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Kris | 2 years ago
I Have A Cat That Is Dealing With Urinary Issues. Started Yesterday With Him Straining But …

I have a cat that is dealing with urinary issues. Started yesterday with him straining but nothing coming out. I like many others do not have the $2k that the vet will most likely charge.
**I will take him in tomorrow to have bladder emptied, get antibiotics & anti inflammatory which will be around $300. That I can handle. My question is, what can I do at home to help the situation?

I saw online that apple cider vinegar has been used? Does anyone have any experience with home / natural remedies of any kind?

I do understand that it can be fatal if cats bladder is not relieved because of accumulation of toxins and electrolyte imbalance.

And I know that often we are referred to rescues & animal shelters for options with financial help. But unfortunately all of them in my area are already asking for help from community. And last vey I took a cat to for this recommended euthanasia if couldn’t afford to treat, so I’m also well aware that vets aren’t going to help either.

So is there ANYONE in this community that has experience with homeopathic/ natural remedies that can assist?

1 Response

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  1. Krista Magnifico

    Hello,
    I’m so sorry to hear about your cat. And all of the others in his situation.
    I do not have any experience with apple cider and honestly I am too worried about what is likely already going on with your cat to try to advise anything else other then the er.
    I’m working really hard to accumulate a list of affordable places and options. Please let me know if you find anyone locally. Please keep calling everyone and everywhere.

    If all else fails offer to surrender your cat to get the care he needs. I know it’s not fair but it’s better to save his life.

    Keep me appraised of what happens.

    Best of luck

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Susan | 2 years ago
Misha, 5 Years Next Month, German Shepherd, Either Pulled It Strained Her Left Hindquarter. Today Is Monday. …

Misha, 5 years next month, German shepherd, either pulled it strained her left hindquarter. Today is Monday. Vet can’t see her till Friday. I hate that she’s in pain, is there anything I can do? There is no bony deformity, can walk, steps are a struggle. I just need to be able to help her!

4 Responses

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  1. Krista Magnifico

    Hello,
    You can rest her. Or go to the ER. Or call your vet and ask for pain management assistance until you can be seen.

  2. Susan Post author

    Thank you! Already asked for pain management, I was told “not without seeing her” it’s a catch 22. She’s walking, can go down steps now, very hard to walk up them, but she’s so stubborn! Making her rest, hoping it helps

  3. Laura

    Crate rest and support her hind end (if you don’t have an appropriate harness, a rolled towel works in a pinch) when going up and down stairs.

  4. Susan Post author

    So far today, she seems to be able to move fine on a flat surface – we have NO squirrels, birds, or cats in our garden! It’s UP stairs, which she can do, but very slowly, at least she’s not screaming now.
    She was talking these 5 steps in 1 or 2 leaps until now.
    She is fine with the right side being touched, but not the left. She is resting, apparently almost pain free on her cushion by the TV, and seeing off seagulls on the state farm commercial.

    By now you probably have an idea of her personality. She’s very opinionated, drama queen, who thinks vets and vet techs are snack food.

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Heather | 2 years ago
My Question Is About Urinary Crystals And Cat Blockage. I Specifically Want To Know About Jaundice …

My question is about urinary crystals and cat blockage. I specifically want to know about jaundice after surgery, but also to know if we should have done anything differently, we lost our little sweetheart a few days ago to urinary crystals.

Details: 4 weeks ago our little fellow, a 2-year-old neutered male, got worms. We brought him to the vet and, with medicine, successfully treated them. They stressed him, and he didn’t want to eat much, but the vet said this was normal. He seemed to get better, but a week ago started acting stressed again, not eating much, drinking very little, but still eating and drinking. Seeing his pee was not possible due to having 2 other cats (and not knowing what urinary crystals are, much less know what to look for)

We called the vet Friday morning, they told us he would probably need another dose of worm medicine, and scheduled an appointment for the following Monday. Keep in mind we had never heard of urinary crystals before, we thought he had worms again.

