Urgent - Rosa hasn't eaten since this afternoon

Status
Not open for further replies.
manxcat419

manxcat419

Member Since 2015
As per the post title. Her levels have been reading HI all day (so over 600) and she hasn't eaten since early afternoon. Should I syringe feed her some low-carb food? She had her evening dose of Lantus on schedule.
 
Hi April,

It's tricky..
On the one hand it's important that Rosa eats. But without knowing why she isn't eating it may not be right to force food into her.
Do you have any idea why Rosa is off her food?
Does she have any other symptoms?
Does she have any history of DKA?

Eliz
 
Hi Elizabeth

No history of DKA and no ketones. I don't know if she just hasn't liked the food today - I'm still experimenting with flavors and types as her usual preference would be wet food in gravy. Of course I can't give her that any more but she doesn't seem to be too keen on some of the pates. Of course I've only got limited flavors in the house at the moment. She's pretty quiet at the moment and of course she doesn't look great as she's newly diagnosed but that's not specific to today. I'm really not sure what to do next - I don't want to leave her overnight when she hasn't eaten. I can't imagine for a minute that her numbers will suddenly drop dangerously low, but I just don't like her having a dose of Lantus and no food at all.
 
Hmmm....

Has she been pooping OK? Any vomiting? (I'm just wondering if she's blocked up, in which case forcing food on her wouldn't be a good thing).
 
She seems to have been pooping fine. No vomiting and she ate some food this morning. She's just not been interested in anything I've offered her since.
 
Is there any way of making the food more tempting? A little sprinkle of something yummy on the top, maybe? (cheese? crushed treats?)

Could she be tempted to play at all? That can stimulate the appetite by triggering the 'hunt, catch, kill' cycle.
 
I guess I could put a little of each of the 3 flavors of food I've got here now on a plate with maybe a bit of cheese or a piece of broken up turkey on top plus a very small amount of the dry food she'd been eating until she was diagnosed in the hope that one of the options will appeal to her and then get up a couple of times overnight to check she's OK.

She's really not interested in playing at the moment - she hasn't been for a week or two now...I guess since her BG got high enough to make her feel less than great.
 
I could certainly try warming it for a few seconds in the microwave. I'll try that first and move onto the other options if she's still not interested
 
She was more interested in it warm, but only took a mouthful before wandering off. Maybe it's just the flavor of this one - I'll try her with the others, a little of each on the plate and see where she gets to with those. I'm reluctant to force feed her if I don't absolutely have to.
 
And I'm going to get her some of the flaked Tuna and Egg low carb food tomorrow. I know fish isn't the best, but tuna is the one thing she'll take even when she doesn't want anything else. I'd stayed away from buying it because I don't want it to turn into the only flavor she'll even think about, but I can't let her go on either not eating or just picking at food.
 
She's hungry - that much I can tell. She hung out right by me and meowed a couple of times while I was getting food ready for her. I think she maybe just didn't like the food I gave her. I've given her a little MD, a little of each of 3 flavors of Friskies pate topped with a tiny bit of crumbled cheese, a little turkey and just about 10 pieces of the SO dry food she was on before. I'm going to put her and the plate of food quiet in the bedroom with us and see how she goes on with it. At this point, I don't really care too much if she just picks out the cheese and the pieces of SO - at least it's something for now. I know it's far from ideal food for her, but it's the best I've got at 2am.
 
2am? Oh, gosh, you're very dedicated. :bighug:

Incidentally, I was just trying to tempt my new foster kitty to eat, and things that work for him are raising the food bowl (again, maybe it makes it smell stronger?), or holding the bowl for him and talking to him (he seems reassured by a calm voice).

It sounds encouraging that Rosa does actually seem hungry. Let's hope it is just that she doesn't fancy these particular foods.
A missed meal isn't the end of world. But if it goes on longer than that then you may want to have a chat with your vet to rule out any other issues.

I know you're concerned about her blood glucose through the night.
At those numbers the chances of her dropping low are unlikely but are you able to get a test in?
 
I try. Plus I worry too much to sleep if I've got unanswered questions that might affect her health.

She's picking at little bits of it now - nothing much but better than nothing at all so I'll leave her as she is for tonight and get some different food for her in the morning to see if I can tempt her with something new.

