cshenk wrote:
"Nadia N." wrote

Again, does anyone have any advice how I can get Sweety to drink? She
still refuses any water or broth. She hasn't eaten or drunk since this
morning (about 12 hours ago), and she threw up the food she'd eaten

Drinking is critical. Too dehydrated they will have to put her on an IV.

Try broth again, but water it down a bit and make sure it isnt to salty.

I managed to get her to drink a bit of chicken broth. It wasn't the
broth we cooked especially for her, though - she wouldn't touch that
one. But she eats these cans of pure white chicken meat in broth, and
after I had exhausted all other choices I gave her some of the broth
from the can, diluted with water. At first I didn't want to give her
that because it does have some salt in it, but I was out of other things
to try, and I did add a lot of water to it. So far I've given it to her
3 times. She slurps up some, then starts licking her chops and stops. I
think that maybe she starts feeling nauseous again and that's why she
stops. Still, she drank up about 3/4 of a bowl that way (it's her wet
food bowl, not as big as a water bowl, but still not small).

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.


I've only had experience with one cat that had a bad reaction to a shot,
but it was a bit like this. He was allergic to something in that shot.
If it helps, he did indeed start drinking a bit in the night and by
morning was happy to be waited on hand and foot with little tempting
treats in tiny amounts every hour or so. The first thing he accepted
with a little bit of my roomate's 'special margarine for the lactose
intolerant' (her idea and a good one as it worked).


Thanks for telling me about your roommate's cat. It's good to know this
has happened to other kitties before, and they recovered. I have been
googling adverse reactions to vaccines, but pretty much all of them
describe symptoms that she doesn't have, like swelling up and difficulty
breathing, falling over, seizures. I wonder if maybe her symptoms being
just vomiting and diarrhea and none of the others mean that this is not
so much an allergic reaction to the vaccine, but that the vaccination
just weakened her system and let an existing problem get worse. She has
always had a sensitive tummy, soft stools, and when I first got her as a
kitten she had diarrhea with blood in it for over a week. In any case,
she seems better tonight. We'll see how she does with solid food tomorrow...

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.

--
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