On Saturday evening, it became clear it was more than worms. He was lethargic, not going potty at all, and just wanting to lay down and close his eyes. We called the vet clinic which was closed, several other numbers for local cat places (adoption, care, etc) and could not get him seen but got the same phone diagnosis at every step, “probably a stomach tumor”.

It was 5pm Sunday before we got lucky, found an animal hospital 2 hours drive away, got a hold of an actual vet through their emergency number, and she agreed to open the hospital late on a Sunday and see him immediately for $1000. We got there at 7pm and by 7:15 he was in surgery to unblock him. She immediately knew what was wrong. His temp was already low, he was very weak and barely moving but alive.

The next morning, we found out he survived the surgery and was recovering with a catheter and IV fluids. The plan was to keep him in the hospital for 3 days and to let him come home if his pee was clear and his blood work for liver function was acceptable.

We got a phone call early on the second day telling us he was occasionally moving in his cage but wasn’t eating or drinking. She said he seemed depressed, and we could visit at 4pm to see if it perked up his spirits. It was the earliest time they could let us visit so we took it.

On our drive to see him, the hospital called us and said he wasn’t doing well. They asked if we wanted the blood work done immediately instead of on day 3 and told us he had become extremely jaundiced. During our visit he could only manage a couple of steps, so we held him, he was clearly exhausted and under the effect of pain medicine.

The hospital had taken the blood after the call and said his sugars were 3 times normal and other things “5 times normal”, and he was a deep greenish yellow in color around his ears. They brought him warm food but he was not interested. They explained organ failure and said his lungs would fail eventually, but he was breathing well.

In seeing us did perk him up a little, he focused on us, but he quickly faded again, preferring to lay down with his tongue out after 20 minutes. We didn’t want him to suffer and linger with no hope of recovering, and he was heartbreakingly euthanized at that point.

Again, I didn’t know anything about crystals before he went into surgery, and I have questions in case his brother, or any cat, is in that situation.

My questions are….
– Was the jaundice a terrible sign or could it have been from the IV fluid, exhaustion, surgery and lack of eating? IE was it normal after surgery, or recoverable?
– Given what I’ve described, should we have waited another day? Could it have been just needing more time to recover? Or is the jaundice and blood work at that point enough to know he’s fought all he can?

We just want to know more. We’re still in shock and miss him terribly, but we felt alone in making decisions, the hospital clearly didn’t want to influence our decision either way. We’re just not sure now that 24 hrs recovery was enough to make a decision, or how serious jaundice is when he didn’t have it pre-surgery/IV.

Any advice appreciated, we found this site via a YouTube video on urinary crystals. Thanks.
P.S. We aren’t second guessing or wanting to hear we did the right thing, it’s too late to help him, but we want to know more in case it helps another cat.

Also, the hospital took a deposit from us when we agreed to the $1000 fee, and said they would accept payments since there was no way to forsee this type of thing. They did seem caring and knowledgeable, but clinical, and would offer no advice on euthanizing or not. We felt alone with that specific decision…. and in hindsight aren’t even sure it needed to be made yet… or did it?

5 Responses

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  1. Krista Magnifico

    Hello,

    I’m sorry to hear about your cat.

    It sounds like there are multiple issues here and I don’t know how they are related. I don’t expect the crystals caused the jaundice. Most of the time I see the crystals because of poor diet or stress. Stress can be many many things. I suspect this was either a cat with underlying conditions like FeLV fiv or fip. Also I suspect the jaundice was either hepatic lipidosis or parasites.

    You sound like you really love your cat but never had a vet who was invested in your cats care. It is my biggest gripe in vet Med now. We don’t care for people who care about their pets. We need to do more in providing both care and advice.

    I am also very concerned about the vet who took the deposit and didn’t do pre op blood work. Or talk about the possibility of all of rhe things that can happen if there are underlying conditions or post op complications.

    I’m sorry for your loss.
    Dr magnifico

    1. Heather Post author

      Thanks for your time, I’ll try to keep it shorter.

