Decreased appetite

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JJPetlovr

JJPetlovr

Member Since 2014
Hi,
I am curious if this is common or if I should be concerned. Flame has been OTJ for 5 days now with good numbers.
Yesterday, and continuing this morning, he has not eaten his entire food portion. He is leaving about 1/3. He has always been a voracious eater, so I am wondering if it has something to do with the lack of Lantus.
He is acting fine and starts off eating very strong. But just seems to loose interest.
Thank you for any input.
Julie and Flame
 
Continue to monitor his BG. Not eating can increase the levels. To encourage interest in food when appetite is lacking you can try grated parmesan cheese on top of the food. Not a lot but sometimes that will spark the appetite.


Anita and Squeaker
 
Sounds good on the weight. I did weigh him yesterday and he was up 0.8lbs from two weeks ago. I will continue to monitor weight and yes BG. I am still monitoring BG twice a day at meal time because I just want to make sure.
Thank you both very much,
Julie and Flame
PS... I finally got the Avitar the correct size. That's my boy Flame. :smile:
 
Update... I took Flame to the Vet this morning. He is way down on appetite and has lost one pound.
She is doing a fructose-mine (sp) test and a blood panel to check for any other problems.
His current food is DM savory,but I have already decided to transition him off of that. Seems like a lot of people here feed Fancy Feast Classic. Is there any other recommendations to get this guy interested in his food again? I have been adding in boiled organic chicken and Trader Joes cat tuna but that has not helped much.
I will get the results of the tests tomorrow. Wish us luck.

Julie and Flame
 
Thank you very much!!
That site is incredible!!! So much information. I hope to get some good news, or at least workable news from the vet in the morning. He didn't eat much today,so pretty worried about him.
Julie and Flame
 
Hi Julie,

When I first saw your thread, I misread it as 5 months when I first viewed it so I thought I didn't have much to contribute because I'd not had any experience of inappetence in Saoirse that long after stopping insulin therapy.. I've just re-read your opening post and saw that Flame's appetite petered out after only 5 days. Doh! ohmygod_smile Turns out I may have something to share after all.

Saoirse had two brief periods off insulin and on both occasions she had digestive problems. She lost her appetite completely within about 4 days after coming off Caninsulin and shortly after she had a pancreatitis flare-up (no appetite, nausea (which I didn't know how to detect at the time) and eventually diarrhoea. When she came off Lantus for a few days her appetite petered out again and she got diarrhoea again, though thankfully no pancreatitis flare second time round - just a short bout of diarrhoea which stopped shortly after resuming Lantus treatment and getting appropriate meds.

I did some digging online and i have seen anecdotal reports of humans that get insulin-related GI upsets, too. I still wonder whether Saoirse's continuing mild nausea is due to the Lantus but I won't know until I try another OTJ trial.

Anyway, enough background. I think there's definitely a link between the GI upsets and cessation of insulin treatment in Saoirse so maybe Flame is having a similar problem?

Saoirse had the following treatments. (She weighs c. 10lb and all dosages were set in consultation with our vet - I included the doses that were right for Saoirse - they're not recommendations):

- tiny doses of cyproheptadine for appetite, c 1mg or less (sometimes just a crumb from a 4mg tablet) to stimulate appetite 1-2 times/day. Cyproheptadine is an antihistamine and can cause drowsiness/dizziness at too high a dose. It can affect mood negatively (low mood on too high a dose - cypro is a serotonin antagonist, although Saoirse got purry and content on the tiny dose :? ).

- ondansetron for nausea - 2mg twice a day.

- B12 injections because her levels were deficient. Our vet seid it can give the system an overall boost and possibly help the digestive tract although I don't know the why of it for the latter assertion.

I did try giving Saoirse Fortiflora to try to stimulate her appetite. On both occasions it it didn't agree with her (made nausea symptoms worse).

Has Flame vomited at all? In particular, has she ever brought up whitish, foamy vomitus a few hours after a feed? If yes, that can be a symptom of excess stomach acid, and it can be treated with famotidine or other stomach acid suppressant med.

Does Flame ever sit in a crouched, meatloaf position? That can be a sign of internal discomfort. Is she hiding or sitting in unusual spots around the house?

