Nausea vs. Finicky

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Barb & Mr. Frog

Member Since 2013
Hi again, I am having some trouble with feeding, and I'm trying to figure out if he is nauseous or just being finicky, but pretty much all I can get my lil Frog to eat is seafood varieties, with the one exception of Iams chicken. I know I read somewhere that fish is addictive and not really great for them, so I'm trying to figure out how to handle this, but I have no idea how to tell ... are there visible symptoms of nausea? He gets very excited when I open the can, but if it isn't fish, he just kind of looks at it... and then walks away, even when I KNOW he is hungry. I have ordered some Fortiflora, but it likely wont be here for a couple days, do I just keep giving him the fish until then? Other ideas/suggestions?

It seems critical to me to keep him eating, especially since I'm having trouble getting the blood for testing. I spent half an hour today trying to get blood, and I finally did, but it wasn't enough and the meter errored :( (even tho it did 'beep') I'm going to try again pre-shot tonight, but I guess I have to do it free-hand, using the device hasn't gotten even one single drop of blood yet, and he is pretty mad at me for trying. (I've been using a warm wet washcloth inside of a plastic baggie to warm the ear, plus lots of rubbing/massaging... I got blood on the manual poke, but as I said it wasn't enough, and I thought 30 minutes was already ridiculously long to be poking at him, so I let him go :?


Edit: Just wanted to say there isn't any vomiting or diarrhea, tho his stools this last couple days are very 'soft', almost liquidy, but not quite
 
Maybe, for now continue with the wet he will eat and experiment slowly. There are some FF brands that have chicken and fish combined. Maybe he'd go for those. You don't want loose stools or a cat who is getting insulin but not eating.

Have you tried dressing the wet? Sometimes you can put the dry he liked on top - after crushing it into tiny bits. Or if he has a favorite low carb treat , dress it with that. (Bonita flakes works well for that, so does the raw that ones in dry form(I think it's called Stella's?)

If you'd tell us your process of testing, we might be able to help you finesse it. (a recent newbie figured out her meter took too large a drop and she needed to take the cover off the lancet. We didn't catch these things because we didn't have the complete picture.)

What size lancet? Sometimes that is the secret.
 
I haven't tried adding dry bits to the wet food, I got rid of the dry food when I found out how awfully I'd been duped and that I was hurting my babies :( That's why I ordered the fortiflora, hoping he will like it. They (all of my cats) do LOVE the crunchy/soft 'temptations' treats, but I hadn't been giving Frog any of those lately. Should I try crushing some of those up on the food, or are they just too bad to use at all with him? I do have tuna flakes, thats one of the two things I've been giving him as treats for the ear rubs/poke conditioning. He does love the flakes. Would those tuna flakes be a better choice than the temptations? Are the combo foods ok, the ones with fish and something else?

As for my process... I don't really have alot of choices for location, my bathroom is pretty much the only place in the house where I can lock all the other cats out AND get him up high enough to be able to see anything (my eyes aren't great), anyway, I get him up on the counter, held loosely, and after massaging/warming the ear, I fold it back a little bit with a cotton 'pad' (a makeup pad) behind it (so that I am poking the inner edge) ...... He definitely doesn't like the device, he tries to scoot as soon as he sees it now, so I'll just work on perfecting the manual poke, I guess. This meter uses a very small blood amount, only .3 it says, and when I tested it on me, the blood drop was tiny, but it didn't error. Bad luck maybe, or maybe I just didn't contact the blood to the strip well enough, either way I wasn't willing to force him to stay longer.. once he hears the beep, I'd like him to be able to feel confident that he is done, and know that his treat is incoming. I bought 26g lancets as I saw suggested here on this forum (have some 29s that came with the meter tho, if I need them)
 
Try loading the strip into the meter but dont push in all the way till you get blood. Maybe that will help.
Good luck we're pullin for you both!

jeanne
 
I have been waiting until I get blood to pull a strip out of the bottle, I was under the impression that the strips aren't good out in the air for very long?
 
I dont know if it depends on the brand but thats what I had to do because my Trouble hated being tested and wiggled too much. It always worked for me. I know if they are out TOO long you will get an error message...Maybe see what others say...It's been a long toime since I've had a diabetic kitty.
In any case, sending positives prayers and purrs

jeanne

ETA: I never used the "device" to draw blood. The click drove Trouble crazy. We mastered the freehand. Good Luck!
 
The error that I got this morning said not enough blood, it WAS a fairly small drop, maybe I didn't connect the thing quite right, but it did suck up most of the drop which is why I didn't try again, because I would have needed to poke him to get more blood again. I will get it down pat, just have to work with Froggii, cuz when all is said and done, I can't really feel good about terrorizing him even to save his life.... He WILL learn this, just going to take patience on both of our parts methinks.
 
You asked a question that I don't think was answered yet -

Would those tuna flakes be a better choice than the temptations?

