Another hard day for Polly

[annathepiper]

So Polly, it seems, has wised up to the whole "putting pink antibiotic goop in her food" trick. Which is a problem. Earlier this week I got sanction from the vet to take her off the antibiotic for a few days, on the grounds that Polly wasn't getting her thyroid med either by avoiding her food. As soon as I stopped putting the pink goop in the food, she immediately started eating again. So I know for sure she isn't liking the presence of the stuff in there.

Problem is, whatever problem required me to put her on the antibiotic in the first place hasn't gone away. She started letting fly around the house some more this week, and this morning she did so on spazzkat's bed. Not good. Not long after I caught her heading for the wall where she's pulled this trick a lot before, and when I chased her off from there, she went to the cushion lying on the floor facing the TV and sprayed that instead.

I got onto the phone with the vet and arranged to take her in to be seen this afternoon. I saw a new doctor this time, and expressed specific concern about the possibility of a recurrence of the stones problem she had in the past. They took her in the back of the place for some X-rays, and she yowled a lot, and when they finally brought her back out to me (after closing time), they were at least able to tell me that she doesn't have any stones. That's the good part. The somewhat distressing part is that I still need to bring her back in on Monday morning, because they want to get a culture out of her urine. We've tried to do this a few times already, and it's been hard. So now I'll just have to suck it up and leave her there until they can get what they need out of her. And that'll make Monday wacky for my work schedule.

In the meantime I am to avoid giving her any more of the pink goop for the rest of this weekend, and I've been given some special prescription, high-calorie cat food to give her to try to perk her appetite back up. Kitty cheeseburgers, essentially. I gave her a serving of that just now and she vacuumed up about half of it, so I'm pretty sure I don't have to worry about her having developed some sort of weird food aversion.

I'm still worried, though. If she doesn't have the stones problem again, the other possibilities seem to be kidney disease, some sort of infection that's resistant to the current antibiotic, a different sort of stones problem that they can't find with the X-ray, or perhaps a tumor of some kind. None of which sounds very encouraging, and if the urine culture doesn't tell them useful stuff, the next step after that will be an abdominal ultrasound.

Here's hoping the urine culture gets them the data they need. Polly gets crankier every time I take her in, and this is a lot of stress for such an old kitty.

Comments

[drglam]

Delerium's vet directed me to a compounding pharmacy here in Cambridge that could make up chicken flavored goop instead of the banana flavored goop we'd been given. Some vet prescriptions they can just fill, or they can pulverize pills and make a flavored suspension. I could also have chosen beef, liver, or seafood flavoring. It was more expensive, but so worth it.

It might be worth checking with compounding pharmacies in your area to see if any work with vets. (one of my housemates uses our local one as well, as she's deathly allergic to most red dyes).

a quick web search...

[drglam]

http://www.findings.net/sucompoundingWA.html

[annathepiper]

Way ahead of you. ;) I've been getting Polly's thyroid med from these folks. They have to compound the thyroid med for me in a tuna solution, which I then squirt all over her food. That works splendidly. I'm certainly willing to go that route if I have to, and I'll have to remember to ask about that when I take Polly back in on Monday. Thanks for the reminder!

[gerimaple.livejournal.com]

*hugs* good luck

[annathepiper]

Thanks! *hugs back*

[boxer-ferret.livejournal.com]

Are you giving the thyroid meds in broken up pills? I use the 5 mg pills for Heidi and give 1/4 at night and 1/8 in mornings. We refined the dosage based on blood tests and she doesn't need much. But there are 10 mg pills also available. I give them in "cookies" which are Friskies soft treats where I've gouged out the center with a toothpick and stuffed the pill in the center. Then I turn it over and press it over the crumbs on the counter to pick them up and cover the pill. She loves them and looks forward to "cookie time". Sometimes she'd let the pill portion fall out when eating it, so lately I've been putting a drop of water on top of the pill to soften and break it up inside the treat before covering it up.

I could never get Hiedi to take the pink anti-biotic stuff. Once when she was on antibiotics, they gave me a clear liquid that I could mix in with canned food and she didn't notice it.

