Cat Chat Feline Forum

She didn’t eat all her tea last night, and she only had a Soup, which are only 40g. I put her supper biscuits on and she ate a bit more, but hadn’t finished it last night, although she did at least eat the medicated lik-e-lix at silly o’clock. This morning she hadn’t eaten all her breakfast, and didn’t move when I did her treat ball, which is unheard of. Still waiting to hear if PetPlan will agree to pay for the scan.

Definitely not herself
How long will it take for them to let you know something?

Well, spoke to Petplan tonight who said they can only treat pre authorisation as urgent if they need treatment within 24 hours, so they likely won't deal with it till Thu. She has been sick again tonight, so the vet is ringing tomorrow afternoon to sort out a new plan. She's barely eaten again

Poor little Lucy, she's not feeling fine
Do you have any relatives, friends, workmates, others who can lend you some money?
When I had to treat my sweet Lola with radiation therapy for her nasal carcinoma in 2011, I hadn't that money and I was kind of desperate, then a colleague of mine lent me the whole amount and I gave it back to him in a few months.
My fingers are still crossed!

That's very worrying. Still, loss of appetite might be partly due to the hot weather - Tilly isn't eating as much as usual. Hoping for the best and that Pet Plan pay up. I never realized CT scans cost that much.

Sending all good vibes and best wishes your way. Wish I could do more.

I'd be reluctant to Antonio, as the vet thinks its unlikely to show something. I'm hoping the weather has something to do with her appetite.

Is your weather unusually hot in these days? Have you noticed that Lucy lost her appetite when the temperatures rose?
At night, though, it's fresher, Lucy should eat soemthing more at night.

I wouldn't say hot, definitely warmer. She does eat more overnight, although I have started taking her food to bed with us, so if she gets off the bed in the middle of the night, she has to walk past them

Thinking of you ... such a worry as they can't tell you what's wrong - we just know when things aren't kosher. Fusses to Lucy & +Ve thoughts being sent. Vivian

Well, after the vet managed to ring the wrong landline, we are continuing with the Frusemide and Antirobe until we get a decision from PetPlan, or unless she shows signs of being unwell, although they have at least ordered some liquid frusemide for me, which I should be picking up tonight (need to check it got delivered first!) – I’m slightly puzzled by the decision though, as her initial bloods show a normal white blood count, I didn’t think it was possible to have an infection with a normal white blood count, but vet says things don’t always go like the book. I do also feel puzzled that she doesn’t want to do anything else till the CT scan is done, when by her own admission, she doesn’t think it will show anything. Last night we had the cleanest bowl for about a week though, even if I do still have to take the bowl to bed (she has been told as soon as we know she is fine, all these luxuries stop!!) and she ate most of the medicated lik-e-lix at silly o’clock (she makes an odd noise while eating that!!), and she does seem brighter – I did really think we were going to end up back there yesterday, after her being sick and not eating much on Mon.

Things are going better, it seems.
Is the weather a bit fresher over there?
Your vet is a little confusing, she says she wants to see a TC scan done even if she knoes that it could be showing nothing, not so clear...
Anyway, I hope to read more positive posts like this!

Glad Lucy has regained her appetite. On the cost of the CT scan, I think the price you have been quoted is a bit steep. I have gone back through my vet bills and I have found that Tilly had a CT scan on her back leg in 2013 (when she broke her tarsal bone). The vet bill is not itemized but was £3,500 for everything. That included in addition to the CT scan, the initial consultation at the specialist hospital, the operation to screw her bone back together (which was pretty tricky), 2 days in the hospital and two return visits to check on her progress. Maybe Tilly got a special discount for being well behaved and charming everyone in sight!

Sending positive vibes.

My sister's cat had a cat scan last year (had to go from Surrey to Essex I think), and it was around £1000 if I recall correctly.

I thought it was expensive, but when Tiger saw a specialist they had just got a machine and it was 3K! She has been sick again tonight so will be ringing tomorrow to get her booked in for sub-cut fluids

Booktigger, I am so sad to read that Lucy has been sick
Hopefully the fluids might make her feel better. If I were you I'd ask for a TC scan. They can run a partial scan to lower the costs, probably what they told you was for a total body scan. A TC scan is priced for the number of images taken during the process, generally is one image every 1 mm, sometimes every 2 mm, depending on the machine. So for a 50 cm long cat they can 250 to 500 images, but for a portion of the body they could shoot much fewer images.
When my Lola had to have a TC done every 3 months, we had some total body scans, and some partial scans which were cheaper.
A total body scan was around €750 (£665), a partial scan was around €400 (£355).
Best wishes to Lucy!

Took her back yesterday for fluids, and vet has taken blood too. Unfortunately yesterday has really upset Lucy – she was more aggressive than usual last night. She came to bed, sat at the side of me, but if I tried to touch her I either got huffed at or she moved so I couldn’t touch her. Woke up this morning to her on the computer chair, which I’ve never seen, as soon as I spoke to her, she jumped down and went to the doorway. She did sit on my knee for a bit this morning, but when I was on the phone she growled at me for talking, then moved ☹ Rang PetPlan again this morning as I couldn’t find the official confirmation, spoke to a lovely person called George, who instantly offered to put it in an e-mail to me, which arrived in about 5 mins. Why last night’s person couldn’t have been that helpful I don’t know. Quote is cheaper than I thought, £1115! Just waiting for the vets to ring with an appointment, as well as blood test results.

I have undersood that PetPlan has approved the TC scan, hasn't they?
I hope your vet schedules the scan as soon as possible.