Temptations, pounce and other similar treats are not a good option for a diabetic. You can use tuna flakes, freeze dried meat - such as halo liv a littles, Pure Bites, even Stella & Chewy's Freeze dried raw food - these come in poultry, beef, lamb and I think fish flavors as well. You may be able to find them locally and if not, they are available online - let me know and I can send you sites for where to get it cheapest.

Regarding feeding fish flavors only - something you may want to try - for example I believe Fancy Feast makes some carb friendly combo flavors - such as chicken and fish, etc. You could also try taking the foods he does like and mixing a small amount of chicken or beef flavors into it, until you get him eating 100% non-fish flavors.

Another thing you can do and this is good for many other purposes is to purchase salmon oil and squirt that into his food. It is supposed to help with digestion as well as fur coat. And most importantly for Frog, will give him the fish taste he desires.

Possibly a combination of all the above will work.

Some symptoms of nausea can be if he licks his lips or smacks his lips, puts his head in the bowl and doesn't eat, turns away, if you put food in front of him, he will show interest maybe take a lick and then turn away. He doesn't have to vomit or have diarrhea to be nauseous.

Think about the last time you were nauseous and/or vomited and how you felt. You get this feeling in your throat and you smack your lips because you can feel it building....it's the same with cats.
 
I use the Relion Confirm and always put the strip part-way into the meter first - I then did the poke and pushed the strip all of the way in for the test.
I never had any problems with errors doing it this way.
Now, I put the stip all the way in to start with as it gives 2mins (I think) which is a fairly long time once you get blood more easily.

Occassionally, the strip wouldn't suck up the blood - no error - so I would keep the blood on the end of the strip and switch it out for a new strip and then transfer the blood to that.
Again, no errors and numbers seemed ok.
I only did this if I was pretty sure there was enough blood.

The Confirm only needs a tiny bit of blood.
Do you use the clear lancet device cover that comes with it? I found that easier.
Also, you can switch off the meter's sound if that helps.

I always test Honey on the inside of her ears - I found the blood spread into the fur otherwise.
I usually have her on the bed and while she's nibbling the treats, I bend her ear over (so I can see the inside) and poke.
Make sure to keep a firm hold of the ear though!
 
The other thing you might try is to do a quick double poke (until the capillaries get larger - or as we say, the ears "learn" to bleed) Just a quick second poke in the same spot as the first.

Massaging the ears may not be enough at first. They really do need to be warm to get the blood moving into those tiny capillaries. I would have the washcloth really warm!
 
Ok, so I think he is nauseous then... he keeps asking for food, and even the ones he loved previously, he licks once or twice, then turns away. I will get him some pepcid ac... I tried to grab some at the grocer, but they only had a 20mg 'maximum strength' one, so Ill try hitting the pharmacy later and find the 10mg ones.

Thank you all for the suggestions, many of them sound very doable, and I will work on that, (most especially the double poke thing, I probably should have thought of that)

I will also get salmon oil, if I can figure out where to get it, is it a vitamin type thing? Also is there an optimal 'amount' to put on the food? Is there such thing as 'too much' of it?

Regarding the freeze-dried treats, I have only been able to find ONE kind here locally and its such a teeny bag :( (and I bought the only 3 bags they had) so links to low priced good options would be sooo very welcome, especially since he went nuts over the kind I got (the ingredients listed ONLY chicken, so I was pretty happy about that, but I have only 3 tiny bags so that wont last long with testing/treating let alone if I sprinkle it on his food)
 
ok you asked for it - here you go:

salmon oil - http://entirelypets.resultspage.com/sea ... 20Oil&rk=6

I purchased the Iceland brand, but as you can see there are other brands - check them out and decide which you want to try. and this place had the best pricing.

PureBites - http://www.kingwholesale.com/Shopping/i ... fm?id=5994

I usually buy the chicken - but as you can see they have fish, beef as other options - and I buy the largest size available -

halo liv a littles - this looks to be cheapest - never ordered from here - so you will need to check out - http://www.chewy.com/s/halo?gclid=CN-b0 ... 4Aod_mMA5w



and pepcid ac - also look for generic/store brand - should help with nausea - if it continues, a vet visit may be needed to get something stronger and also test for pancreatitis which can be painful
 
Cool, thanks!!

Purebites is the one that I have already, so I know for sure he likes it, love the tip about getting the dog ones, I can happily break up the pieces for him.

/hugs to all
 
When Wink was doing the lip smacking, eat a bite or two and walk away, one other thing I did besides giving him Pepcid AC was to elevate his dish to more around chin height. I think it helped some.

I don't see that anyone mentioned this already. You might want to give it a try to help with the nausea.
 
Actually, I had already noticed that he would eat a bit more if I held the plate for him, but he was still refusing it after a bite or two.

I got some pepcid ac and a pill cutter, gave him 1/4 pill roughly an hour ago, and he is happily eating right now, so yea, he was definitely feeling nauseous, thank you all for the tips and tricks!

I have a small new dilemma but I'm going to make a new thread, thanks again.
 
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