? Ideas for our old Lamborghini?

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Gracie85

Member Since 2018
Lamborghini is about 17 years old. He has gone through being hyperthyroid until medication no longer worked, then radioactively treated but overtreated so he became severely hypothyroid, which is now nicely regulated with medicine. He was borderline diabetic when the thyroid was found, we switched him to very low carb wet food and he has remained stable and not diabetic. He has arthritis but Solensia has given him back a decent level of mobility. He has lost almost all his teeth to FORL, last we looked he still had 2 diagonally opposite fangs and a couple of the tiny front incisor teeth. He went through a round of bladderr sludge in his younger years (discovered when he went into the white bathtub and peed blood.) He went through a round of neuropathy and spent two months shuffling on flat feet, between this and the arthritis he still does not jump, climbs with difficulty so we have steps and stepstools all over for him. Not so sure his brain is quite up to par, but he was never the brightest bulb in the box to begin with. Last fall bloodwork indicated he might be starting kidney troubles. There are probably a few other things I am forgetting. He has certainly been through a lot. But he's our Lamborghini. Our big ol' dumb Lamborghini.
He used to be fat and getting fatter, so we had to weigh out his food and carefully restrict him. He refused to lose weight, but at least we stopped him from gaining any more, despite severely restricted calories. Until recently, when he did start losing weight, so we upped his food to where it should be for his weight, and then even more and more. Now he's only very slowly losing ground. But he's 17 and been through the wars...
Only, in the last week or so, he's throwing up, massive, entire meal in a giant puddle, throwing up. Not quite once a day, but seems like we're heading there. He gets fed 4 times a day, breakfast, lunch, dinner, bedtime, so it's about 5 hours between meals. Sometimes we give him a little in between, but with 3 other cats and a dog that's difficult. So he gets 2-2.5+ ounces of Fancy Feast Pate 4 times a day. He is not drinking nor peeing nor anything else more than normal.
Today he's following me around, everywhere, every time I move. This is not normal. I feel like he's trying to tell me something.
So...what could he be trying to tell me? Why is he suddenly throwing up everything more and more frequently?
He's old, he's absolutely terrified of going to the vet, we don't want to put him through extensive and invasive stuff when probably there's not much to be done anyway. We had decided to just let him eat well and ride off into the sunset when it was his time. But now he's got a major symptom of something, and I'm wondering what and is it worth putting him through the terrors of the vet just so we would definitely know that he now had tumors or something else bad?
Any ideas on why this is suddenly happening, on simple things we could check for without torturing him with tests? We had agreed that we would just let him fade out, but now I feel bad about that....am I thinking of doing this for him or for me?
 
Gracie, I'm so sorry that you and Lambo having had to go through so much! I'm sure he knows and appreciates all the love and care you have been and still are showing him throughout his struggles, you're a truly amazing human for this!
I'm no vet, nor any kind of expert, so please take everything I say with a pinch of salt (or just ignore it completely, no offense taken) but two things popped in my mind upon reading his symptoms:
1. Do you think maybe the meds he is taking for his thyroid and arthritis are taking their tolls on his kidneys, thus his condition progressed further?
2. Could it be that he may have developed IBD or some sort of intolerance to his current food? - If you think that may be the case, would supplementing him with B12 be an option? (That could also help his neuropathy slightly.)
That's all I've got from the top of my head, it's not much I know. If anything, I just wanted you to know someone has read your thread, and wanted to give my 2 cents, for what its worth.
With that said, I rather hand this over to the more experienced crowd.
 
As hard as it is on him, I'd recommend a check in with the vet. Any chance you have a vet near you that does house calls? That might reduce some of the stress. I think a recent blood work is probably a good start. Your vet might even be able to give you something to help calm kitty down for the visit, such as gabapentin.

You could try tracking his food intake and when he vomits. I created a "vomit log" for my vet. :p That way you might be able to see if he's vomiting when he's eaten a particular food. It might be a food allergy. Any chance he's getting into someone else's food, or something elsewhere he shouldn't be eating? B12 helps if cats are low in B12, but is not a treatment for IBD. Typically cyanocobalamin is used for cats low in B12. For diabetic neuropathy, methylcobalamin (methyl B12) is what is used. More info about that in this post: Feline Diabetic Neuropathy
 
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