I did try to run a test at +4 but got an E-7 code (insufficient sample) both times. Maybe I was just too tired - all the other tests have gone fine. She'll be right next to me all night so I can keep an eye on her and we'll try again tomorrow.
 
I would maybe go careful with the all the different foods. My cat remi can get an upset tummy/pancreas if I swap his over too quickly.

Do she have a history of pancreatitis or IBD?

Does she walk up to the food and then walk away? lick her lips, grind her teeth? This could be nausea.

Keep posting the results of the blood test on the lantus board and asking for feedback. The E-7 would happen to me occasionally, usually to do with not enough blood.
 
So sorry Rosa doesn't like her new diet, but at least she's trying to tell you she's interested in something more to her liking. That's a positive thing! Ohhhhhh, how I can relate to this issue! Hannah has done this same thing ever since we started her on low-carb pates back in June of 2014. She was a dry food-aholic and she's still not crazy about the wet pates. I tried almost everything folks on this board suggested to get her to eat, but with little to no success. The problem got so bad, we ended up putting her on Cyproheptadine to stimulate her appetite. That has worked fairly well, although lately she has learned how to hold the pill in her mouth until I'm not looking, then ditches it. Grrrrrrrr!

Anyway, if you've been able to rule out other health issues, what I do find that helps Hannah to eat is a bit of supervision. I know they say not to watch your kitty eat, to let her do it on her own, but when your fur baby isn't eating and she needs her insulin, meal time sometimes needs a little assistance from the bean. First of all, try setting her somewhere quiet and out of the way, where there's not a lot of distraction. Kitties like high places, so Hannah sits on the cellar windowsill... one of her favorite places. Sit with her while she attempts to eat and when she loses interest, try stirring and pushing the food around on the plate to regain her attention. Hannah will usually eat a couple more bites each time I do this. It's time consuming and requires patience, but just keep stirring and moving the food and see if she eats a few more bites. Unfortunately, this can take up to 30 minutes, but it's way better than your baby eating nothing at all.

I know how frustrating this can be and how worried you are. Good luck and hugs :bighug: to you and Rosa.
 
manxcat419 said:
She's hungry - that much I can tell. She hung out right by me and meowed a couple of times while I was getting food ready for her.
Click to expand...

Hi April,

I'm with Sarah in that I am wondering whether your cat might be experiencing nausea. Here is a useful nausea symptom checker from Tanya's Site. I have seen this so many times since I joined the FDMB forum last June. I'm not a medical professional but from seeing so many cats develop appetite problems after starting insulin treatment since becoming a member here I really do think it's a possibility that the insulin treatment itself may cause digestive upsets in some cats (regardless of whether or not they have comorbid pancreatitis). I have not found any research studies to back up this opinion, but a web search will bring up anecdotal evidence of insulin treatment causing digestive upset in humans.

If the tempting doesn't work fairly quickly, I'd suggest you contact your vet sooner rather than later to discuss getting a prescription for anti-nausea medication for Rosa, e.g. GENERIC ondansetron (the branded version, Zofran, is insanely expensive). It's a human drug, so even if your vet doesn't carry it you could probably get an Rx from the vet and get it filled at a regular pharmacy. If she's looking for food, then her appetite should be OK without the need for an appetite stimulant. Because of the nature of cats' metabolisms they have to eat regularly. Inappetence therefore is a worry at the best of times (risk of hepatic lipidosis) but with insulin in the mix, there is the added risk of diabetic complications (hypo episode or DKA if inappetence interferes with safe administration of insulin).

I hope Rosa starts eating for you soon. I know from months of personal experience how distressing and scary it is trying to administer insulin to a cat who is having difficulty eating and I feel for you. :bighug:
 
I don't think there's a nausea issue - she'd still only picked at the food I put down last night, though at least she'd eaten something. I bought some cans of the Friskies Tuna Flaked first thing this morning - she's eaten a half can in under 10 minutes. I can almost hear her telling me "if you'd just bought me that one to begin with I'd have eaten every last bite". I'm going to let her have probably another half can (5.5oz cans) in an hour or so - I don't want her to overload her system and end up losing all of it back onto the floor. Her shot this morning was about 10 minutes late by the time I'd been to the store for food for her, but it does seem that she really just wan't liking the food she had. I'll have to work on other different flavors later - I don't want her limiting herself to tuna only, but for now as she'll eat it I'm good with her having that for a few meals. And I'll have to make sure I always have a couple of cans of that one in so that if she decides she's not eating anything else I've bought for her, I have that as an option to make sure she eats something.

