cshenk wrote:
"Nadia N." wrote
She has perked up quite a bit. She washed for a while, walked around,
even lead me to the fridge asking for food. I'm not supposed to give
her food till tomorrow morning though, so she just got more broth. I
had to give her a shot - a second dose of the same anti-inflammatory
and anti-nausea medicine that the vet gave her at the office. I'd
never given a kitty a shot before. I hope I did it right. Poor little
girl, having to be stuck with needles by an amateur.

Lol! I bet she feels better now.

She seems pretty much back to normal today. She's playful, eating well,
drinking, she's used the litterbox (no poo yet, but it's too early to
expect that). She caught a moth last night. I have one more day of
forcing nasty-tasting liquids down her throat and then hopefully her
tummy will continue to behave itself without any medicine.


Her sensitive tummy though does sound like there might be an allergy to
something in her food going on. Once she's better, maybe we can discuss
what you currently feed and look it up to see if an alternative seems
reasonable for your area and finances.

She definitely had a problem with any and all dry food when she was a
kitten. So it's probably some kind of grain intolerance. She's been
eating 3/4 of a can of Hill's Chicken and Liver per day (the 156 g/5.5
oz cans). To that I add 6 heaping spoonfuls of a pure chicken meat food
called Porta 21 (it's a German-made food - basically just shredded white
meat and broth). I'd like to put her on the Porta 21 only, but then she
gets constipated, and also, I did a comparison of the nutrient contents
of the Hill's and the Porta food, and the Hill's seems better. I would
love to be able to switch her to a completely grain-free food, if I
could... But as you said, that's a discussion for another time :-)


The rule of thumb is every time you see a soft stool (over soft), the
food rushed through and nutrients were probably not properly absorbed.
The occasional issue is not a problem. The long term issue, can be.

I think partially the problem might be that I was giving her too much
food per day. I had this problem with my Kotyo before - my mom kept
slipping him extra food every day and he kept having soft stools. The
vet checked him out, analyzed a stool sample, and there was nothing
wrong with him. Finally she asked us how much we were feeding him and
suggested we reduce the amount. We tried that, and lo and behold - no
more soft stools :-) Sweety is a food hound, just like her big brother.
She'll wolf down everything in her bowl, and then beg for more. I used
to give her a whole can of the Hill's, but changed to 3/4 about a month
ago, and since then her soft stools are not as frequent. But now she
only goes every 2 days instead of every day as before, so I don't know
if that's good either...


Oh, and to the person who said that she might "die from inattention"
and that my vet was unprofessional, my vet called tonight at 11:30 pm
to ask how she was doing, and if she had started drinking. Very
inattentive of him, yeah.

Grin, sounds like a good vet and a language problem. Any vet who calls
*me* to see how my pet is doing, is a keeper.

Yep, definitely a keeper. That whole vet clinic is pretty good. The main
vet speaks perfect English, and is knowledgeable about the latest CRF
research and treatments, which I desperately need because unfortunately
my Kotyo was diagnosed with early stage kidney disease in March. And the
vet who treated Sweety this week seems pretty good as well, and he can
understand my Spanish when I'm not semi-hysterical :-)


I'll add, I don't see as you did anything wrong to ask for anyone with
experience in this to post back as you clearly indicated right away you
were post vet trip with followups already taken. You got home with her
and were following vet advice with morning followup already set and just
looking for those who had seen similar and what they did.


I probably should not have snapped at that poster, but I was not exactly
at my calmest, I had a cat who was pooing blood, and seeing them post
"if she's not dead yet from inaction" was really the last thing I needed
to read at that time. When I am calmer I realize that sometimes people
skim posts and don't notice all the information in them, and I know that
people on this newsgroup (me included) feel very strongly about taking
your cat to the vet first and asking on the newsgroup later. So I can
understand that the person meant well and were concerned about Sweety.
It's just the word "dead" really hit me hard and I do wish that people
would try to choose their words a bit more carefully in these situations...


--
Little Monster pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/nnakova/Kotyo
Sweety pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/nnakova/Sweety
Kotyo and Sweety together:
http://picasaweb.google.com/nnakova/KotyoAndSweety