IF your vet cannot give you a diagnosis he should be seeking a second opinion!
Your cat is not old, it would be a shame to have her put to sleep if something can be done to help her. Cats have sensitive stomachs but the hair loss, lesions, excessive grooming is something else.
Some cats overgroom causing them to vomit but as you say, she is depressed and withdrawn – clearly a sign of illness.
The lesions could be ringworm but that would not explain the vomiting etc. You don’t have any potentially poisonous flowers in your home do you, such as lillies? These flowers can be fatal to a cat. I am just trying to exhaust my clues as to what it could be.
Do you not have a charity like the rspca where you are? They may be able to help you if you are unable to afford treatment for your cat. I hope you get kitty fixed and well.
Of course sometimes the only option, if the cat is visibly suffering, is to have the little darling put to sleep. Please let me know how it goes. References : Surrogate mother to 5 kittens, 2 baby hedgehogs, 1 fox cub and 4 orphaned field mice. Hard work but absolutley worth it!
I’m really sorry about your cat. Your question intrigued me, and I have been sitting here with three years of notes and internal medicine texts to see if I could find any sort of answer for you. Unfortunately, I’ve not had a lot of luck so far, but I have got a few questions for you.
Something I am interested to know- did your vet attempt all the workup themselves, or did they offer you specialist referral? If not, though consultation & workup is probably not an option for you now if you’ve exhausted your resources, I wonder if your vet can send her whole history say to a uni vet school hospital and see if they can come up with any answers.
How did her symptoms present- did she have the gastrointestinal signs first, or the skin lesions? Has she got skin lesions other than the bloody patches, e.g. hairloss, or are they relatively well defined.
Do you think it is possible that the skin problems are entirely due to her excessive grooming, or were the signs starting to appear before she started to overgroom?
I’m assuming that she has had full blood profiles and the like done- were any of these abnormal, and if so, what were the abnormalities? Also, has she had any diagnostic imaging done (x-ray, ultrasound)?
One of my thoughts was an allergic or immune-mediated problem. Has she ever been tried on cortisone (prednisolone)? Although not ‘gold standard medicine’, if she hasn’t been and if you are close to the point of euthanising her, it would be worth a try.
The only other thing that occured to me was that occasionally some internal cancers can cause skin problems due to distant affects of the tumour (called a paraneoplastic syndrome). This is pretty rare, and probably less likely given the weight loss (I would expect far greater loss more quickly), but is one of the reasons that I ask whether there was any imaging done.
I’m really sorry that I couldn’t be more helpful. Take care, and I sincerely hope that you find an answer soon. Please feel free to email me if you want to. References : Soon-to-graduate veterinary student
Our cat had similar symptoms: she would lick her underside around her nipples until they were raw. She had throwing up, diarrhea, and weight loss (11 lbs down to 7.5 pds). Went several times to vet he diagnosed her with irritable bowel disease. He put her on prednisone followed by hair ball medication every other day and changed her food to low allergen food. In between she also would meow horribly after using the box for urine and bowel movements. She responded to that treatment for 8 months then in the last month she again started not eating, would not drink so we took her in again he re-hydrated her but that did not work. We ended up putting her down. He suspected it had to have been some form of cancer the only way we would have gotten a definitive answer is if we took her to have a very expense ultrasound and biopsy. We did not have the funds for that and we both agreed to make her as comfortable as possible and when the time came she was the one that told us enough was enough.
Try the prednisone treatment it might just be plain old irritable bowel problems but unfortunately it sounds to similar to what our cat went through.
Love your cat and pamper them for the time you have left they are the most precious thing. It sounds like you have done as much as you can for your cat.
I will be thinking about you…Good Luck!! References :
February 5th, 2010 at 11:54 am
You need to take your cat back to the vet NOW!
IF your vet cannot give you a diagnosis he should be seeking a second opinion!
Your cat is not old, it would be a shame to have her put to sleep if something can be done to help her. Cats have sensitive stomachs but the hair loss, lesions, excessive grooming is something else.
Some cats overgroom causing them to vomit but as you say, she is depressed and withdrawn – clearly a sign of illness.
The lesions could be ringworm but that would not explain the vomiting etc. You don’t have any potentially poisonous flowers in your home do you, such as lillies? These flowers can be fatal to a cat. I am just trying to exhaust my clues as to what it could be.
Do you not have a charity like the rspca where you are? They may be able to help you if you are unable to afford treatment for your cat. I hope you get kitty fixed and well.
Of course sometimes the only option, if the cat is visibly suffering, is to have the little darling put to sleep. Please let me know how it goes.
References :
Surrogate mother to 5 kittens, 2 baby hedgehogs, 1 fox cub and 4 orphaned field mice. Hard work but absolutley worth it!
February 5th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
I’m really sorry about your cat. Your question intrigued me, and I have been sitting here with three years of notes and internal medicine texts to see if I could find any sort of answer for you. Unfortunately, I’ve not had a lot of luck so far, but I have got a few questions for you.
Something I am interested to know- did your vet attempt all the workup themselves, or did they offer you specialist referral? If not, though consultation & workup is probably not an option for you now if you’ve exhausted your resources, I wonder if your vet can send her whole history say to a uni vet school hospital and see if they can come up with any answers.
How did her symptoms present- did she have the gastrointestinal signs first, or the skin lesions? Has she got skin lesions other than the bloody patches, e.g. hairloss, or are they relatively well defined.
Do you think it is possible that the skin problems are entirely due to her excessive grooming, or were the signs starting to appear before she started to overgroom?
I’m assuming that she has had full blood profiles and the like done- were any of these abnormal, and if so, what were the abnormalities? Also, has she had any diagnostic imaging done (x-ray, ultrasound)?
One of my thoughts was an allergic or immune-mediated problem. Has she ever been tried on cortisone (prednisolone)? Although not ‘gold standard medicine’, if she hasn’t been and if you are close to the point of euthanising her, it would be worth a try.
The only other thing that occured to me was that occasionally some internal cancers can cause skin problems due to distant affects of the tumour (called a paraneoplastic syndrome). This is pretty rare, and probably less likely given the weight loss (I would expect far greater loss more quickly), but is one of the reasons that I ask whether there was any imaging done.
I’m really sorry that I couldn’t be more helpful. Take care, and I sincerely hope that you find an answer soon. Please feel free to email me if you want to.
References :
Soon-to-graduate veterinary student
February 5th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Our cat had similar symptoms: she would lick her underside around her nipples until they were raw. She had throwing up, diarrhea, and weight loss (11 lbs down to 7.5 pds). Went several times to vet he diagnosed her with irritable bowel disease. He put her on prednisone followed by hair ball medication every other day and changed her food to low allergen food. In between she also would meow horribly after using the box for urine and bowel movements. She responded to that treatment for 8 months then in the last month she again started not eating, would not drink so we took her in again he re-hydrated her but that did not work. We ended up putting her down. He suspected it had to have been some form of cancer the only way we would have gotten a definitive answer is if we took her to have a very expense ultrasound and biopsy. We did not have the funds for that and we both agreed to make her as comfortable as possible and when the time came she was the one that told us enough was enough.
Try the prednisone treatment it might just be plain old irritable bowel problems but unfortunately it sounds to similar to what our cat went through.
Love your cat and pamper them for the time you have left they are the most precious thing. It sounds like you have done as much as you can for your cat.
I will be thinking about you…Good Luck!!
References :
February 5th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
call the vita
References :