Sick kitty with fluid on stomach, wont eat raw, any ideas??

[brydee]

Hello everyone,

My mothers cat has decreased in health the past couple of weeks. She is never off her food and usually eats 100 small meals a day and would constantly meow if she heard any package or tin being opened.. but suddenly hardly eating anything, she wont eat anything raw, she wont eat cooked meat, she wont eat dry food, she wont eat canned food. The only thing she seems to be eating little amounts of is pouched wet food, it is mainly jelly with only tiny amount of what resembles meat, she is eating the jelly but leaving the meat. So that tells me she is just going for the water content?

My mother took her to the vet and they said that there is nothing seriously wrong with her, that she seems to have eaten something that disagrees with her as she has abit of fluid on her stomach. They also said not to worry that she is hardly eating or drinking and that its more of a worry if she was overeating and drinking.

I can communicate with animals but as im close to her finding it hard to get anything other than her telling me her symptoms and her shoulders are highlighting but not her stomach. Im still waiting for feedback from others. She feels dizzy, weak, and like all her energy has been taken. She is shaking as she walks and like if you sat on a roundabout then somebody tried to make you walk. She feels nausea nearly all of the time and she is sleeping almost constantly. Then occassionally like today she will just wake up and go downstairs and act like she wants to go out but she is almost walking into wall etc so I wont let her even though she wants to do.

I had a google and it seems that cats get fluid on their stomachs when either it is a tumor or hypoglymia

Im unsure what I can do for her as I know that raw will cure her but its just trying to get her to eat it, its taken something like this to happen to get my mother to consider putting her on a raw diet and im just worried that it will be too late.

Do any of you know of anything else we could try to get her to eat. Probably the worst time to get her to try eating when she feels sick and then her body will be detoxing so will make her feel even worse. But maybe some type of herbal medicine?

I offered her wheatgrass and catnip, I would of thought if it was a 'stomach upset' that she would want to eat these things to feel better :/

She is going back to the vets on monday to have blood tests and im trying to encourage them to get her scanned if nothing shows.

[Supa]

Your description reminded me of some of the symptoms of FIP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feline_infectious_peritonitis). We lost a kitten to that disease many moons ago. I sincerely hope this is not the case and your kittty pulls through.

Is your kitty found of eating plants? There are many types that are toxic to cats like lilies that are often brought in the home in floral arrangements.

[streetsurfer]

Ask your cat if she is just abstaining (fasting) from food because she is sick or doesn't feel well. I just think that maybe better to ask her a more direct question, as it may be easier for her to indicate to you a yes/no answer than to relate what the issue is or what she is feeling. It is a well know fact that animals will fast themselve out of an illness, by instinct. Ours has even fasted when she twisted an ankle in one of her stumbles getting off a bed. So injury or illnes may cause an animal to fast, for the result of speeding their healing.

The symptoms you mention sound much like our cats hyperthyroidism. Also our current sick cat will only lick the liquid out of canned foods. Since this is her pattern we mix well, a little water in moist foods, and add a flax supplement and I have recently taken to juicing oat grass and putting that in there. What she does is just lapp up the liquids and leave most of the subtance of the meat. That they came on suddenly is odd. Low potassium levels is what I think leads to the dizziness and stumbling. Our cat is getting hard of hearing and if you walk up beside her and startle her or get her attention without a startle, and she then turns her head to look at you, she almost falls to one side. This was also a symptom of our last cat who suffered kidney failure and hyperT. Have you had blood work done?

Something else I would suggest it to grow out some oats or wheat grass and allow the cat to eat that from your hands. Take some cuttings and only present an inch or so at a time to her mouth. Our cat will usually toss it up if allowed to eat longer blades of grass. The oats seem to give her much more energy, and I have noticed the increase anti-oxidants in her diet by doing this are clearin her cataracts-her eyes are a lot less cloudy than they were before I began the oat grass feeding.

Pinch and pull the skin up off of the back at the withers of your cat (called tenting). Let it go and see if it drops rapidly, or if the skin slowly returns to position. If it is slow to return, the cat is dehydrated. You can then subcutaneously rehydrate your cat with a bag of saline solution and needle. It is easy to do. Dehydration can be a sign of kindey trouble. The poor balance can be because of low electrolytic imbalance from the dehydration, iirc.

If your vet did not do blood work at this last visit you may need to have it done.
(sorry, I at first missed or overlooked you comments on the blood work and wheat grass)
Hope this helps some. I feel she will resume eating in a couple days.

[brydee]

Hello. thanks for all the help.

The vets just called and said her spleen is ruptured and they think its bled into her stomach :(
She had the blood work done this afternoon and everything was fine other than her white cells attacking themselves.
Everyone is just deciding what to do

[laughalways]

I'm so sorry about your kitty. I hope she gets better!

[brydee]

I'm so sorry about your kitty. I hope she gets better!

Thankyou :) She is off the drip and back home now, not great but not any worse