      Yes, we loved him and his brother dearly from the day we found them in our barn, a couple of weeks old at best. His feral mom didn’t return, we watched with remote cameras. After bottle feeding him and weaning him to soft food, we got him dewormed, neutered etc. He seemed happy and normal in every way, clean bill of health.

      – The jaundice first appeared 24 hours after surgery to unblock him, and he’s never had it before.

      – The vet said the surgery was too urgent to wait for tests, and after surgery said testing was pointless until he was ready to leave. She ended up wanting it on day two when he got jaundice, so it did feel a bit irregular.

      That’s why I want to know more about what the jaundice meant. We really thought the jaundice and other signals + a bad test result was what the vet needed to know he was not going to recover.

      Was that normal with meds? Post surgery? After not having eaten much in a few days?… Or was it the terrible sign we thought it was? It’s so emotional to experience.

      We weren’t being told what we SHOULD do, but were asked to make a decision anyway. It’s so hard to do what’s best for him at that moment, especially with how things happened.

      We had to leave either way, the hospital was closing. Leaving him there alone for the night, in that condition, felt wrong. Bringing him home for the night felt like it might just make him suffer more. The IV couldn’t come with us she said, it’s illegal, but she would leave the catheter in if that’s what we choose.

      It was a “decide now” moment… and then he rolled to his side with his tongue hanging out, exhausted. It’s truly heartbreaking.

      We live in a rural community and the only licensed vet is over an hour away. The only local cat care is from a local donation based feral adoption service, run by a woman and a Facebook group of like-minded people, but without a full time vet.

      This happens strictly on donations to have a vet visit regularly. Resources are always stretched. Spending lots on one cat means little is available for others. I get that, but we were willing to pay.

      What we did is what people usually do at that point, she said, but we don’t care about that, we wanted him to live. Did we do the right thing? It’s too late to help him, but an answer may help another cat in the future.

      As you said, premature end of life for avoidable reasons is such a needless loss.

      I did call the hospital to ask about the jaundice afterward, what it meant, and was told it was his organs failing and cells breaking down. Again, not technically wrong, but of no help to a non-vet to decide if it’s time.

      I can answer any specific questions you might have.

      Thanks again.

      1. Heather Post author

        About hepatic lipidosis, he was a fit 2.5-year-old cat that passed away at 12.8 lbs and had been exactly 13 lbs a month earlier when he was given worm medication.

        He was solid, lean and strong in appearance, like most young cats. He was a long-haired male cat often called a Tuxedo, if breed matters.

        I wouldn’t describe him as anorexic, though he had stopped eating as much 3 weeks prior, and stopped eating at all 3 days prior. He didn’t have kidney stones, but it was enlarged at the time of his blockage surgery.

        He also had crystals in his bladder. She showed me a picture of it opened up with pink colored crystals, which seemed to have worried her more than anything else.

        He did pee afterward, and the color was good, but it got dark a day later when jaundice set in.

        I’m not sure what else might give you a clearer image, but I can find out, I feel like he still had hope. Also, she wanted to know what specific food brand we had been giving him because he was the 4th complete blockage that week, which is a lot in her practice.

    2. Heather Post author

      Sorry for the triple response, more information. He was given warm wet food after surgery and didn’t touch it. He hadn’t eaten for 3 days prior, and hadn’t been eating much since he started showing what we thought was worm related behavior, or about 2 weeks before that.

      Would it be normal to see jaundice appear in an already exhausted cat AFTER surgery, if likely hepatic lipidosis was not treated immediately by feeding him nutrients through a tube? It all seems to have progressed so quickly.

      He was never given a feeding tube, and in hindsight, I don’t see how he could have been expected to take a bite and swallow, he was too weak.

      The jaundice though, it was entirely absent pre-surgery and extreme 12 hours later. I can’t help but feel it was not a sign of the end but a sign of hurry up and do…. ??

  2. Heather Post author

    Closure – When he was diagnosed with worms, the vet missed that he also had urinary crystals forming, likely from being stressed. The change in behavior was attributed to the worms, and we didn’t know until it was too late.

    A lot of things went wrong, obviously.

