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I have a 12 year old cat who vomits almost every day since I adopted her 5 months ago. She has been to the vet several times and a sonogram revealed she has chronic pancreatitis. They didn’t see any other issues. She was eating canned Fancy Feast with water, but now I have her on NomNomNow because I thought fresh food would help her. But she is still vomiting. It’s usually food at first but then she moves spots and vomits bile or saliva/foam. Once or twice the saliva looked bloody (took her to the vet right after). The vet had her on vitamin E, pepcid, and a round of antibiotics. Nothing helped. She has never been very playful but she is behaving relatively normally, eats, grooms, poops, etc. I don’t know what else to do! Thanks for any advice!
My 9 year old Cocker Spaniel has had quite a few issues. Pancreas probems to name one. This past few days she has not been herself at all. Limping slightly and having great difficulty in getting up on to the chair, also difficulty in moving along the settee or the bed, more or less shuffling along and wimpering looking at me as if to say “mum I`m hurting” any ideas please.
Hi sorry to hear about your Cocker Spaniel…I too have the same breed. Cockers are prone to spinal problems, IVDD (premature ageing of the spine). It sounds like your dog could have a problem with one of his discs. He needs to see a Vet urgently. If this condition is left he could be paralysed, so please don’t leave him, Vet now. Don’t let him attempt to jump on sofas, go up stairs ect…keep him on the same level. Hope all goes well, please let us know.
Hi Julie, Took Holly to vet last night and he thinks it is arthritis and is doing tests. She had been on steroids for some time and was weaned off them lately so probably they were keeping the pain at bay. had a jag last night and I have tablets to try so here`s hoping. She seems a bit brighter this morning and had a good nights sleep. Thank you for taking the time to respond.
I need a 2nd opinion for my cat. He’s an 8y/o orange boy who is under vet care for vomiting and loosing wt. He eats, digest then later vomits bile. vet though he had pancreatitis last time gave antiemetic. blood came back elevated WBC
his bloodworm came back elevated 2300 wbc, and increase folic i believe. Liver enzymes and pancreatic levels normal, as well as kidneys. she sent him home with flagyl and amoxicillin, let me tell you thats not a joy to give him. He is miserable with the meds. and looks a little withdrawn. She wanted to do an exploratory lap prior to returning the blood-work. But decided to give meds to see how he does. we haven’t done a catscan yet. I just don’t want to get raked over the coals with vet bills.. But i want to help my poor little man. What would be the best course of action with the info i gave so far. Please let me know. Lexis8135@gmail.com
She was sick about three weeks ago with a fever and slightly elevated numbers in her pancreas. After several days on antibiotics she started eating again. Then she sprained her toe 11 days ago while running in the park, and is now walking without a limp. Now this purple lump on her stomach just popped up out of nowhere. It doesn’t look like a bite. It’s in between nipples, so it doesn’t have to do with that. She was fixed at three months old, so it shouldn’t have anything to do with mammary glands. Does this look familiar to anyone? I’ve shelled out about $350 in vet bills over the past three weeks and I’d like to avoid another trip if this is something that could just go away on it’s own.
Thank you for so much for your help.
UPDATE: It’s only been a few hours since my post, but the thing ruptured. It’s gone from the dark purple to a clear ring with slight red around it. I’m guessing it was just a large pimple or blister of some kind. I’ve cleaned and disinfected it. I’ll keep an eye on it, but I’m guessing she’s going to be just fine.
Keep it clean probably and infected pimple like bump. I use peroxide on my dogs.
Hello,
I’m from Germany and I have a queastion regarding my ca. 25 year old cat. Her true age is unknown as we got her from a shelter. She was in good health and my vet couldn’t believe her age.
She was diagnosed with pancratic cancer in October 2014. It was a random find, as she didn’t show any symtoms.
It was already around 5x4cm in size and I decided for surgery with the option of putting her down if it looked to bad.