Scan is arranged for Tue, I may get results then, or we may have to wait for a report. Had to speak to a different vet tonight for blood test results, calcium is down, everything else is within normal limits, which is good as her liver values weren't and it means her kidneys are coping with the diuretics. She feels with the other test results that the CT scan will come back fine and then we are looking at idiopathic. It is the hardest to deal with, as you can only treat the symptoms and not the cause, but better than some of the options.

Did a quick google search last night, looks like they think that certain ingredients in dry food that help with alkaline levels contribute to idiopathic hypercalcemia (IHC), which is quite interesting as she was changed to renal food in March, and it is also used for urinary issues. Since her operation she has been shunning wet food in favour of dry, which no-one can explain. Unfortunately, the way to manage it is to cut out dry food completely, but she doesn’t like wet food enough to only eat that. There is also a link between calcium levels and renal issues, they don’t know whether the calcium affects the kidneys or vice versa. I am going to ask if this could just be a weird reaction to the hip removal, and her body adjusting, in which case it might not be permanent.

Quite interesting what you have found, booktigger, though it's not always the case that CKD cats have high or low levels of calcium.
My opinion is that nobody knows what is causing what, the full reasons why a cat develops CKD or hyper-T are still unknown.

My Pallina is hyper-T. one of the main known causes is the exposition to some chemicals. I've been protecting her white ears and nose with sun creams for years. She's been licking away those creams for years. I'm rather sure that the chemicals in those creams have triggered the problem.
Likewise I'm sure that my sweet Lola developed oral cancer because of the wet wipes I used on her coat for weeks when she was so weak she couldn't walk to her litter. Lola would lick her fur afterwards and in my opinion this is the cause.

As for Lucy, hopefully it is just idiopathic, and this is a problem because you could never find the source of her problem, but at least it is nothing physical, and this is good!

No, it isn't always the case, but if the calcium gets deposited in the kidneys, it can either cause or increase kidney issues. I think I should stop googling, the reason they think the CT scan won't show anything is one of the parathyroid tests was normal but it appears that a high result shows cancer is certain, but some cancers don't affect the test. I'm not sure what I'd prefer if I'm honest, as she could have idiopathic for years because you are only treating the symptoms

How's Lucy today?
How was the scan? Did they gave you some answers?

Sorry, I couldn't get on yesterday!!

The scan didn't show anything, she has a slight extra bit of bone in her chest, but they think she was born with that, and there is no sign of infection round her hip, although the vet didn't take as much bone as she could have. Diagnosis is idiopathic, she is likely to have it for life, but there is a treatment that just requires one tablet a week. She also brought up diet, and that renal diets aren’t always great for hypercalcemia – the worry there is that her kidney values have reduced since being on said diet, so helping one may make another worse. Plus, with all diets, it’s what they will tolerate, she won’t eat a purely wet diet, and she’s fussy with what wet she will eat.

After sleeping on it, while I’m upset for Lucy that she has yet another condition for life that needs treatment, and one that could impact on one of her other conditions, it could have been a lot worse. I’m just going to try the medication first, as if we do both medication and food, we won’t know how effective the medication is. Plus, I don’t want to compromise her kidneys to treat her calcium levels, hopefully we can balance it by treating her calcium with medication and her kidneys with diet. I also woke up to find one of her toys on the landing, she hasn’t done that since before her op, so think she is feeling happier, and bless her, despite hating the medication, as soon as I’d done it this morning, she was more bothered by a fuss than the Dreamie she gets to take the taste away. She has been spending a lot of time sleeping on the bathroom floor since coming home though, which is odd. Hopefully it won’t take long to get the medication dosage right. She has put weight on again since last week, so we need to worry about that next.

Well, if it's idiopathic there's nothing physical to worry about.
Hopefully the meds will keep the calcium under control. I hope you will find the right dosage soon so to have the situation in order.
Tell Lucy to cooperate with her food and medications because you're doing this for her sake.
Lucy, thank your mom for taking care of you like no others, be grateful to be in the right house

No,there is nothing physical, infection would have been better though. I certainly am, she hid behind the curtain when I got home to avoid me! I still have a bit of the stronger frusol in, so used that so it was a smaller dose.

We went for a repeat blood test yesterday, vet has rang back today to say that all her levels are within normal values - her calcium levels appear to be only just in normal levels, but they don't want to increase the dose, in case they reduce too much. She is still 5.13kg despite the reduction in her food. I spoke to the vet about diet, she agreed that renal food isn't ideal for hypercalcaemia, however renal failure is more likely to kill her than high calcium levels, so we are going to keep her on the renal food, and monitor via bloods. She has 10 other cats with IHC, only 4 are on the high fibre diet - while she agrees diet plays a big part, as no one can decide what, she thinks that as lack of appetite is a big part of the condition, eating something is ultimately better, and Lucy enjoys renal food. I am trying to get her back to eating 2 meals of wet and one dry, ironically she likes renal wet!!

Downside is that she can also feel the bone that was left behind, she still isn't up to full muscle mass (it was 18 weeks yesterday when she had the op), and when we were playing yesterday, she started elevating her paw in the air with her leg behind her - showed the vet a couple of pics, and she thinks that her stance is that bone is bothering her, so when I get back from holiday, I have to book her in for another operation.

So, good and bad news? Do hope the problems are overcome and big fusses to Lucy - all the very best with that op x

Yep, can't have just good news!!

Lots of fusses to Lucy & thinking of you - sending +Ve vibes. Vivian