    We’ll never know if a young male cat could have survived through the jaundice, after an unblocking surgery, with bloodwork showing levels 5x too high and not an ounce of energy left in him.

    The grieving has been difficult through the sense of guilt for not having been able to figure things out in time. I don’t believe in ghosts, but regular activities trigger memories of when he’d join in or watch… which is like a ghost, but the memories bring smiles too.

    He touched our lives in such a meaningful way that he’ll never be far from our thoughts, still bringing those smiles.

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Minnow | 2 years ago
My 3yo Cat Has All Symptoms Of Inflammatory Nasal Polyp, In Combination With The Fact That …

My 3yo cat has all symptoms of inflammatory nasal polyp, in combination with the fact that antibiotics and allergy meds have not resolved the situation. She sneezes out (sometimes bloody) green clots about once a week that can be up to 1/4 the size of her whole head. I have had trouble finding a vet who can do the surgery even if they can diagnose it. My vet didn’t even seem to know how to diagnose it when I brought up the possibility. Even emergency vets that I have called refer me to clinics that are not certain that they would be able to perform the operation or who have scary reviews. I literally just adopted her and she came with this undiagnosed issue. Can someone recommend a vet near Richmond, VA who would charge an appropriate price and provide good care?

1 Response

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  1. Krista Magnifico

    Hello,
    If you are looking for a vet to look for a nasal pharyngeal polyp in your area I suggest that you post a plea on Facebook and nextdoor.Com. Also call all of the local shelters and rescues. I guarantee someone local will look. If not call my clinic and ask to leave a message for me. You will have to reference this reply. We will find you someone. If you do please let me know. We will start a directory

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Lara | 2 years ago
Hi All !! I Have A 1 1/2 Year Old , Female Chinese Crested . I Have Had Her About Six …

Hi All !! I have a 1 1/2 year old , female Chinese crested . I have had her about six months now and she’s been in great health and super happy and active . Saturday am , she went out and came back in a little while later limping on her back left leg . I checked her out and couldn’t see anything that would have caused it , so I had her lay down in her crate for about 2 hours. When I went to let her out , she couldn’t get out of the crate and soon I a realized that she could not use her back two legs at all !! I was so shocked ???? and just couldn’t believe how this could happen?!? Got her into the vet and he said she had absolutely no feeling in her lower half ???????? He said that he believes she had IVDD and we need to go to a neurologist for blood and X-rays to rule out anything else . We called two different places 1-2 hours away . One wouldn’t even tell us how much a visit was or bloodwork or X-rays or anything. The other place told us that if she had no feeling that we’d be wasting out time on bloodwork and X-rays , because it won’t change anything and she’ll be like this forever ???? I am so distraught and have been googling and watching YouTube videos on IVDD . I found Dr Krista Magnificos YouTube channel and all her videos on IVDD . I am
Praying that there is some kind of hope that my girl will be able to walk again. I would love any and all advice in this situation and I would love if Dr Krista herself could help me with this !! Thank you so very much !!

1 Response

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  1. Krista Magnifico

    Hello,

    I think we already saw her. Right? I’m so sorry. Some how this one slipped through my inbox.

    I have tons of info on my blog and YouTube channel.

    Most of all I urge people to never give up hope. Ever. And keep looking for a vet who will help you.

    Please call me at the clinic if you need anything.
    Krista.

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Jana | 2 years ago
Gastropexy With Splenectomy Yay Or Nay? 11 Years Old Female Rottweiler, Spayed, On Smaller Side Of The …

Gastropexy with splenectomy yay or nay?

11 years old female Rottweiler, spayed, on smaller side of the breed. Splenectomy going to be done due to incidental splenic mass finding while diagnosis non-resolving diarrhea and inappetence. I wanted to look for obstruction but instead, this was found. Larger mass, >6cm. Surgery Tuesday.

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  1. Krista Magnifico

    Hello,

    I would ask your surgeon for their thoughts. If everything was going well during the splenectomy and if it weee my pet, or I was the surgeon, then my answer is yes. I would pexy for any and all abdominal surgeries in at risk breeds.

