Pancreatiits flaring- Not eating - loosing weight

[SoCalcoolcatt]

I could really use some help to get my poor cat through this pancreatitis flare up. He's loosing weight and not eating very much and the days are going by with only some improvement and the last medicine added made it all worse. I think my vet doesn't know what to do to help us.

It all started when 2 weeks ago my cat started limping badly. Our vet was on vacation and a back up vet helped us. They ran blood work and urinalysis and xray. She said it looked like pretty bad arthritis in the right elbow and sent us home with pain med, butorphanol.
The next day she called to say the blood work was clear and we could get a prednisone shot and started Cosequin for the joints, giving 2 capsules a day as directed . Well the limp improved, but in the background of the limp, I missed the signs of a pancreatits flare starting up. Licking here and there and decrease in food intake. 3 days after starting the Cosequin, my cat started vomiting every 6 hours. And now for a week and a half we have been on a pancreatitis roller coaster. I should say that's what our vet decided was going on after trying to treat this nausea and vomiting for about 8 days. Then it was confirmed by an ultrasound.

We got an Ultrasound 4 days ago on Friday. He said that it ruled out any other big bad things and showed signs of pancreatitis. My cat is eating only about 1/3 of the amount of food he should eat every day. So nausea and poor appetite appear to be the big problem but I can tell you that at times pain really seems to be a problem.

After 2 days off Cerenia, we were told to restart it on Friday because he was doing worse with eating and looking sicker. We restarted 1/2 tablet of Cerenia Friday and Saturday and added 1/2 tablet Pepsid on Sunday and he began to do much much better. 1/4 tablet Cerenia Sunday and Monday. He was playing like his normal self and interested in his world and we were very relieved but the vet insisted we needed to add Reglan because we can't continue with Cerenia and despite all the other signs of improvement, my cat is still not eating enough food (although had doubled his intake from barely anything). On a good day, its like he's just lost most of his interest in food.
My cat who was playing and yowling and who was even eating some more food, deteriorated pretty fast after taking the first dose of Reglan syrup tonight. I mixed it with his 1/2 tablet pepsid and 1/4 tablet Cerenia and within an hour he's clearly in pain and feeling terrible again. I am getting desperate. We are trying so hard to get him feeling better and get him eating again, but every few days it seems like we loose ground.

Please please can someone help us. I thought I would help him by giving him the Reglan and it seems to have made everything worse. Does anyone have any advise? I should add I am totally out of money at this point. My vet has let me put some of this care onto a tab but I'm not sure he knows how to help us. My cat looks so pained and sick right now and I feel responsible for giving that darn Reglan. I can't afford a gastrointestinal specialist but I think that's what our vet will say we need. I'm afraid he's going to die if we can't figure out how to ease his pain, nausea and get him eating again.

 

[Blue]

I could really use some help to get my poor cat through this pancreatitis flare up. He's loosing weight and not eating very much and the days are going by with only some improvement and the last medicine added made it all worse. I think my vet doesn't know what to do to help us.

It all started when 2 weeks ago my cat started limping badly. Our vet was on vacation and a back up vet helped us. They ran blood work and urinalysis and xray. She said it looked like pretty bad arthritis in the right elbow and sent us home with pain med, butorphanol.
The next day she called to say the blood work was clear and we could get a prednisone shot and started Cosequin for the joints, giving 2 capsules a day as directed . Well the limp improved, but in the background of the limp, I missed the signs of a pancreatits flare starting up. Licking here and there and decrease in food intake. 3 days after starting the Cosequin, my cat started vomiting every 6 hours. And now for a week and a half we have been on a pancreatitis roller coaster. I should say that's what our vet decided was going on after trying to treat this nausea and vomiting for about 8 days. Then it was confirmed by an ultrasound.

We got an Ultrasound 4 days ago on Friday. He said that it ruled out any other big bad things and showed signs of pancreatitis. My cat is eating only about 1/3 of the amount of food he should eat every day. So nausea and poor appetite appear to be the big problem but I can tell you that at times pain really seems to be a problem.

After 2 days off Cerenia, we were told to restart it on Friday because he was doing worse with eating and looking sicker. We restarted 1/2 tablet of Cerenia Friday and Saturday and added 1/2 tablet Pepsid on Sunday and he began to do much much better. 1/4 tablet Cerenia Sunday and Monday. He was playing like his normal self and interested in his world and we were very relieved but the vet insisted we needed to add Reglan because we can't continue with Cerenia and despite all the other signs of improvement, my cat is still not eating enough food (although had doubled his intake from barely anything). On a good day, its like he's just lost most of his interest in food.
My cat who was playing and yowling and who was even eating some more food, deteriorated pretty fast after taking the first dose of Reglan syrup tonight. I mixed it with his 1/2 tablet pepsid and 1/4 tablet Cerenia and within an hour he's clearly in pain and feeling terrible again. I am getting desperate. We are trying so hard to get him feeling better and get him eating again, but every few days it seems like we loose ground.

Please please can someone help us. I thought I would help him by giving him the Reglan and it seems to have made everything worse. Does anyone have any advise? I should add I am totally out of money at this point. My vet has let me put some of this care onto a tab but I'm not sure he knows how to help us. My cat looks so pained and sick right now and I feel responsible for giving that darn Reglan. I can't afford a gastrointestinal specialist but I think that's what our vet will say we need. I'm afraid he's going to die if we can't figure out how to ease his pain, nausea and get him eating again.

For pancreatitis, you must be giving pain meds as it's quite painful as stated by humans suffering from pancreatitis. Buprenorphine about the best and most common given by other owners.
Also, subQ fluids is the 2nd of 3 items needed for treating pancreatitis.
The last is the pepcid which you are giving. You can give a max of 5mg pepcid per day, and so you can give 1/4 tab of the Pepcid AC regular strength every day.

My cat had horrible issues with pancreatitis attacks and on the first sign of an attack coming on, I would give her fluids and bupe. I eventually kept giving her the pepcid twice a day as it helped to cut down on her attacks. When I changed vets, the new vet told me to start giving her weekly shots of B12, and the shots virtually eliminated her attacks by cutting down the inflammation.

If your cat is having frequent flares, please obtain some pain meds and the fluids because they will help a great deal. You can also add more water to your cat's food which will also help.

 

[Rachel & Gus]

I second what Blue said. I wish all the vets and ER docs had prescibed Buprenex for Gus before he developed hepatic lipidosis. He lived, but it was traumatic and he shouldn't have gone through that. The culprit was Fancy Feast food causing IBD flare up which triggered pancreatitis (he has triad's disease).

Cerenia is good - but Buprenex worked the best and I buy it in a large bottle compounded to save money through my vet's office.

Sub Q fluids are excellent. Also mixing water in wet food to get extra moisture in their bodies helps.

We used probiotics (Do not use fortiflora). I'm not sure if the probiotics we used helped or not. All of my vets (I have new one's now) have said that pancreatitis in cats is not the same as in humans and not much is known on how to treat it so they use probiotics in hopes it will help.

If you do all of these things and nothing works - a plasma transfusion is pure magic and very expensive but that is what we did for Gus. The turn around was immediate and nothing short of amazing.

Make sure none of your foods are causing any of the problems - every cat is different and it took me a long time to figure a diet out for my cat and we still have flare ups.

I would not do all of this at once - first treat the pain. Pancreatitis is so terribly painful!!! I'm just letting you know all the stuff we did and it seemed to work, but it was done over time. Cerenia and pepcid worked okay, but the Buprenex is my go to med for flare ups now.

Good luck.