Constant meowing during night

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cooper

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I posted questions previously regarding my cat's constant meowing during night even after increasing his feedings and leavings a frozen dish of feeding out so he would have one during the night to eat. As stated before, per his vet he is in remission from diabetes since the beginning of January. His increase in appetite started about 2 wks. ago-there are NO other symptoms. He has only lost 1 lb. since January 2nd. He looks very healthy. I have also tried spraying him with water as suggested on another site when he does his meowing. This does not work. As mentioned-leaving an extra feed also is not working. Last nite or should I say after I fed him a full 3 oz. can at 5:00 am he started meowing non-stop one half hour later!!! He is driving me crazy!!! Then to top it off, he sleeps all day!!! What more can I do???
 
Thank you for your response. I have read about this. I questioned it though because it has a lot of different signs/symptoms listed and my cat has just the one. Do you think it is possible for him to have it with just that one symptoms? And also, he was checked for this back in January (almost 2 months ago). Do you think it could develop now and that is why he only has that one symptom-the meowing? If, for some reason, he would have that I have no idea how I would ever be able to afford to treat him for a condition like that.
 
Yes I suppose it could come on that fast. My cat Arthur was right at the high end for hyperthyroid for almost two years, not high enough to be medicated. But then about a month ago his levels were just plain high and he now takes medication.

Terri
 
if hyperthyroidism is anything in cats like it is in humans then I would say he does not have it............a couple of years ago I was building my renovation (not a contractor - me) and working every day and night and finished 1400' in 4 months complete and while building I was loosing weight and thought it was from working out and doing the building. I was eating about 4000 calories a day (I'm 5'3 and athletic) and still loosing weight. I went to the doctor and was DX with hyperthyroidism and as far as I know I wasn't talking all night LOL............but as fast as this came on, it left and I went hypothyroid in two days........then it left and now I am fine and never went on medication.

So, if he is the hyper type then he'd be eating tons of food since his metabolism would be spiked and he's be burning it off like crazy. The other symptom is big weight loss, which explains the need for more food.

Not sure, but don't think it's that............

Shawna
 
Notwithstanding a medical problem you might want to give him a good workout before bed. I have to play with my cats right before bedtime otherwise they'll be meowing and running around the house all night. I chase them around the house, play fetch, play hide and seek, just tire them out and they pretty much sleep all night until they get hungry around 3AM. It's worth a try, he might just want that extra attention. :mrgreen:
 
I did call the vet's office today and got some info. She wasn't in for appts. today but did stop in for awhile. She did mention that she didn't want to check his thyroid levels just yet since he just had them checked less than 2 months ago and they were fine. She is going to call me tomorrow so we can talk in length about his feeding habits. The receptionist asked about that. I am already giving him the amount of calories I think he is allowed in a 24 hr. period. She is wondering if he reverted back into diabetes??? But like I said, he doesn't have any of the other symptoms. Especially increased thirst or increased urination or peeing outside the litter box (like he did when he was first diagnosed). It looks like another restless night.
 
Cognitive Dysfunction Syndrome is a possibility to discuss with your vet.
 
I researched cognitive dysfunction syndrome. I had never heard of this before-very informative. I will definitely discuss this with the vet tomorrow. I hope Dinnybones does not have to suffer with whatever is going on with him. I have had him for 13 1/2 yrs. I live alone and would be so lost without him.
 
Could be just too much energy. Play with him energetically before bed and see if he still does it... My Tiggy does but he does it with a toy in his mouth and running around...
 
I read somewhere that if your cat has thyroid issues you should not feed him food with iodine such as fish. Would this include salmon? Has anyone else heard of this? I often feed my cat seafood feast, savory salmon, fish and shrimp feast, oceanfish and tuna, and tuna feast. I wonder if all these have iodine in them?
 
Hello,
all seafood contains iodine, though I don't know how that would affect nocturnal behavior. This board recommends NOT feeding fish-type food to your cat more than once or twice per week. What you, also, might wish to check out is mercury's effect on your cat.
Best wishes,
Sophie
 
My cat's vet finally called me concerning my cat's issues. She doesn't think he has a cavity which is causing his horrible bad breath or frequent nighttime meowing. She also doubts he is having thyroid issues as the meowing is the only symptom he is currently having. Se does agree he may be having some cognitive dysfunction syndrome symptoms because of his age or perhaps anxiety or high blood pressure. She suggested I buy some cat toys and exercise and play with him 15 to 20 minutes right before I go to bed and maybe that will help keep him calm thru the night. Also, I am not to give in and feed him anything during the night. She said his meowing is a way to try to manipulate me into giving into him and feeding him. I am to feed him right before I go to bed. He is to have 3 3oz. cans during the day. I can supplement it with canned pumpkin, but he won't have anything to do with it. She said if these measures don't work I wll need to take him in for a check up and possibly he will need to go on medication to calm him down. Something like Ativan for anxiety. They also might have a special kind of food? And maybe a medication for high blood pressure if he has that. Last night he only woke me up twice and stopped meowing after I got up and scolded him. But tonite he is already driving me crazy-he ate at 2pm and has been meowing pretty much non-stop for the last 2 hrs. and he's not due to eat until 10:00. It is only 8 now. The vet said he should be satisfied with the 3 oz every 8 hrs but he is not.
 