    Good luck.

  2. Jana Post author

    Yeah, my thinking. Unfortunately, can’t discuss before hand due to holidays. I hope it can be done. Thank you.

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Stacey | 2 years ago
I Have A Very Active 3 Year Old Boston Terrier Who Was Just Diagnosed With Possible IVDD. …

I have a very active 3 year old Boston Terrier who was just diagnosed with possible IVDD.
She is on crate rest for 4 weeks getting 2.5mg Prednisolone twice a day, 100mg Gabapentin every 8-12hrs and 125mg Methocarbamol every 8hrs. She is still fully ambulatory and on day 5 of her rest and meds and is still having breakthrough crying pain when she moves wrong. I have started heat therapy which seems to help a little. Do you think I could increase her Methocarbamol to 187.5mg and see if this keeps the muscle spasms more at bay. She weighs 16lbs.
She also has an appointment with a neurologist January 5th. It is so hard for me to see her in pain.
Thanks

1 Response

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  1. Krista Magnifico

    hello,
    I’m so glad to hear that things are improving!
    I am also sorry but I cannot offer advice on drugs, or dosages. This is a question for your vet.

    Best of luck

    krista

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Mario | 2 years ago
My 14 Year Old Lab Mix Has Been Diagnosed With Laryngeal Paralysis Around 6 Months Ago. She Is …

My 14 year old Lab mix has been diagnosed with Laryngeal Paralysis around 6 months ago. She is doing okay except at night sometimes coughing for 15-20 seconds and then going back to sleep. Please let me know what experiences there are from the surgery. I want to see if this is something that she can survive. Thanks for your help…

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Megan | 2 years ago
Our 10 Year Old Beagle Bassett Hound Mix Has Been Down Since Last Wednesday. She Had What …

Our 10 year old Beagle Bassett hound mix has been down since last Wednesday. She had what we thought was a seizure, and couldn’t get up after. We took her to the vet, and they kept her but said that she wasn’t giving any indication to where the pain was or where the infection might be (a blood panel revealed high WBC) Sent her home with phenobarbital and clindamycin for the infection. Fast forward to yesterday, they decided to do an x ray and discovered she has degenerated vertebrae that have fused. They gave us prednisone and methocarbamol and advised us to call in on Friday if no improvement. Our poor girl can’t get up hardly at all, and the vet isn’t giving me any information as to what caused this, if it’s curable or manageable. I don’t know what I’m up against and a 2nd opinion isn’t something we can afford right now.

2 Responses

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  1. Krista Magnifico

    Hello,
    I would probably go find a different vet and ask for more help. It doesn’t sound like your vet is helping you enough. I also think that a full patient care conversation is warranted. I talked about how to help manage these guys wrt feeding peeing pooping ambulating and pain meds. I also talk about methocarbamol as I think these guys need this. Also ask about gabapentin and acupuncture.

    I have a lot of information on my blog and YouTube channel. Kmdvm.blogspot.Com search Ivdd.

    1. Megan Post author

      Thank you so much. Does this seem like IVDD to you? That’s how I came across your blog, and to me, the symptoms you describe sound a lot like what our girl is experiencing.

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Jesseka | 2 years ago
My Min Pin Is Diabetic. He’s Been Having Some Digestive Issues Getting His Diet Right …

My min pin is diabetic. He’s been having some digestive issues getting his diet right with his insulin. I’ve noticed the last month or so that his butt has started getting puffy. Last night it was a little red but, he hasn’t been scooting or biting at it. I also have noticed some slimy covering on his stool at times. I’ve been giving him probiotics and since then his poo has been the color of the probiotics, like a chicken boil union cube.

1 Response

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  1. Krista Magnifico

    Hello,
    I’m not quite sure of what you are describing. There isn’t enough information to assess this? For example I have no idea what a puffy butt refers to? Is it possible to follow up with your vet for an exam and explain to them in person? I’m not sure if there is a problem here or not but I do know that diabetes is one of the most difficult conditions to manage and it requires a lot of help from the vet staff to manage well.

    Best of luck.