Rosa learned back when she had the bladder problems how to hold a pill in her mouth for minutes at a time. To begin with, she'd just ditch them right where I could see her but after a couple of weeks of me grabbing her a second time and putting it right back in her mouth, she learned to ditch it behind the couch and then use her paw to push it under there. It took me a few days to notice - the next time I moved the couch to vacuum I found about 5 pills under there. They're pretty smart at learning the tricks to avoid something they don't want! She will eat if I'm watching her and can sometimes be persuaded into another couple of bites but it took me over 2 hours that way to get enough MD into her on Friday night to give her her first shot - she just didn't like that food either

She's no history of anything at all other than the dental she had in August and the bladder stones plus a couple of urinary infections after that. She's just finished eating now and is looking very happy with herself. She's on her fleece bed on a chair just behind me and is planning a nap now I think.
 
To work on shifting food preferences, start with always mixing in a small amount (1/2 teaspoon maybe?) of anything else with the tuna, so she never gets 100% of it.
After that is stable, increase the amount of the other food a little. Step by step you may be able to diversify her palate.
You may find it helpful to make different "knocked" batches using different flavors ahead of time so you can feed quickly.
 
Thank you I'll try that next. I gave her just the tuna this morning of course as I really needed her to eat something without being put off but I can certainly start mixing the other flavors in just a little at a time. I'm not really sure if it's flavor or texture that's putting her off - she wouldn't eat the salmon flavor pate yesterday - so I'll have to experiment a bit and find a combination that works for her even if longer term it means adding in just a spoonful of the tuna flavor so she can't resist eating it to get that. She seemed to like the food the day before yesterday but then she did the typical cat thing of deciding it wasn't good enough even though she'd liked it well enough the day before. No doubt she plans to be 'miss picky' for as long as she can get away with it!
 
She just ate most of the other half of the can. The vet had said 3/4 of a can twice a day, but as she's hungry after not eating for so long yesterday, I let her have some extra. Probably going to throw off the +4 test I was planning on getting, but at least she's eating well again now. :)
 
Great news about Rosa. I'd take finnicky over nauseated any day of the week. :)

I had to laugh at the story about the pills under the sofa, April. :D And to think that some scientists still question whether other animals are intelligent... (Silly billys!)
 
Me too. Her readings are still completely off but I'm happier now she's eating just the same. Then again she might have got a partial fur shot this morning :( She decided to get up and walk away just as I was giving it to her.

I was torn between laughing and being horrified at how many she'd managed to hide at the time. But I agree, they're much smarter than a lot of people give them credit for. People still won't believe that Regan will sit on command and responds completely to entire sentences in English by doing what I've just asked her to until I demonstrate! Rosa's a bit more stubborn - she understands well enough but chooses to ignore me half the time. ;)
 
In a conversation with a friend of mine last week, he told me that he didn't think animals had any intelligence at all. I'm going to r-e-a-l-l-y enjoy telling him about Rosa next time I see him. :p
 
Haha :D As a lifelong animal owner, I can testify that he's completely wrong. They're all different and they all have personalities which can make one seem less smart than another until you hit on the thing they're really good at. But I don't think I've ever owned an animal that wasn't intelligent. Please do tell him about Rosa - she'd be delighted to help him learn about just how smart our kitties are. :)
 
I tried to tell him about some of my little ones smarts, but he just put that down to me being biased and imagining they were using their noggins. My cats have taught me about the uniqueness of every living being. When I adopted my first two, I couldn't get over how idiosyncratic and different they were despite being littermates. Tara and Psycho Fatboy the Third (for it was he!) were completely black. Your avatar of Rosa and Regan reminds me of them very much. I miss them...
 
I think that's a common misconception for non-pet owners. And quite often cats especially don't let anyone other than their family see them being smart. My two are very different personalities and have been since the day I got them. Regan is the nervous one - she can't be around anyone she doesn't know and spent the first few years of her life running away up the stairs growling if the doorbell rang. She's got a little better with age but still has to know people really well before she'll go near them. She's very obedient though - she is very over-attached to me so will do just about anything I ask her to. Rosa loves the whole world and has to be involved in whatever anyone's doing. The number of times I've had to stop her investigating if there's anyone at the house to do repairs or anything similar is ridiculous. She's just had a real aversion to anything to do with the vet since she was a kitten. In the pic, Rosa is the one who's right way up and Regan is playing the fool all twisted up and upside down - that's pretty typical of them. I really don't know what I'd do without them - I've loved every cat I've ever had of course but there's something extra special about these 2 because they were so feral when I first got them. Calming them down really did create an extra special bond with them.
 
