vomiting and not eating = UTI (plus a monitor comparison)

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beccalecca

beccalecca

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We switched Star's diet to low carb wet food about two and a half weeks ago, and have seen her consistently between bg levels of 180-220 in the past week and a half. She was easy to switch over -- she used to have wet food as a treat and now goes through about 2 cans of Friskies pate each day. (She's a large cat, and not on insulin yet.) However, in the last day and a half she hasn't eaten a thing. We've tried three different flavors (all of which she gobbled up before) but nothing. She's also vomited three times in the past day. Is this related to diabetes, or some separate bug? Did we switch her diet too quickly? Obviously I'm concerned enough to post here about this, but at what point should I be concerned enough to take her to a (new) vet? I assume her appointment next week won't be soon enough if she doesn't get her appetite back soon.

Oh, and she reads at 160 levels on her bg in the past day.
 
Re: vomiting and not eating

I'm pretty new at this but I know you can't wait a week if she's not eating. I think if she's not eating by tomorrow morning you need to take her to the vet. Good luck!
 
Re: vomiting and not eating

A cat not eating is serious, diabetic or not. I lost one of Payne's civvies to a fatty liver and she had only stopped eating for two days. Maybe you changed over too quick? but the vomiting is a problem. I would take her to ER if it continues.

Nancy and Payne
 
Re: vomiting and not eating

Have you tested for ketones, or glucose in the urine - either might give you a clue.

If you run your hands along her belly, does she flinch/cry out/scratch at you? Suggests abdominal pain and an urgent vet visit (pancreatitis, fatty liver, and more are possible)

Do the eyes or nose have any discahrge?

How much pee & poo are you seeing? Any blood in either?
 
Re: vomiting and not eating

I figured as much. I guess we'll have to schedule with another vet that can get us in sooner....

I'm hugely afraid of more tests at the vet's.

Haven't tested urine -- what's the best way to do that?
 
Re: vomiting and not eating

Oh and no eye/nose discharge. No blood in anything. Though we found more puke in the litter and under the bed, so that's five times in the last 36 hours. Thinking of going to get some of her old dry food just to see if she'll eat that....
 
Re: vomiting and not eating

Try any food right now just to get her to eat something: dry food, plain cooked chicken, stinky tuna in water, etc If she still won't eat, I suggest taking her to the ER right away. A cat who doesn't eat can quickly go downhill.

To test urine, you can stick the ketodiastix/ketostix test strip right under the tail as yoru cat pees. Or stick a long handled soup ladel to collect the pee and then stick the test strip into that. You can also temporarily replace the litter with fish tank gravel or some other similar non-absorbent material. After your cat pees in the gravel, just tip the box to pool the urine up in a corner and stick the test strip into it.
 
Re: vomiting and not eating

Is Star licking her lips? Shaking her head? drinking a lot of water? fast breathing? Shallow open mouth breathing? Have you looked at her paws and ears to see if they look yellowish? That along with loss of appetite are signs of Hepatic Lepidoses (fatty liver desease) which can happen to large kitties when they either don't eat enough or don't eat at all. This is serious signs and requires immediate emergency vet treatment.

If she only has a sad tummy though a kitty won't eat until their tummy settles. Good home remedies for sad tummy kitties is to give a little plain or vanilla yogurt. 1/4 tablet pepcid AC (ONLY) will also settle tummy.

To entice try baby food, try warming food in microwave to make it more smells, try tuna juice, try really smelly flavors like friskies or 9 live ocean white tuna fish.

I would be worried about Star being hydrated enough as well since you have seen so much vomiting.

Hope you can take her to the vet soon.
 
Re: vomiting and not eating

How is Star doing? is she eating? have you taken her to the vet? we care and wish you would get back to us, it seems like a lot now, but it will get better .....

Nancy and Payne
 
Re: vomiting and not eating = UTI (plus a monitor comparison

Thanks for the concern. We got back from a new (to us!) vet a couple of hours ago. We took her bloodwork and urine results from her diagnosis three weeks ago with us. He pretty quickly zeroed in on her very high bacterial results in her urine sample. An untreated, at least 20 days old, UTI. Today she had a temp of 103.5. And the vet said the infection has probably moved into her kidneys (he had a fancy name for this) which explains the nausea and vomiting.

I'm frustrated that the original vet didn't notice the same thing. Perhaps he was merely looking at the glucose results for the urine sample?

The new vet gave Star some fluids (she looked like a camel with a hump) and a handful of antibiotic pills to give her every 24 hours. And we cross our fingers now that she keeps them down. So far so good. She even drank a little water when we got home. She barely sniffed the food we placed in front of her, but the vet didn't expect her to have any sort of appetite until at least tomorrow. We talk with him again on Wednesday, when he'll take her temperature again.