I leave food out for 12 hours at a time for my cats. Once they stop being anxious about having enough, they calm down considerably.

An unregulated diabetic will be hungry because of the inability to use all the food eaten and may need as much as 50% more food.

Active play for 15 to 20 minutes 1 to 2 times daily may help both by tiring the cat and by helping the insulin work.
 
Sounds like a good plan although he might drive you nuts for a week or two. Weigh him though once every week or two to ensure he doesn't lose or gain weight and adjust food accordingly...

I might try a timed feeder that opens during the night. Then he won't associate the food with you at night.
 
To the response that suggested a possible 50% increase in food (if that is what you meant). I don't think that is a good idea because then my cat would be way over the amount of calories he is suppose to have in a day. For his weight he is to have around 260. With him eating the 3oz. cans of Fancy Feast most of the flavors I give him are around 85-95 calories. Since I feed him 3 cans a day that gives him pretty close to his allotted amount. He is in remission from diabetes. I don't want him to have to start using insulin again if I can prevent it. And I don't want him to start gaining weight. Also, I don't think a timed feeder is a good idea either. The vet said not to feed him during the night at all. But maybe the reason she said that was because she didn't want him to manipulate me by his meowing and associating that with knowing he could sit and meow and know I would give in and get up to feed him. Cause I told her it was frustrating me cause it was really interfering with the quality of my sleep. But if he could eat without actually waking me maybe it wouldn't be that big of a deal.
 
The 50% increase is only for UNregulated diabetics who cannot absorb food properly as I noted in my post.
It may also help a hyperthyroid cat (before treatment) to maintain weight.
If may also help a cat with cancer maintain weight; cancer often causes weight loss.
 
Is your cat meowing, or does it sound more like howling? The howling indicates a painful pancreas. I have had that twice now with two different cats. Another option is that his BG goes to LOW at night, causing the meowing and howling. Did you have your vet check for pancreatitis? They do not have to be throwing up to be experiencing pain. How does the poop look? Is it big, small? What color is it?

How much does your cat weigh? If he is not overweight I would also consider feeding him a little bit more food. When was the last time you weighed your cat, and did he lose or gain weight since then?

My cats also meow A LOT at night when they are hungry.

I re-read your FIRST post again. It sounds like your cat is in pain to me. My pancreatic cat Jomo, that I had for nearly 4 years after I rescued her, ALWAYS did this when she was in pain.

To me, it sounds like you cat needs fluids and Buprenex. Let me ask you this, when your cat does eat, does he nibble on it or does he scarf it all right up, right away?
 
Thank you for your reply. My cat's sound is a meow and not a howling sound. He was to the vets in the beginning of January and had a complete physical with blood tests. His poop has been normal-medium in size and the same amount of times that he normally goes. His feedings were increased about a month ago. He eats his food down right away and eats it all. Here are his weights: On January 25 he was 14 lbs. On Feb. 20 he was 13.5 lbs. On March 2 he was 13.6 oz. Actually, since I bought some toys on the suggestion of the vet and started playing with him right before I go to bed around 11:00 he has not been near as bad with the meowing as he had been. I also try to arrange it so he gets his last feeding around 10:00. He does start meowing maybe around 3 or 3:30 but I don't give him anything until at least 5:00 but like to hold off until 6 if possible. This is an improvement over what he was doing which was waking me up just about every half hour or so. I also spend about 15 minutes playing with him during the day. The meowing is the only symptom he has exhibited and since he just had that complete physical and all the lab work done the vet really didn't think he had anything else going on just by talking to me on the telephone. Of course, she said if he continue with this behavior I could take him in. He may have high blood pressure which can cause meowing at note and anxiety or he may be getting cognitive dysfunction syndrome which if so, they can be put on medication to calm them down.
 
That's probably as good as it's gonna get. My non-diabetic is the same, if I don't tire him out before bed and give him one more food serving he'll be meowing at 12 midnight. By doing those things I can sleep until 3 or 4 am without getting woken up.
 
Even that small amount of weight loss, with the constant meowing and still hungry appetite concern me. Jomo was ALWAYS hungry and meowed all of the time when she had pancreatitis.