Oh, I'm with you on that. It would make life so much easier on all of us. If I'd only known earlier in the evening that the food was the problem I could have done something about it last night instead of having to wait and worry until this morning. At least she seems to be sorted now - she's eaten really well so far today so I can only hope she doesn't suddenly decide to take a dislike to tuna later on!
 
I know that look from a cat only too well. For a while when Rosa first had the bladder problems, I was giving them some wet food as well as the SO to pretty much force Rosa into getting more water. For a little while, they decided they liked Sheba wet food (when we were in the UK). Then one day they decided they only liked one flavor out of the 4 flavor pack. And they both only liked the same one too! It was way too expensive to waste 3/4 of each pack of course and I never did successfully find another brand they'd eat reliably.
 
manxcat419 said:
To begin with, she'd just ditch them right where I could see her but after a couple of weeks of me grabbing her a second time and putting it right back in her mouth, she learned to ditch it behind the couch and then use her paw to push it under there. It took me a few days to notice - the next time I moved the couch to vacuum I found about 5 pills under there.
Click to expand...

LOL, and I thought Hannah was talented in ditching her pills! Your Rosa is... well... brilliant! Hannah pretends she's swallowed them, then just spits them out when the time is right. Mostly, I find them stuck to the bottom of my sock :arghh: or in her water bowl. Apparently she stores them between her teeth and her cheek until she thinks I'm not looking. Such talent!
 
I keep telling her she's too clever for her own good. Just because she doesn't want a pill doesn't mean she doesn't need it! Fortunately, she seems to be absolutely fine with needles...who could have guessed? I was expecting a real fight every time I went near her to test her or give her a shot but she barely seems to notice I'm doing anything to her!

I think Rosa was hiding the pills between her teeth and her cheek too - just where I couldn't see them if I checked and where they wouldn't dissolve in her mouth before she could get rid of them. As hubby and I keep asking each other - why exactly do we love them so much when they have so many naughty habits? ;)
 
LMAO! Dweezil, on the one occasion he had to have pills a few years ago, would also hide them in his cheek and then later we'd find them on the couch. Or stuck to our butts from where we'd sat on them. EWWWWW.

Then we switched to oral paste, which...resulted in much crazy frothing. I will not easily forget the smell of having anchovy flavoured cat paste in my hair. LOL
 
manxcat419 said:
Fortunately, she seems to be absolutely fine with needles...who could have guessed? I was expecting a real fight every time I went near her to test her or give her a shot but she barely seems to notice I'm doing anything to her!
Click to expand...
Yep, that's Hannah, too. I thought the ear testing and the insulin injections would send her into orbit, but she doesn't mind either one of them. Just another day at the office, so to speak. At least that's one thing in our favor. And my husband and I were just commenting on how our pantry shelves have more cat food on them than the shelves at our small, local grocery store. :D
 
LOL! :D And to think the vet kept telling me it must be something I was doing wrong in the way I was giving them to her! She just outsmarted me every time - seems like I'm not alone there.

I had liquid metacam for her for just a week or so as well. That one was fun - she was very good at either letting it dribble right back out the side of her mouth onto me or pushing it out and just about into my face with her tongue. Fortunately at least that one I think was honey flavor not anchovy - I really wouldn't appreciate being covered with that. Our CKD kitty froths at the mouth sometimes when she has her pepcid - because we have to cut the pills into 1/4's for her she can taste them of course. She hasn't realized that the quickest way for her to get rid of the taste is to swallow them not chew them up or spit them out until they dissolve.
 
Blamethecats and Hannah said:
Yep, that's Hannah, too. I thought the ear testing and the insulin injections would send her into orbit, but she doesn't mind either one of them. Just another day at the office, so to speak. At least that's one thing in our favor. And my husband and I were just commenting on how our pantry shelves have more cat food on them than the shelves at our small, local grocery store. :D
Click to expand...

