Persistent Vomiting...here we go again

[vic23]

Hi All,
Some of you may remember me posting about my cat Daisy a few months ago and her issue with persistent vomiting. Well long story short - Daisy was put on steroids by the vet - originally as a life prolonger as the vet could find nothing else to explain her symptoms so cancer was the only option. This was back in October last year and the vet was pleased with how she reacted to them. There was no sickness throughout the course of steroids, so in February she was finally weaned off them completely. Apart from a couple of minor sickness episodes a couple of weeks later, she has been fine. However, since last night she has started vomiting regularly again - food and liquid - she can keep no food down it seems. I have some Cerenia tablets left from the last time she was ill and gave her a 1/4 of a tablet in the tiniest amount of food so it should hopefully stay down - it did not stay down and she has been sick since. I also have some left over steroids, so I am going to put her back on them tonight. It is obvious to me that they were so effective that this is the only course of action. The good news is this time we know how to treat it.

My main concern is the immediate problem of not being able to keep food down - the sickness tablet (very unusually) does not seem to have been effective. I will try to get a steroid into her tonight, but this may be difficult as everything comes back up. I really worry about her dehydrating, but she does seem to be drinking regularly.

It is honestly so stressful - I am back in the realms of no sleeping, constant worry and the stress of cleaning up vomit from various pieces of ruined carpet, rugs and furniture.

[Lilith]

Oh no, Vic - so very sorry to hear. I'm afraid I've no advice to give but people on here will be more knowledgeable. Poor Daisy and poor you too. Everything here crossed for an improvement with her, poor lass x

[vic23]

Well I'm pleased to say that Daisy has been OK since going back on the 1mg of steroids per day. Although it is not ideal that she is on steroids, it is the only option - the vet thinks she has IBD and that this was causing the vomiting. The vet also seems happy that the dose is very low.

I took her back to the vets today for her booster and a general check. This is a major deal as she HATES the vet. However, she was much more tolerant than usual and didn't react to the vaccination. The next massive (no pun intended) challenge is her weight. Daisy was obese when we got her as a rescue a year ago - we immediately put her on a prescription diet. However, within a few months she had the sickness problem and the weight issue had to take a back seat. I have been keeping in touch with the vet on a monthly basis but she hasn't actually seen Daisy for a few months - she immediately said she had put on weight and she has put on 1 whole Kg . The problem is she has had to be on a special diet because of the sickness (Hills D/D) which at the same time is fatty so does not help with weight loss! I had a long chat with the vet and nurse about a different food and we have an alternative planned. This has to be introduced very very gradually over the next month or so.

[booktigger]

Glad she is better with the steroids, I'd try reducing to get the lowest effective dose - with Molly we got to half a tablet every other day - and do 6 monthly bloods. Good luck with the diet - does she eat wet or dry food?

[vic23]

She eats both dry and wet food...she needs to have wet food in order to get the steroid down...I crush it into the food.

It really has been an uphill struggle to stabilise the sickness, now we just have to get over the next hurdle which will be a long road. Hopefully we can keep her well whilst we try and get her weight down to acceptable levels.

[Antonio]

My cat has been constantly vomiting for weeks/months without showing any other sign of discomfort. She would eat and play regardless the vomit.
Blood tests and ultrasound scans have been made several times with no clear signs of what it could be, apart form a slightly difficulty with her liver.
The vet tried with Cerenia but it didn't work well. Ranitidine didn't work either.
After so many attempts we found that she has a pancreatitis. To be totally honest, I myself made the diagnosis against the opinions of all the vets. I forced them to run a test for the pancreatitis (they didn't want to do it because it is very expensive) and it turned out I was right.
So we changed my cat's diet to a totally different protein. Along with this we made a course of acupuncture. My cat has stopped vomiting, it's nearly 2 weeks since her last episode. Yesterday we saw a utritionist who will draw up a new diet plan.
I have to add that my cat has been recently diagnosed hyper-T, but the vomiting was in place long before this.

About dehydration and drinking, my vet told me that in the cases of constant vomiting the dehydration is a real problem and seeing a cat drinking is no guarantee that the cat is perfectly hydrated. He also told me off for telling him that the pinched skin test was fine. He said that it' isn't a reliable test and only a blood work can assess the real hydration level.

EDIT: Forgot to add that it is more than likely that my cat is intolerant to every kind of grains. Her new source of carbohydrates would possibly be the Amaranth.

[booktigger]

She eats both dry and wet food...she needs to have wet food in order to get the steroid down...I crush it into the food.

It really has been an uphill struggle to stabilise the sickness, now we just have to get over the next hurdle which will be a long road. Hopefully we can keep her well whilst we try and get her weight down to acceptable levels.

Do you weigh out the dry food?

