Sick civvie, need group mind

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Steve & Jock

Steve & Jock

Member Since 2009
My wife's ragdoll Moschie is very ill. He is only 11 years old. Vet is baffled so far.

Symptoms:
  • for last week or two has been low energy and has lost weight, up to 20% of body weight. Inappetant though eating a little when encouraged.
  • Sunday night diarrhea started.
  • Monday went to vet, bloods taken, further dehydration and loss of weight.
  • Bloods showed mostly normal. Normal leucocytes, one slightly raised liver value, slightly raised glucose.
A steroid shot improved things for half a day and on my suggestion they've thrown in a B12 shot, but without a diagnosis this looks bad. Vet has no clue.

Anyone got a clue?

Cheers
Steve
 
What is the kitty eating? Could you feed him something else for the time being? Maybe some boiled chicken or salmon?
 
Just throwing this out there, how are his teeth? Jawline feel even and not swollen?
Any change of exposure to pesticide? Did he go outside even for a second?
 
Could be pancreatitis, which may not show up in bloodwork, or even imaging. We had an 8 month old kitten who just rather quickly started sleeping all the time and stopped eating hardly anything. First visit to vet, they said "he's dehydrated" and sent him home. period. Sent cat and hubby back the next day and had him call ME to talk to vet, to stress he was listless and not eating, (and I had to get forceful with them--this was an 8 month old kitten, not an 18 year old cat!) and then they did an x-ray which showed some odd appearance in one section, so vet sent it out to a radiologist who diagnosed pancreatitis from that (often an ultrasound does better, but I guess this x-ray showed enough). Treated him with fluids, an antibiotic (just in case, as had no immediate evidence of infection, but is always a possibility with pancreatitis) and cerenia, and buprenorphine, as pancreatitis is VERY painful. Immediately he began eating again and being more alert and active. As soon as the buprenorphine wore off, he'd go listless and stop eating, so we had to insist she gave us more meds for him. (Not so thrilled with this vet. should have done that from the start.)

So, strongly suggest pancreatitis, and maybe while waiting for the blood test to come back, suggest they try treating with anti-nausea and pain meds to see if they help.

Here's one source for you, but just google feline pancreatitis, there's plenty of info out there:
https://www.vet.cornell.edu/departm...tion/feline-health-topics/feline-pancreatitis
 
Steve & Jock said:
My wife's ragdoll Moschie is very ill. He is only 11 years old. Vet is baffled so far.

Symptoms:
  • for last week or two has been low energy and has lost weight, up to 20% of body weight. Inappetant though eating a little when encouraged.
  • Sunday night diarrhea started.
  • Monday went to vet, bloods taken, further dehydration and loss of weight.
  • Bloods showed mostly normal. Normal leucocytes, one slightly raised liver value, slightly raised glucose.
A steroid shot improved things for half a day and on my suggestion they've thrown in a B12 shot, but without a diagnosis this looks bad. Vet has no clue.

Anyone got a clue?

Cheers
Steve
Click to expand...
You haven't said anything about antibiotics. Is the kitty at least on a broad spectrum one just in case??
 
Thanks all!
Vet is now checking for pancreatitis and gut blockages/problems. Imaging is planned too.
The boy still has the runs and is not feeling well. His teeth may also need work.
He is on an antibiotic.
No actual diagnosis yet but your guesses are along the same lines as the "expert" vet called in, so that feels good.

I'll keep y'all posted.
 
Vet has no idea still. Gave him rinatidine to settle stomach and a steroid for inflammation. This helped and now that they are gone he seems to be experiencing more symptoms again.

I made a new guess yesterday thanks to two new pieces of data.
1. He is eating grass and barfing it up a little bloody
2. The rinatidine really seems to have helped and things are getting worse again now it's gone.
I'm guessing stomach ulcer and some gastritis.

Carol looked up symptoms of these and thinks it may be a match. Vet not yet updated.
 
Steve & Jock said:
eating grass
Click to expand...
Marco does this on 5 minute supervised outings. It's not the grass, it's all the things deposited on the neighbor's lawn I can't see. Roundup, raccoon with distemper poop, a decaying button battery. It doesn't apply here but I had a cat that swallowed a staple. These aren't the obvious things one looks for, only when everything else has been ruled out.
 
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