The tumor was a solid mass in the pancreas. Small nodules were found in the surrounding tissue, but alls the other organs looked fine. The tumor was removed, which was easy duw to not being connected too much to the surrounding tissue.
My vet told me that the prognosis was still poor, with most patiens not surviving more than 6 months after diagnosis.
Whisky woke up normally and had no problems with eating/digesting afterwards. She was totally fine until after 10 months – in July 2015 – a new small tumour was found, around the size of a cherry.
We decided to wait how fast it will grow, as she still showd no signs or symptoms.
Las Friday on August the 8 I could feel that the tumour had grown fast – now back to old size. I drove to the vet and he confirmed that.
I knew if it grew so fats she would only have around one month more if it would start to cause her pain, so I decided for surgery again. She still was fine, always wanting no live and don’t show signs of old age.
This time it looked bad. Upon opening her up she already hat blood in her abdomen. The tumour was necrotic, starting with „tyrosis“ and half of the pancras was infected. The tumor started to fall apart when he touched it. Addiotionally not only th surrounding tissue had metastases, also the peritoneum now had some nodules. The other organs still looked fine. My vet said it looked very bad, normally he would put her down now, as the progmosis now was more than poor.
I still wanted to try it, and he did his best. Sadly she died during the wake up phase. Most likely it started bleeding again and she died of blood loss.
My vet told me that she would have died during the next days either way due to blood loss and infection during the next days. I now ask myself if she would still life if I didn’t have decided for surgery.
Or is what my vet said right and she would have died the next days either way, with that thing falling apart inside her. I trust my vet, but I have the feeling that I’m resposible for her death, that I have killed her somehow.
If needed I can provide pictures of the masses.
Thanks a lot for reading this wall of text!
Shiria
HI Shiria,
First, very sorry to hear your cat died. My thoughts and sympathies are with you.
When a pet dies like this, it is normal for us to think it was our fault, or something we could have prevented. It sounds like you went above and beyond with vet care and did everything you could have done for your cat. Surgery is always risky, but so is choosing to not do it and see what happens.
I’d take comfort in knowing that you gave this kitty a longer life by helping her the best you could.
I’m sure that your cat would have wanted to have every option at living and it sounds like that is what you gave her. It sounds like from what your vet found inside of her, that she was very very sick. Like you said, she seemed fine and didn’t show any signs of old age. But animals are not like people, they hide illness very well till the bitter end. She sounds like she was a wonderful kitty.
I’m sorry things didn’t work out and sorry for your loss,
~kelly
Thanks a lot for your answer! It helps me a bit… In my head I know that most vets would have put her down after that finding inside of her… and that alone from what it looked like it had to be painful.
But still, there is that voice that tells me “you should have taken her home and made her the best days she ever had”. She would still be here,,, I could still cuddle her, hear her voice, feel her next to me. Yes maybe she would have died the next time either way, but I would have time to say good bye. While this maybe is true, how would she have died? Alone and in pain while I’m at work? That is not what I would want for her…
And than there is that tiny voice that tells me, that maybe her body would have found a way to build down that tumor and stop the bleeding, that maybe she would have weeks or months…
My head knows that the possibility for this is near zero… Maybe making her some good last days would have been the most logic decision… maybe I would have felt better… Or maybe I would ask myself then, that she maybe would have survived surgery if I had just tried it.
I guess no matter what my decision would have been, I would have felt guilty… I just want to know if my decision was right. And there is no definitive way of telling that…
Thanks so much for reading my long text… It somehow helps me to talk to people that udnerstand the pain…
My 7 year old pitbull recently went about 4 days (maybe 5) without defecating and eating minimally (no dog food, just occasionally would sneak some people foood) and escessively thirsty and peeing excessively . I made a vet appointment, and the day prior to the appointment she defecated, and began to eat (not much for the most part, juat a few bites here and there and was back to being herself in regards to personality. To be safe I took her to the vet anyway as an appointment had already been made. The vet diagnosed it as pancreatitis, noting that she seemed to have pulled through the worst of it on her own he said and put her on a course of meds (antibiotic and what I understood to be a probiotic) After the first day of meds she again became lethargic, and again won’t eat, not eating is putting it lightly, she has an aversion to it, regardless of what food it is she tends to get up and move elsewhere to avoid it. She is still urinating and defecating infrequently despite diminished food and liquid intake
What diagnostics did your vet do to determine it was pancreatitis? It is possible that she’s reacting to the antibiotic or it is possible that the diagnosis is something else. I’d definitely call the vet back and tell them what is going on.