I hope that by sharing some of our experience it may help you and your vet get something in place to help your beautiful girl. (Lovely picture! :cool: )
 
I might try some of the 'grilled" fancy feast canned foods. I know my cat, Murphy, likes one flavor for only so long, then its on to something new.
I don't think popping one of those in every so often will hurt. His appetite may have just changed due to a sudden change..being OTJ.
Don't despair. They are cats, finicky and mysterious. BTW, I love the picture and the name.....Flame on!!
 
Thank you very much!
Flames tests came back perfect. He is officially in remission.
Saoirse's experience seems to be exactly what Flame is going through. So very helpful hearing all that you did. I started on the Pepcid last night. He ate a little this morning. He has eaten a little more this afternoon and is acting a little more like himself this afternoon too. I have 10 different varieties of cat food open in the fridge and he has chosen Friskies Mixed grill as the one he will eat. :-). At this point I am just grateful for him eating.
Thank you very much for all the suggestions. And yes Murphys Mom, I agree. Sometimes you just have to get them eating.
I truly appreciate the help and support.
I will keep you posted.

Julie and Flame
 
Yay! Flame's OTJ!!! I'm thrilled for you both.

:RAHCAT otj_icon :RAHCAT

Glad some of Saoirse's experiences were of help. Shadowsmom and tiffmaxee helped us when Saoirse was very poorly.

If you wouldn't mind, Julie, it would great to get some updates on how Flame gets on digestion-wise. It's one thing that I worry about for trying to run an OTJ trial with Saoirse in the future.
 
Awwww... How sweet. Thank you.
The best news is that Flame ate his entire dinner enthusiastically!
It was half Friskies and half FF, so I am pretty sure I can transition him back to his better diet.
I will resume testing probably tomorrow as long as he is still eating well. I have always tested with food in front of him,so it was too stressful for both of us to do it when he was refusing.
I am curious if this episode has had an effect on his numbers.
Thanks again!!! We love FDMB!!!!
Julie and Flame flip_cat flip_cat
 
Pretty shocked last night when I tested. He was at 39. Yikes! He has not had any Lantus for days. I feed him and then prayed and woke up several times to check on him. This morning he was at 66. Phew!
 
Yikes, Julie! :shock: nailbite_smile

Naughty Flame, putting your poor mammy's heart crossways like that. Tsk, tsk!

It must feel great to know his numbers are so good! :-D How's his appetite going?
 
LOL, yes he does freak me out sometimes.
His appetite is back to normal. The only thing that is still a little off is the amount he wants to eat at one sitting. But, true to form, that just means that I feed him a few more times a day.
Tonight his BG is 73. Much better than last nights 39.
Thank you very much again for all your help.
Julie and Flame
 
Delighted to hear that Flame's eating better. It's such a relief, isn't it! :smile:

I'm glad I was able to help a little bit. BTW I must apologise for erroneously giving Flame a gender reassignment in one of my earlier posts. :oops: :oops: :oops:
 
LOL... That's okay. He didn't mind at all.
Sunshine Kitty, my other cat, is always being called a girl. He doesn't mind either.
You were a great deal of help!
 
Congratulations Flame!

I just wanted to briefly document Huey's experience here. He is in the middle of an unexpected OTJ trial and it's been hair-raising in part because he's been pretty constipated the past day or two, and his appetite has been down as well. He didn't eat at ALL on Friday, and I think that was the constipation. He's been better since we got the conveyor belt moving along again, so to speak. It was interesting reading about your insulin/digestion problems, I'm thinking that might be the case here too.
 
Interesting. Tisha had similar experiences to Flame. I'm going to start a separate topic on this issue (digestive upset/nausea/inappetance after OTJ) because it would be useful to get more information.

I'll post more in the new topic, but to make a long story short, Tisha has had 2 OTJ trials. For each of them, on the 4th day off of insulin, she started vomiting, then had a time period where she would not eat. We're just now starting to get her back to her normal diet after the most recent episode. Although Tisha's reaction seems to be more severe than some, I'm wondering if there's some anecdotal information here that might help ALL of us to figure out what's going on and address it.

On a related note, keep an eye on those numbers. When Tisha has had these spells, her BG got VERY high. Her readings over the last several days have ranged from the very high 300s up to "HI" on the meter (which is usually over 600.) Last time, it took about a week to get her numbers back to a normal range, then she was back to testing in an OTJ range after a couple of weeks.
 
I've only been a member since June, and I have been struck by the number of threads on this board reporting cats with appetite/digestive problems.
 
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