[booktigger]

My cat has been constantly vomiting for weeks/months without showing any other sign of discomfort. She would eat and play regardless the vomit.
Blood tests and ultrasound scans have been made several times with no clear signs of what it could be, apart form a slightly difficulty with her liver.
The vet tried with Cerenia but it didn't work well. Ranitidine didn't work either.
After so many attempts we found that she has a pancreatitis. To be totally honest, I myself made the diagnosis against the opinions of all the vets. I forced them to run a test for the pancreatitis (they didn't want to do it because it is very expensive) and it turned out I was right.
So we changed my cat's diet to a totally different protein. Along with this we made a course of acupuncture. My cat has stopped vomiting, it's nearly 2 weeks since her last episode. Yesterday we saw a utritionist who will draw up a new diet plan.
I have to add that my cat has been recently diagnosed hyper-T, but the vomiting was in place long before this.

About dehydration and drinking, my vet told me that in the cases of constant vomiting the dehydration is a real problem and seeing a cat drinking is no guarantee that the cat is perfectly hydrated. He also told me off for telling him that the pinched skin test was fine. He said that it' isn't a reliable test and only a blood work can assess the real hydration level.

EDIT: Forgot to add that it is more than likely that my cat is intolerant to every kind of grains. Her new source of carbohydrates would possibly be the Amaranth.

Regarding dehydration, my old vet told me the skin test will only show dehydration when they are already 10% dehydrated. Vomiting is very common in hyper-t though, because their system is working harder

[vic23]

I don't weigh out the dry food, but I literally count the kibbles in my hand - I only give her about 6 kibbles around 3 times a day. She has a whole tin of wet food (about the size of a tuna can).

Antonio - The symptoms your cat has experienced sound exactly like Daisy. She has vomited around 7 times a day - she just can't keep anything down. We had lots of investigation work carried out last year - the first set of tests (bloods, ultrasound, xray) showed nothing so the vet thought she could have a food sensitivity. She started on the special diet and lasted a month before the symptoms can back again. More investigations showed nothing apart from some inflammation in her stomach, which as the bloods etc were clear, the vet basically said could only be cancer. She was put on steroids to prolong her life (I refused to have her put to sleep as she was healthy apart from the vomiting and not in pain). The vet was amazed how well she did on them and after a few months said it couldn't be cancer as she would have deteriorated by that point. Months later, the vet has drawn the conclusion (and so have I from my research) that she has IBD. The term IBD is slightly misleading as in cats it refers to the entire gastro intestinal tract. The fact that she came off steroids for approx. 3 weeks and then the symptoms returned seemed to suggest that this was the case. I had previously been told by another vet that it definitely would not be IBD as she would have had terrible diarrhoea, which she did not. Daisy had cerenia and reacted well - it was an absolute godsend for a while. She was also prescribed Rantidine but wouldn't touch her food with it added.

I'm glad I kept the faith and kept fighting for her - I was told on at least two occasions that one of the only options was to put her to sleep. The problem with these issues in cats is they are just so difficult to diagnose I guess.

Antonio - May I say that I read your posts about your cat with cancer with much sadness but also with amazement that you had done such a wonderful job in caring for her.

[Antonio]

Vic23,
My vets agreed with a very likely diagnosis of IBD, and the same did the nutritionist that visited my cat Pallina on Wednesday. As you rightly say, IBD in cats refers to their whole gastro intestinal tract. I think that Pallina has an IBD which involves her stomach or duodenum.
Though my cat has a more than likely IBD, she has never had other symptoms but vomiting. She never had diarrhoea or tummy pains.
This morning she vomited some brown juices. It was brown as diluted digested wet food, but no food was in that juice apart from two psyllium seeds that I'm giving her. No other signs, and she ate straight after this episode.
I promptly texted the acupuncture vet to tell her that something has changed after two clean weeks. She will tell the nutritionist (I don't have her number) what happened.
If Daisy had a cancer, as your vet said, why didn't it show up in x-rays and ultrasound tests?
One thing I have learned the hard way lately, never fully trust a veterinarian. If I had to follow their crazy advice, my poor cat Lola (the one who died 20 days ago from mouth cancer) would have died 13 months ago, when they weren't able to diagnose her and came up with the only solution to put her to sleep! Furthermore they gave me the wrong medicines. Lola was able to survive in very good conditions for several months more only because I found the right treatments. Google was a very good friend of mine in those times!
I am glad you decided to fight against their bits of advice.
Keep fighting for Daisy, she can't do it herself, you must be her guardian and weapon!

I wish to thank you for your very kind and gentle words for my sweet Lola, and thank you for finding the time to read her story in my thread.

This thread
https://www.catchat.org/felineforum/vie ... =13&t=5958
is on my other cat, Pallina, the one with the constant vomit and hyper-T
Give Daisy a kiss for me!