blood test and general examination. I will call to see if it’s a reaction to the meds
Can’t comment on the blood test much without knowing what it showed and whether or not they ran cPL. Please do talk to them, though.
5 weeks ago my cat was diagnosed with acute pancreatitis with pli levels of 28.5. She’s been on prednisolone since then but her current levels are over 50. Is this drug causing the levels to be so high?
Question for Dr. Krista; sorry, complicated question(?)
First, to review for benefit of others reading this question:
Patient: Cookie
Rottweiler, spayed female, 2 years old
Presented with lethargy, anorexia, vomiting and diarrhea (threw up only twice and one time diarrhea, then taken to vet, given antiemetics and antibiotics; diagnosed with pancreatitis; getting better since – this was Monday)
During exam foreign material found in stool (grain and corn; we think she got into the horse feed) painful cranial abdomen, low and large bowel diarrhea, enlarged submandibular nodes – this part worries me because these were temporarily enlarged not long ago; resolved quickly, though)
As I’m reviewing the blood results, there are things I could understand as being consistent with digestive distress/pancreatitis but some which are concerning me, namely the globulin and lymphocyte levels, even though they are not extremely low but low nonetheless.
Beside the cPL which is clear in its meaning, the free T4 is low – I assume this is what is meant by not testing for hypothyroidism in ill animals, because the thyroid hormones would be low with any disease process? Is that correct?
I would figure that the ALT/unhappy liver enzymes would also be consistent with such insult to the body, is that correct? And I imagine same would apply to bilirubin in a situation of digestive upset?
The values that concern me are the globulin and the lymphocytes, particularly together with the "easily aggravated" sub mandibular lymph nodes in the mix, particularly as it seems that lymphopenia would be present with both CPV and lymphoma … ? I’d assume that a) Cookie was recently vaccinated for CPV and is improving too rapidly to think CPV? Lymphoma has been on my afraid mind since the first time they were found enlarged.
It also says, though, that lymphopenia could be a result of underactive glands (the source doesn’t say which ones) so would that perhaps have to do with the lowered thyroid function during the digestive distress?
Didn’t find much on low globulins, other than immunodeficiency types of situations, which doesn’t seem to apply. What is the "life-span" of a globulin, and if short, would the low globulins have to do with the unhappy liver?
Can you, please confirm about the free T4 and talk to me about the globulin and more importantly the lymphocytes?
Blood results attached.
I will let Dr. Krista address your specific blood questions. Were you interested in the holistic approaches to evaluating blood work? Also, not being able to tolerate an occasional eating splurge is considered an early warning sign that a dog is not completely healthy, so there would be many things to do at this point.
I wonder if Cookie has had prior digestive issues?
Hi-
I’m so sorry you’re having such a time trying to help this cat. Has your vet ruled out everything else as far as a diagnosis? Perhaps there is something else that is worsening her initial issue? Have you tried feeding more meals throughout the day, but smaller portions? (A little at a time)
Hello,
I would suggest you talk about a few things with your vet like a sensitive stomach diet like i/d or even try a stomach protectant like sulcralfate or even maripotent or metoclopramide. I often try medications with a diet change. Ideally a wet food diet fed in small amounts with increased frequency. Or ask about an ultrasound or even upper gi endoscopy. My point is that there are lots of options to discuss and try. I would first start with a fecal exam for intestinal parasites. Hope this helps. Let us know what happens.