Aa
liver failure? advice
Hello! My 11 yr old cat,kizzy,all of a sudden has become sick within a month.He has lost alot of weight (bony-was 20lbs,now 7lbs) has hard time eating,vomiting (vomitted blood once last week..bright red and black tar) and fatique.After seeing him vomit blood I took him to the vet emergency hospital.Dr there did exam and blood work..thought prob could be bleeding ulcer..gave him antibotics and ulcer meds,and bland diet,its been a week and no improvment.His white blood cell count is high,anemia,and his liver function tests are low.Could it be liver failure or cancer? here are some of his blood test results..thank you for your time! I'm so scared of losing him!
wbc 38.80 High (5.50-19.50)
mono 3.54 High (0.15-1.70)
neu 32.76 High (2.50-12.50)
Hct 29.4 low (30.0-45.0)
mcv 36.5 fl low (41.0-58.0)
rdw 22.3 high (17.3-22.0)
plt 836.K/ul high 175.-600)
alb 1.9g/dl low (2.3-3.9)
alkp 10.u/l low (14.-111)
amyl 423 u/l low (500-1500)
tp 5.6 g/dl low (5.7-8.9)
I also like to add he has been a indoor cat,and my other 2 cats seem fine.I'm recovering from surgery myself and been unable to take him back to vet..your input greatly appreciated! ~Stephanie
wbc 38.80 High (5.50-19.50)
mono 3.54 High (0.15-1.70)
neu 32.76 High (2.50-12.50)
Hct 29.4 low (30.0-45.0)
mcv 36.5 fl low (41.0-58.0)
rdw 22.3 high (17.3-22.0)
plt 836.K/ul high 175.-600)
alb 1.9g/dl low (2.3-3.9)
alkp 10.u/l low (14.-111)
amyl 423 u/l low (500-1500)
tp 5.6 g/dl low (5.7-8.9)
I also like to add he has been a indoor cat,and my other 2 cats seem fine.I'm recovering from surgery myself and been unable to take him back to vet..your input greatly appreciated! ~Stephanie
I can post the feeding reginen here, it might be of help to someone who is lurking who needs it. Feline hepatic lipidosis IS fatal if the cat is not force fed and pushed through it. They can, however, with very diligent work, be brought back from the brink, even when it looks like they can't go any further down, so it's worth a try no matter what.
The best thing to use for feeding is a large syringe, like the kind they use for doing a trans-tracheal wash or thoracic lavage. It holds about 100cc of food, which is handy because you won't have to load it as often. It also has a long end on it, which is handy because you can insert the end into the corner of the cat's mouth and get the food into the back of their mouth where they will be more likely to swallow it and not spit it out.
Baby food is excellent to use for feeding, but make sure that whatever baby food you use has not been prepared with onions for flavoring, because even the tiny bit of onion that would be in it could be harmful to your cat. You can also buy cans of Hill's Prescription A/D from your veterinarian, it has the consistency of pudding and is excellent for pushing through a syringe. It would also help to add a bunch of Nutrical to the food and mix it in well before loading the food into the syringe. Nutrical is extremely high in calories and is excellent for cats that are health-compromised and needing nutritional help. Another option is to take ground cat food and push it, with the back of a teaspoon, through a small kitchen screen strainer. This will make it liquid-y enough to be able to be pushed through the syringe with no problem. Add the Nutrical to this as well and stir it around well before loading the syringe.
Now that you have the syringe loaded, you're ready to go. Feed the cat as much as they will allow you to feed them. It won't be pleasant for them, because the liver disease does make them nauseous and force-feeding will make them gag. But you HAVE to do it if you want them to survive. Feed them every hour or two during what are usually your waking hours. If they throw it up, give them some time to calm down and feed them again. You have to keep them full and digesting pretty much at all times. If the syringe still has food in it, refrigerate it, and before the next feeding take it out and let it warm up so that it doesn't feel cool on your wrist, just like you would a baby bottle. You don't want to feed them cold food.
