one of her nipples - the lower left (if holding her in your lap head towards me feet away) looked like it was a little enlarged. We'd just had her rear shaved to help with grooming because she's got fur thats on the long side of regular (vs long-haired) and being such a roly poly she can't reach everywhere. I thought at first I was seeing things or that she was grooming more now and just happened to be bathing that area more. Later on I found Vandal our semi-tame/semi-feral rescue sleeping with her so I wondered if perhaps he'd done a "Mommy" and was kneading her tummy and trying to nurse when we weren't looking. Over the next few months the nipple got more enlarged and really looked like it was inflated. I'd poke her belly and couldn't find any lumps, she didn't mind me handling it, and I didn't get any fluid out of it although I probably wasn't doing it right. I wanted to take her to the vet but we had a human health crisis going on with my mom having emergency open heart triple-bypass surgery and being diagnosed with cancer inside of less then 2 weeks. Once my mom's chemo started up and she recovered from the heart surgery a few weeks I was able to convince her to help me take the cat to the vet. Bluntly I needed somebody (my dad) to help me carry the carrier down the steps cause its heavy, she's heavy and I'm partially disabled and hubby was working nights now so he was never home when the vet was open.
So we took her in on Monday and they felt her all around and did find 2 small lumps, neither of them within 2 inches of a nipple which might be why I missed them. They said both of her bottom 2 nipples were enlarged, it just was that the left one was more so then the right so I hadn't noticed the right was too. We were all a bit surprised when they managed to get clear liquid squirting out of the right one when they palpitated her in that area. When they tried the left side (the larger one) they got a milky fluid out. The vet originally wanted to collect some fluid and send it off to be tested but the owner of the clinic said she didn't think that would provide as much info as we hoped and we'd be better off with a blood panel to start. So we had them do an extended panel (I think) with CBC and T4. They said results would be in Wednesday and we'd find out then what we needed to look into after that. They do not believe she has kitty breast cancer (in October, how ironic), and among other possible causes was false pregnancy or some sort of hormonal imbalance.
Tailte is 9 years old, we rescued her when she was about 2 1/2 years old. We neutered her then and she's remained an indoors only cat since then. All of the males in the house are neutered. She's fully vaccinated. We believe she had at least one litter of kittens during the time she was feral (about 6-9 months) and we believe that the kittens did not survive. She had enlarged nipples when we rescued her but no milk production. It was the end of December and she was positively skeletal. Its possible she managed to wean them shortly before then, but either way she was not nursing kittens at that time but had recently. We waited 1 heat cycle before we neutered her because we weren't sure if she was pregnant or not at the time, she wasn't.
Reading up on feline false pregnancy I don't see any examples where a neutered female can have this, although I saw one article that said something like if a tiny bit of tissue remained after surgery and certain things happened it could regrow enough to cause hormonal issues later. Most examples involved a sterile male mating with a female, which I suppose one of my 2 males who were over 2 when they got neutered could do, but honestly the only thing I've ever seen humped in my house is a pillow, and thats my neutered as a kitten male that does that.
Needle aspiration of the lumps was put forth as an option but only if we do a sonogram to guide the needle because she's so pudgy. That would run around $400. Testing the fluid from the breast if the blood panel comes back with no firm answers has also been suggested and that would cost about $150. And lastly since the cat doesn't seem to be having any pain from this, wait and see has been suggested also. Yesterday cost us $230 between the exam and the blood panel. I also paid to have her anal glands expressed and her rear trimmed a bit to make cleaning her easier but thats not really part of the diagnosis process. Finances are a concern, but so is her health. How likely is false pregnancy as an option? Treatment for it seems to usually boil down to cuddle the cat a lot and wait for her to get over it. Are there any other tests I should be considering. Obviously I'll update when I've got test results back.
This time she's decided to up the ante and I had 2 vets with many years experience stumped today. I noticed a couple months ago that it looked like one of her nipples - the lower left (if holding her in your lap head towards me feet away) looked like it was a little enlarged. We'd just had her rear shaved to help with grooming because she's got fur thats on the long side of regular (vs long-haired) and being such a roly poly she can't reach everywhere. I thought at first I was seeing things or that she was grooming more now and just happened to be bathing that area more. Later on I found Vandal our semi-tame/semi-feral rescue sleeping with her so I wondered if perhaps he'd done a "Mommy" and was kneading her tummy and trying to nurse when we weren't looking. Over the next few months the nipple got more enlarged and really looked like it was inflated. I'd poke her belly and couldn't find any lumps, she didn't mind me handling it, and I didn't get any fluid out of it although I probably wasn't doing it right. I wanted to take her to the vet but we had a human health crisis going on with my mom having emergency open heart triple-bypass surgery and being diagnosed with cancer inside of less then 2 weeks. Once my mom's chemo started up and she recovered from the heart surgery a few weeks I was able to convince her to help me take the cat to the vet. Bluntly I needed somebody (my dad) to help me carry the carrier down the steps cause its heavy, she's heavy and I'm partially disabled and hubby was working nights now so he was never home when the vet was open.
So we took her in on Monday and they felt her all around and did find 2 small lumps, neither of them within 2 inches of a nipple which might be why I missed them. They said both of her bottom 2 nipples were enlarged, it just was that the left one was more so then the right so I hadn't noticed the right was too. We were all a bit surprised when they managed to get clear liquid squirting out of the right one when they palpitated her in that area. When they tried the left side (the larger one) they got a milky fluid out. The vet originally wanted to collect some fluid and send it off to be tested but the owner of the clinic said she didn't think that would provide as much info as we hoped and we'd be better off with a blood panel to start. So we had them do an extended panel (I think) with CBC and T4. They said results would be in Wednesday and we'd find out then what we needed to look into after that. They do not believe she has kitty breast cancer (in October, how ironic), and among other possible causes was false pregnancy or some sort of hormonal imbalance.
Tailte is 9 years old, we rescued her when she was about 2 1/2 years old. We neutered her then and she's remained an indoors only cat since then. All of the males in the house are neutered. She's fully vaccinated. We believe she had at least one litter of kittens during the time she was feral (about 6-9 months) and we believe that the kittens did not survive. She had enlarged nipples when we rescued her but no milk production. It was the end of December and she was positively skeletal. Its possible she managed to wean them shortly before then, but either way she was not nursing kittens at that time but had recently. We waited 1 heat cycle before we neutered her because we weren't sure if she was pregnant or not at the time, she wasn't.
Reading up on feline false pregnancy I don't see any examples where a neutered female can have this, although I saw one article that said something like if a tiny bit of tissue remained after surgery and certain things happened it could regrow enough to cause hormonal issues later. Most examples involved a sterile male mating with a female, which I suppose one of my 2 males who were over 2 when they got neutered could do, but honestly the only thing I've ever seen humped in my house is a pillow, and thats my neutered as a kitten male that does that.
Needle aspiration of the lumps was put forth as an option but only if we do a sonogram to guide the needle because she's so pudgy. That would run around $400. Testing the fluid from the breast if the blood panel comes back with no firm answers has also been suggested and that would cost about $150. And lastly since the cat doesn't seem to be having any pain from this, wait and see has been suggested also. Yesterday cost us $230 between the exam and the blood panel. I also paid to have her anal glands expressed and her rear trimmed a bit to make cleaning her easier but thats not really part of the diagnosis process. Finances are a concern, but so is her health. How likely is false pregnancy as an option? Treatment for it seems to usually boil down to cuddle the cat a lot and wait for her to get over it. Are there any other tests I should be considering. Obviously I'll update when I've got test results back.