I know you said that he had a lot of tests. Did you ask your vet if the test for pancreatitis was given? It is a different test. Also, this test is unreliable, meaning, sometimes even though our kitties have pancreatitis, they test comes up negative for it. Therefore you need to watch for the clinical signs of pancreatitis. One of them is an insatiable appetite with this meowing that you are talking about.

Is your cat throwing up at all? If so, how often? I think you mentioned you were trying to give your cat pumpkin? If so, why?

What COLOR is your cats poop and how many times a day is he going poop?
 
I was giving my cat pumpkin at the vet's suggestion-I think she suggested it thinking it would hold him over between feedings so he wouldn't be meowing as much. But, he wouldn't go near the pumpkin. Nor would he eat fancy feast appetizers which don't really have any calories and would have been ok to supplement the feedings and he also would not eat chicken breasts which I had cooked for myself. His poop is normal and he goes about every other day and nothing has changed as far as the color or consistency. For the past 2 nites now he seems to do ok until about 3 in the morning and then he starts meowing. I get up and tell him to stop and he will. Then he'll start in again around an hr. later so I'll have to get up and tell him to stop again. Then the next time it's usually close to 5 so that's when I go ahead and start his every 8 hr. feedings.
 
I'm sorry to keep asking the same question, but what color is his poop, and, has he vomited at all?

Have you called the vet yet and asked specifically if a test for pancreatitis was run on your kitty? It is a different blood test panel, not included in all of the other tests.
 
My cat's poop is medium to dark brown-the color it has always been. He has not vomited for several weeks. The last time he did, which was several weeks ago, it was just a very small amount of his food. No, I have not asked if he was checked for pancreatitis. I doubt he was-she probly would have said something if he was. She did say that he was checked for the senior cat profile (whatever all they check for in that test/lab work).
 
Can you find out what his T4 was? If in the gray zone I would have the vet check for thyroid nodules. His old is your cat? Having dealt with pancreatitis for over 4 years I doubt that is the problem because they almost never eat a lot but rather become inappetent. There could possibly be problems with absorbing the nutrients from the food though. You might want to get the B12 values checked. I think one us called folate .

Elise
 
HI Tiff,

I just wanted to say that I had my little Jomo, a rescue kitty, for nearly 4 years and she suffered from chronic pancreatitis. She would go through periods of time where she was insatiable. She would eat, and eat and eat. She would eat whatever I would put in front of her, AS LONG AS it had about (1)TBS of water added to it.

For awhile, I was giving her that vet prescribed pork pancreatic enzyme because I had read online that if the cats poop is of a light color it means that their body is not absorbing the nutrients and they will be constantly hungry. That enzyme helped FOR A LONG TIME. She got very healthy and strong again. And then, all of a sudden, she was barfing and sick again. Then I would take her off of it and we would start the entire rounds again.

Jomo also pooped a lot. I DID put baby food squash in her food every time she ate although she never had diarrhea the entire time she was with me. I had read somewhere that pumpkin helped with pancreatitis. She didn't like pumpkin but she didn't mind the baby food squash.

Anyway, she would get that type of insatiable hunger just before she was going to have an 'episode' where I would have to take her to the vet for a few days for IV fluids. I knew how to give fluids but when the vomiting would come too often there was just no way I could keep enough fluids in her by giving them to her myself.

I always suspect pancreatitis for nearly everything wrong with a cat. It goes too often undiagnosed and not recognized in cats too often. It is very painful for cats as well as for humans. That is one reason why the cry so much.

Also, the vets killed my Jomo. She was having a P episode and they thought for sure that she SHOULD be a diabetic although none of her BG numbers while she was in the hospital were ever high. She was always normal. I had never ever taken her BG before. I knew nothing about diabetes at that time. They asked me if they could give her an insulin to see if that would make her feel better. I trusted the vets, what did I know? They gave her the shot. I brought her home and I knew immediately that something wasn't right. She began drinking too much water right away and she had never done that, ever.. By morning she was making the most God-awful howling I had ever heard in my life and she was staggering. I picked her up and rushed her to the emergency room where they demanded that I put her to sleep because she was in too much pain.

I later researched those symptoms and learned that howling, staggering, and unbalance like that was a symptom of a hypo attack.

Another very simple reason for lots of meowing to treat is intestinal worms. Worms are not always easy to find in a cat's stool. Is your cat and indoor/outdoor cat?
 

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My cat is an indoor cat and always has been. The only symptom he has and ever has had is the meowing. And that has improved somewhat. At least it is not as frequent as it had been since I increased his feedings from 2 cans to 3 cans each day. Perhaps since I started playing with him before I go to bed at nite also helps tire him out so he isn't meowing as much. He doesn't usually start meowing until the wee hours of the morning.
 
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