Cats usually don't like to drink a whole lot of water when they're sick like this either, so maybe ask your vet to show you how to do subcutaneous drips. You can purchase an IV setup from him and put the needle just under the skin, and let about 100cc of fluid drip in. It will look like a swelling, but as the cat uses the fluid, the swelling will go down. When it does, give him some more. Depending on how quickly he uses it, once a day ought to be good, because there is liquid in the wet food as well. However, the vomiting that accompanies fatty liver disease causes dehydration, so it's imperative to keep them well hydrated as well as fed.
I had a cat that developed fatty liver disease. She weighed 8 pounds, but she was a small cat, so 8 pounds made her a little chubby. She went down to 3 pounds. Her ears were yellow, her mucous membranes were yellow, and she couldn't keep food down for more than a couple of minutes. It was on a Friday afternoon. I couldn't bring myself to make the decision to put her down, so I told myself that if she didn't turn the corner over the weekend, then Monday morning I would call the vet and take her in. I had been force feeding her for over a week at that point. On Saturday morning, I fed her, and she kept it down. She threw up two or three times that day, but it was an improvement over the throwing up EVERY time in the week and a half prior to that. On Sunday, she actually started to lick the food from the syringe on her own without me having to force it into her. And on Monday morning, when I would have been calling to make the phone call to schedule the appointment that would end her life, she ate on her own from her bowl. I still fed her with the syringe a few times a day to make sure she was getting enough nutrients, because even though she was eating on her own again, it wasn't enough to put weight back on, and I didn't want the liver to do a backslide and have her go downhill when she was making such great progress. I went to the grocery store and bought her a can of those little salad shrimp, and she would eat those on her own out of her bowl. Four months later you would never have known that she was such a sick little kitty. She was back up to 7 pounds and she was playing and acting like her old self again.
So DO NOT give up! It sounds cliche, but where there is life, there is hope. The trick is to keep the cat fed even though the liver is doing its best to cause the cat not to eat anything at all, and the syringe, diligence, and lots and lots of prayers are the only way I know of to do it. If you have any questions or run into anything along the way, do not hesitate to PM me about it, in fact, if you want, I can PM you my phone number so that you can actually call me if you want. Kitties are precious. We must do what we can to help them. :)
Ghilly
The best thing to use for feeding is a large syringe, like the kind they use for doing a trans-tracheal wash or thoracic lavage. It holds about 100cc of food, which is handy because you won't have to load it as often. It also has a long end on it, which is handy because you can insert the end into the corner of the cat's mouth and get the food into the back of their mouth where they will be more likely to swallow it and not spit it out.
Baby food is excellent to use for feeding, but make sure that whatever baby food you use has not been prepared with onions for flavoring, because even the tiny bit of onion that would be in it could be harmful to your cat. You can also buy cans of Hill's Prescription A/D from your veterinarian, it has the consistency of pudding and is excellent for pushing through a syringe. It would also help to add a bunch of Nutrical to the food and mix it in well before loading the food into the syringe. Nutrical is extremely high in calories and is excellent for cats that are health-compromised and needing nutritional help. Another option is to take ground cat food and push it, with the back of a teaspoon, through a small kitchen screen strainer. This will make it liquid-y enough to be able to be pushed through the syringe with no problem. Add the Nutrical to this as well and stir it around well before loading the syringe.
Now that you have the syringe loaded, you're ready to go. Feed the cat as much as they will allow you to feed them. It won't be pleasant for them, because the liver disease does make them nauseous and force-feeding will make them gag. But you HAVE to do it if you want them to survive. Feed them every hour or two during what are usually your waking hours. If they throw it up, give them some time to calm down and feed them again. You have to keep them full and digesting pretty much at all times. If the syringe still has food in it, refrigerate it, and before the next feeding take it out and let it warm up so that it doesn't feel cool on your wrist, just like you would a baby bottle. You don't want to feed them cold food.