As a side note, I took our Freestyle Lite monitor with us, but was too frazzled to remember right away about it. So he used an AlphaTRAK test on her, and a minute or two later it occurred to me to mention I had mine too. So we used a little of the blood from his draw, even though he said it might have clotted already or would soon. He got 300 with his monitor. We got 88. He said it probably had clotted, though later he made a side comment about not trusting our monitor. I was a bit shocked at the difference too, and not sure what "clotting" would do to a test result?
 
Re: vomiting and not eating = UTI (plus a monitor comparison

and she threw up again. Sigh. Two hours of antibiotic is better than none?
 
Re: vomiting and not eating = UTI (plus a monitor comparison

I am a bit surprised your vet didn't give you anything to help settle her tummy. No good giving her a pill if she just throws it back up... just a waste of a pill. What antibiotic did he give? Clavmox? Baytril? Zithromax? if any of those then maybe try giving her a pepcid AC (1/4 tablet) to help settle her tummy (unless she throws that up too) then you might need injectable.
 
Re: vomiting and not eating = UTI (plus a monitor comparison

They gave her zeniquin. I could try pepcid AC before tomorrow's pill. I forgot to mention that the vet did give her vitamin B in the fluid they gave her, which I understood was for her nausea/appetite. He also said it would be better if she could get some food in her before taking the antibiotic, because an empty tummy won't help.

A little bit of the chicken/egg conundrum, that advice.
 
Re: vomiting and not eating = UTI (plus a monitor comparison

If possible, give a bit of food before the antibiotic is given. It reduces any antibiotic caused upset tummy.
 
Re: vomiting and not eating = UTI (plus a monitor comparison

I am so glad, Becca, that Star's problem is only a UTI. I agree with others that you need to settle her stomach. The advice for dosage of Pepcid AC depends on the strength. Pepcid AC come in 10mg and 20mg tabs. The dosage is 5mg twice/day to settle Star's stomach.

The new vet sounds good. I agree that the monitor comparison was invalid because of the age of the blood.

I seriously advise against the injectable antibiotic (Covenia) except as a final option. See this discussion.

Becca---did this vet script insulin? I understand that Lantus is on its way to you. Often, OFTEN, an untreated UTI will lead to a raised BG level. I know you will, but I want to remind you to check with the folks here on FDMB with Star's BG levels before you give her insulin.

Folks, DCIN paid for this vet visit, which cost $118. If you would like to help Becca and Star, the DCIN donation link is in my signature line. Thank you. :-D
 
Re: vomiting and not eating = UTI (plus a monitor comparison

The vet wants to wait until the infection is under control before talking a low-dose insulin script. He thinks she's "probably" diabetic, but wants to handle one problem at a time, one day at a time. We check in with him tomorrow to make sure her temp is going down, which would indicate the antibiotic is helping as we hope.

I thought I read somewhere that we can't give Pepcid AC too closely to the antibiotic?
 
Re: vomiting and not eating = UTI (plus a monitor comparison

Diabetic Cats in Need (DCIN) said:
I am so glad, Becca, that Star's problem is only a UTI. I agree with others that you need to settle her stomach. The advice for dosage of Pepcid AC depends on the strength. Pepcid AC come in 10mg and 20mg tabs. The dosage is 5mg twice/day to settle Star's stomach.
Click to expand...

The dose is 2.5mg 2x/day. That's 1/4th of a 10mg tablet or 1/8th of a 20mg tablet.

You can get store-brand generics of Pepcid AC at many big chain store pharmacies.
The ingredient is Famodatine. You might need to ask the pharmacist where it is.

Get the 10mg tablets if you can...easier to cut into doses.
 
Re: vomiting and not eating = UTI (plus a monitor comparison

Checked in with the vet again this morning. He was dismayed (as are we) that she is still throwing up and not eating. Especially dismayed that she threw up two hours after Monday's antibiotic and 4 hours after yesterday's dose. After initial dismay, he tried to focus on the positives: her temp was down 0.5 degrees, so still there, but a little improved. And she didn't throw up between 4pm yesterday and 7am this morning.

She took a little bit of water late last night, and a little more this morning. Food is definitely a no go. He said that I'm welcome to try the pepcid AC "if I want", but only between doses of antibiotic and would prefer that we focus on the antibiotic. It can decrease the effectiveness of zeniquin.

I wanted to know when we could start insulin. He's sure we'll need to, but not until she's eating reliably again. So not yet. Still looking just one day at a time for now.
 
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