Cat body temperature

[DollyB]

Zeke has been seeing the vet for weeks, his third eyelids were showing and he had a temperature. He has had endless antibiotics and a week on metacam but he still has a high temperature. When at home he feels cool, the vet said to feel his ears just to give an indication of how hot he is - we have been doing this often, to the point of getting a ' why do you keep grabbing my ears?' look☺

When we go to the vets Zeke gets quite stressed and shakes all the time from going into the carrier, sitting in the waiting room and in with the vet. I suppose my question is - Do you think Zeke could be getting himself so worked up he is raising his own temperature? His third eyelids are almost back to normal his litter tray activity is OK and he eats like a pig☺ but we were at the vets yesterday and his temperature was still high.

Any thoughts?
Thanks

[meriad]

that's a difficult one and I'm not sure on the answer. I suppose yes, stress can raise the body temp - have you asked your vet about that? I know with me, my blood pressure is always higher than normal when it's taken by a doctor / nurse - called White Coat Syndrome and no reason why animals wouldn't potentially have the same issue

What's the chance of your vet or a vet nurse coming to your house to see if Zeke's temperature is normal or at least lower if in his own environment.

My Monty went through a spell of really high temp and it turned out that he had tonsillitis so needed a specific antibiotic and not a general all round one; once we established the cause of the temperatures it was a matter of two weeks and he was back to normal. Has your vet done any blood tests to see if there is a possible underlying reason?

[Crewella]

Like Meriad, I'm not too sure, but I believe that stress can raise body temperature. I know that My Daz's white ears can seem to go red and warm when he's stressed. You can buy digital thermometers for pets, might be worth trying to take his temperature yourself at home? I hope he's better soon.

[DollyB]

Thank you for your replies.

Meriad, yes he has had a 12 panel blood test, the only thing showing was a slightly low white cell count which the vet put down to him fighting a virus, I will ask about a home visit though, that's a good idea.

Crewella, do you know, are the digital thermometers the 'up the bum' kind? not sure I'd feel confident doing that!! I'm sure my vet would give me a lesson though.

I did post on here when he was first poorly, its titled 'poorly cat - does anything sound familiar' ( or something like that) there is more of a back story there.

He has just made a litter tray deposit that I would have been proud of myself, so I'm sure that any tummy trouble he ha is now over.

Don't you just wish they could talk (or maybe not!!) especially when they are poorly?

[Crewella]

I'm sure your vet would help (and it would be a good idea to discuss it), but I believe you can get several kinds of thermometers for pets including rectal ones, ear ones and even 'no touch' infra red ones. Hopefully the tummy trouble, as you say, has ... erm ..... worked its way out.