Cats usually don't like to drink a whole lot of water when they're sick like this either, so maybe ask your vet to show you how to do subcutaneous drips. You can purchase an IV setup from him and put the needle just under the skin, and let about 100cc of fluid drip in. It will look like a swelling, but as the cat uses the fluid, the swelling will go down. When it does, give him some more. Depending on how quickly he uses it, once a day ought to be good, because there is liquid in the wet food as well. However, the vomiting that accompanies fatty liver disease causes dehydration, so it's imperative to keep them well hydrated as well as fed.
I had a cat that developed fatty liver disease. She weighed 8 pounds, but she was a small cat, so 8 pounds made her a little chubby. She went down to 3 pounds. Her ears were yellow, her mucous membranes were yellow, and she couldn't keep food down for more than a couple of minutes. It was on a Friday afternoon. I couldn't bring myself to make the decision to put her down, so I told myself that if she didn't turn the corner over the weekend, then Monday morning I would call the vet and take her in. I had been force feeding her for over a week at that point. On Saturday morning, I fed her, and she kept it down. She threw up two or three times that day, but it was an improvement over the throwing up EVERY time in the week and a half prior to that. On Sunday, she actually started to lick the food from the syringe on her own without me having to force it into her. And on Monday morning, when I would have been calling to make the phone call to schedule the appointment that would end her life, she ate on her own from her bowl. I still fed her with the syringe a few times a day to make sure she was getting enough nutrients, because even though she was eating on her own again, it wasn't enough to put weight back on, and I didn't want the liver to do a backslide and have her go downhill when she was making such great progress. I went to the grocery store and bought her a can of those little salad shrimp, and she would eat those on her own out of her bowl. Four months later you would never have known that she was such a sick little kitty. She was back up to 7 pounds and she was playing and acting like her old self again.
So DO NOT give up! It sounds cliche, but where there is life, there is hope. The trick is to keep the cat fed even though the liver is doing its best to cause the cat not to eat anything at all, and the syringe, diligence, and lots and lots of prayers are the only way I know of to do it. If you have any questions or run into anything along the way, do not hesitate to PM me about it, in fact, if you want, I can PM you my phone number so that you can actually call me if you want. Kitties are precious. We must do what we can to help them. :)
Ghilly
Hi,thank you so much.I was wondering same thing,is it fatal,or can it be "halted" with correct diet? I'm interested in the feeding regimen,you can email me at miss_makita***@**** again...
Stephanie
Stephanie
The reason I asked if he had stopped eating for a few days before getting sick was because I was trying to figure out if perhaps it could be feline hepatic lipidosis, or fatty liver disease.
This disease is not uncommon in obese or overweight cats. Sometimes it takes a week or more of not eating for it to develop, but all cats are different, and in some it can occur after as little as only 3 days of not eating. It's EXTREMELY important to get food into these cats, even if you have to force feed them. Did the vet mention anything about feline hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver disease)? If not, ask him about it, and if he thinks it's a possible concern, let me know and I will PM you with the feeding regimen that I used to pull my cat out of it. It's not an easy thing to do, but it can be done. The worst part about it is that it comes out of nowhere!
Ghilly
This disease is not uncommon in obese or overweight cats. Sometimes it takes a week or more of not eating for it to develop, but all cats are different, and in some it can occur after as little as only 3 days of not eating. It's EXTREMELY important to get food into these cats, even if you have to force feed them. Did the vet mention anything about feline hepatic lipidosis (fatty liver disease)? If not, ask him about it, and if he thinks it's a possible concern, let me know and I will PM you with the feeding regimen that I used to pull my cat out of it. It's not an easy thing to do, but it can be done. The worst part about it is that it comes out of nowhere!
Ghilly
hello and ty for your reply.I have not given him any flea preparations.I cant think of anything I've done different.I just thought at first he was being picky about his food and changed brands to tempt him to eat..no luck.When vet advised a bland diet,I baked him chicken breasts,rice, and catmilk which he seem to eat ok for few days but still vomit alot.Then I tried to tempt him with catnip and didnt phase him,he is starting to hide and just wants to be left alone.He dont appear to be in pain or suffering,but I can tell he dont feel good and isnt himself.I dont know what to think or do! ):
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