It's weird how they'd rather the sting of a shot to having to swallow a pill - not that I'm complaining. And yes, without even looking I can think of 4 types of dry food (from when we were trying to find something Rosa would eat just before she was diagnosed), 2 types of prescription wet (MD for Rosa that she won't eat and NF for Shadow), the emergency wet (high carb in gravy) and 6 different flavors/brands of low carb wet. Plus treats, both the good kind and the bad kind that we already had in. It's surprising really that we've got room for any food for ourselves. ;)
 
manxcat419 said:
I had liquid metacam for her for just a week or so as well. That one was fun - she was very good at either letting it dribble right back out the side of her mouth onto me or pushing it out and just about into my face with her tongue. Fortunately at least that one I think was honey flavor not anchovy - I really wouldn't appreciate being covered with that.
Click to expand...

Crush pill, add to a bit of water and syringe into your cats mouth. Cuts down on the pills being spit out later.

You might want to put Metacam on your "never give to Rosa again" list. The FDA put a black box warning on Metacam a few years ago because over 550 cat owners reported the death of their cat from acute kidney failure. No idea how many cases were not reported. Instead of risking acute kidney failure and sudden death from Metacam, Buprenex is much safer without the side effects.
 
I remember when I was switching Wink from dry to wet food. Seemed like it took forever to find a flavor he would like. Once he settled on the Fancy Feast Turkey & Giblet pate, we slowly added more flavors to his menu offerings. He'll now eat a much wider range of flavors, thank god. I was worried that all of a sudden he'd go on a hunger strike and refuse the FF T&G so I was very happy when he expanded his list of acceptable foods.
 
The Metacam was back in 2007 when it was reckoned (in Europe at least) to be a safe option at microdoses for cats even though there was a known risk of kidney damage at higher doses. I wouldn't give it to her now there are better options, but at that point it was about all there was as an anti-inflammatory that was known to work. I've never dared trying to follow a pill with water for her - in the UK I was always told there was a risk of cats choking if you did that. And the pills she was on were the ones that had to be swallowed whole - no crushing, no mixing etc.

I'm really hoping she'll get less picky as she gets more used to being on a wet-food only diet. I'm going to let her stick with the tuna flavor for the rest of today - I don't want another night like last night with her refusing food. But I'll start mixing just a tiny bit of other flavors into it after that so she gets used to them as BJM suggested. I'm sure she'll soon find other flavors that she likes if she'll just try them - Regan will pretty much try a taste of anything, but Rosa has always been pretty picky about what she'll even taste and what she'll sniff and walk away from. Of course the poor thing has had to switch not only from dry to wet but to a texture of wet she's never been a fan of so it's going to take time to convince her. Once she starts feeling better, maybe she'll realize that the food and needles has something to do with it and be a bit more co-operative about food.
 
Of course today she's pulled the opposite trick and is following me around begging for food right after I took it away 2 hours before her shot. I swear she'll get used to this routine sooner or later.
 
Oh, Hey! I remember that begging behavior with Wink too! Still, I held firm and made him wait. That way, he got used to food at certain times and would eat more at his mini-meals and I knew it was safer to give him his insulin shot. Wink did finally "get" the test, shoot, meal feeding routine.
 
I've told her she has to wait another hour yet. I feel like mean kitty mom when she's asking for food, but I need to know she'll be hungry at shot time - if I feed her now she won't want anything for another 2 or 3 hours. I'm going to split her meal again tonight I think - half a can at shot time and the other half about when we go to bed as I've noticed that she's less keen on eating it once it's been out for a few hours. I might have to pick up a bag of the low-carb dry so she's got something for the times I can't be around to put out a small meal every few hours.
 
manxcat419 said:
I've never dared trying to follow a pill with water for her - in the UK I was always told there was a risk of cats choking if you did that. And the pills she was on were the ones that had to be swallowed whole - no crushing, no mixing etc.
Click to expand...

Isn't it amazing the way that veterinary advice can vary? My vet advised me the opposite. He recommended giving water on the grounds that pills can get stuck in the oesophagus and cause bad irritation, possibly leading to problems.

Whenever I give Saoirse a tablet, I give it just before a meal. I add a good bit of water to her food so that washes the pill down. Inasmuch as any cat can be pilled 'easily' (I use the term very loosely), Saoirse's a dream.
 
When you don't follow with water and the pill gets stuck in the esophagus, it may result in erosive esophagitis.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top