[boxer-ferret.livejournal.com]

Aww... and I meant to add, many *hugs* for poor old Polly.

[annathepiper]

Thank you!

[annathepiper]

Actually, her med's in liquid form--it's suspended in a tuna juice solution. I got it that way because Polly's notoriously difficult to pill. The surgery she had back shortly after I got her saw to that; she was on meds for quite a while after that and we tried every trick in the book to get her to eat the pills. So once I started having to put her on the thyroid drug, the solution turned out to be the best way to go. I can put that in her food and she doesn't notice at all.

My vet's told me about the stuffed-treat trick, though, and that's one we haven't really tried yet. If I have to give her a different antibiotic, I might wind up trying that.

[boxer-ferret.livejournal.com]

Oh, you have to try that. I use the Friskies chiken flavored in the green bag. You have to cut the ears off to open the bag. *g* One little soft treat isn't going to ruin their diet and it's very easy to hide a pill portion in one of those treats. The thyroid pills must not have a strong taste because Heidi doesn't notice it. The pills come in 5mg and 10mg varieties and there's cheap generic versions available.

I could never give Heidi a pill by just grabbing her. Nor could I ever stick a dropper of liquid in her mouth to give her anything. She's semi-feral and is a lot more tolerant these days with going to the vet. But it's not like I can just grab her and cut her nails which is why she got that nasty ingrown toenail the other day.

[annathepiper]

Polly likes those soft Friskies treats, yeah, so maybe that'll be an option I can pursue if she keeps being difficult. We'll see what they can learn from getting a culture tomorrow. Thanks for the tip!

[borntofr4g.livejournal.com]

=^(

*transmits hugs to cat*

(Maybe she prefers root beer flavor? [/joke])

[annathepiper]

Hee. :) Well, she certainly has been vacuuming up this new food that they gave me to give to her this weekend. High-calorie stuff that spazzkat has called "kitty cheeseburgers". Mmmmm, cheeseburgers!

[bloody-keri.livejournal.com]

Bless her heart, poor kitty. Does she seem to be straining or in pain? No blood? I hope the urine culture tells them what they need to know. I'll be thinking of her.

[annathepiper]

There's blood, yeah. That worries me. :( And just a little while ago she actually tried to let fly on the Xbox on our entertainment center, which is right close to the floor. She gets this sort of hunched posture and her tail starts waggling, and *boom*.

But I've already taken her to the vet today and they didn't find anything that seemed to warrant immediate emergency care, so here's hoping she doesn't get too worse before Monday morning when I take her back in.

[bloody-keri.livejournal.com]

This happened to my kitty once and it was a urinary tract infection. Antibiotics cleared it right up in one day. Have they looked at that? Surely they have, although I don't recall if you said so...

[annathepiper]

Both of the doctors I've been speaking with at the place I go to (they have a few on staff) have been talking about infections, but neither of them have specifically mentioned urinary tract infections yet. They're more thinking stuff related to her kidneys.

And I've been throwing antibiotics at her for the past few weeks now. She's actually on her second bottle of the pink goop (amoxidrops) that I've been putting in her food--and while I was working her through the first bottle, she was eating her food with it okay still. This second bottle, she's just not going for it. And apparently the first bottle didn't clear up the problem, either.

So now the plan is to see what they can learn from an actual sample of her urine, to see if we have to try a different antibiotic. Hopefully when I pick her up from the vet this afternoon (they want me to come get her around 5ish), they'll be able to tell me more.

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

HUGS to you and Polly, and good luck with the tests.

[annathepiper]

Thanks! *hugs back*

[stickmaker.livejournal.com]

When I had to give Motley downers due to a head injury (kitty didn't land on her feet after jumping from concrete basement floor to about halfway up the steps and not getting a good hold on the carpet) my vet had me use pill pockets. Little, hollow treats you put the pill into and mash closed. They have at least two flavors.

[annathepiper]

Yeah, one of the doctors at my vet place has mentioned these to me. If Polly keeps being difficult about this, I may well try that next.