Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Okay it's Sunday so naturally I can't get my vet. I have a 17 month old female DSH who has suffered from feline ensonopheilc (sp?) granuloma complex for the past year. She is on 1/2 tab of pred and 2.5 mg carefate for her tummy once in the morning.

For a few days now we have found a few piles of vomit on the floor...maybe a
total of 3 or 4 in 3 days...we do have a second cat so we were not sure who is was....I don't know what my husband found but the pile I
found was solid just it had just been eaten before coming back up.
Last night I thought I heard wrenching after I went to bed.
This morning I heard wrenching and found she had brought up mostly liquid. I also found some diarreah leaking from her butt (sorry to be so gross!)

Now I don't have alot of experience with hair ball troubles....but I do know
it hair ball season...but because Tiny is on steroids I worry about her a
bit more.

My question....we intend to watch her and wait and get an appointment with her vet first thing in the AM if she is still sick...but can a hairball cause diarrhea and should I maybe go get a tube of the hairball remedy and give that a try? I skipped her pred for the day and did give her a dose of the carefate.

thanks for any help!
Deb
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Deb
owned by Booger and Tiny Dancer and the mom of the late, great Kakel

Hi There,

What your kitty really needs is a vet exam, so I hope you can get her in first thing in the morning. If your vet takes walk-ins, I would just show up with her. Vomiting and diarrhea can be far more serious than just hairballs.

If your baby is getting worse as the weekend goes on, I highly recommend an ER visit.

Anyway, I do not recommend getting a hairball "remedy" and trying to treat your cat with it. She doesn't need something that can be irritating forced into her at this point, besides the fact that the diarrhea can get worse from it. I think you did the right thing in skipping the pred, since pred is hard on the GI tract, which is obviously very irritated already.

If a hairball is present to the point where there is an obstruction, there can be diarrhea, but hairballs rarely cause complete obstructions. In 35 years of owning cats, I only had one develop a hairball obstruction.

You might want to offer your baby something very easy to digest, such as strained meat baby foods (with no onion added). Otherwise, it's best to wait for a vet's opinion on what you can do for her.

Take care, and please keep us updated.

PHKitkat

Well after watching her all day I tend to agree...it's probably not a blockage. We had a cat who one time did have a blockage (she ate Christmas tree needles....that was before we knew better then to have a live tree) and I remember she was constantly visiting the litter box trying to rid herself of the blockage.

Tiny has not been to the box at all today as far as I know. She is still not eating and she does drink but then within a hour or so the water comes back up. She will be into the vet first thing in the morning. Fortunately since she is a frequent flyer with our vet because of her FEGC I am sure they will tell me to bring her right in.

I'm just afraid now that maybe the constant high level of steroid has done some kind of organ damage to her. I hope not....this is just the sweetest girl and her life has been hell because of her constant illness...please keep your fingers crossed for her that she just has some kind of bug that passes by morning.

Geeze...I'm not even sure if that is possible...do cats get stomach viruses?????

I'm about 99.9% sure she did not ingest anything toxic...she is on an allergy diet and my husband and I are SUPER careful about what the girls can and cannot get into and they never get anything to eat but thier cat food, no plants in the house, chemicals all locked up, ect.....so this one has me stumped.
Deb
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Deb
owned by Booger and Tiny Dancer and the mom of the late, great Kakel

Hi Deb,

Keeping fingers crossed here.......and sending Glow that nothing is seriously wrong with your baby.

Yes, cats can get bugs, so perhaps this is something that has already passed.

As far as the steroids......most cats do very well even if they are needed for a lifetime. I have an asthmatic cat that has been on steroids for 7 years with no problems. I have labwork done on her on a regular basis, and the only thing that showed up once was a small amount of glucose in her urine. She wasn't diabetic, and everything has been normal since.

Please update us when you can.

Regards,
PHKitkat

Well I guess the good thoughts worked! We could not get in to see HER vet till 5:45...we could have seen another in the practice...but since her condition has been so long and drawn and since her vet is so familiar with her I wanted him to see her. I seen this morning when I got up she seemed less lethargic and was being extremely lovey all night long...although she had not been to the litter box or food dish once.

My Husband did take her to the bathroom sink a few times during the night to give her a drink and she was able to hold it down. This morning I had to give her the pred because I just could not suddenly miss 2 days in a row. She held that down okay...but still wouldn't eat.

Well she went to the vet and after hearing all I had to say he said he suspected it was just upper GI upset from the pred and he put her on a drug that is both to calm her stomach and induce her appetite.

We did speak about the possibility of cats catching 24 hour bugs kinda like people do and he told me the text books say no but many years in practice tell him otherwise. Actually we have a rather nasty stomach virus going around the NJ area and he said he has seen cats coming in who's owners have had this virus and he suspected the cats were picking up the virus from thier owners. Since Tiny is on the pred and her immune system is suppressed he said who knows...she could have caught something like that...but no fever or other signs it was an infection of any sort.
He said more likely she got a stomach upset from the pred and then regurging all that stomach acid really had her irritated and that was setting off the stomach spasms. My having stopped the pred for a day and upping her dose of the carefate gave her tummy a chance to calm down and that was probably why the vomiting stopped last night.

So anyhow...as I said she had not eaten all day. When we got home I told my husband to take her out of her carrier and give her right to me so I could give her that tummy pill. Well first she peeded all over me to tell me how she felt about having gone to the vet (so much for not visiting the litter box...who needs one when you have a mommy who needs peeing on?????) and then I got the pill into her, put her on the floor and her face was in the food bowl in under 2 seconds. LOL! She didn't even give the pill time to work.

As for her being on pred long term....I know I've done alot of reading on the subject and have been assured by more then one vet it's okay and that cats tolerate steroids long term much better then people and dogs do. The only thing I worry about...and who knows...I may be way off base here....is I know cats are pretty prone to cancers and I have to wonder if keeping a cat's immune system suppressed long term will up the possibility of something like that happening. I guess considering her condition I don't have a choice though.

I did ask the doc and he did advise me to every now and then just try to lower her dose to the normal maintenance dose (she's on double that now)...and he said who knows...she was very young with an immune system that was not totally developed when this all began...maybe at some point this will pass...that isn't not totally imposable....although improbable.

So I guess I can hope and in the meantime I just have to try to shrug off my concerns about the pred I guess.

Good talking to you and thanks for the emotional support when I needed it!
Deb
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Deb
owned by Booger and Tiny Dancer and the mom of the late, great Kakel

Thanks for the update, Deb!

I'm so glad that Tiny is doing better

You are such a wonderful cat mom, you knew just what to do to help Tiny, medication wise. That's terrific!

Take care, and please give Tiny a kiss from me

PHKitkat