Parenting-Furkids

Queen Eva likes her ears drubbed, and accepts combing around her chin and neck. I appreciate your offer, I do, you are very generous to offer your time and effort. It's not that I am not open to Reflexology, I am sure it can be an effective tool, but I have no skills in that area nor the current brain function to learn them. I would be more afraid of doing harm from doing it wrong, than helping.

However, since you've brought it up, when I am feeling less tired, if that ever happens, I'll look it up and try to learn more about it. I don't want to bring my own troubles to Queen Eva's thread but I have terrible brain fog and live most of each day in terror that I will be presented with something I cannot comprehend, but should be able to grasp.

Since she hasn't passed any fur I gave her a 12+ hour fast hoping the fur would get moving. This morning she had two small hard stools, which now indicates she is constipated. Sigh......

I've just given her a 0.6 ml dose of lactulose.

EDIT 10:57 (2 hours later) she did have two more stools.  Still very firm but one had some fur in it. Too soon for the lactulose to have taken effect, so those would have come regardless.  She still has an appetite as well.

She peed and pooped and it would have been an ideal time to do the nail trim, which she is due for, but my sister is coming and I'm not sure when she will arrive, so I didn't want to start it and be interrupted.

Queen Eva's internal medicine appointment is scheduled for Wednesday January 17th at 9:30. I would have preferred a Friday, but I didn't want to delay any longer. I will probably have to take the 18th off as well, though I hate to sacrifice the day.   

I am most likely going to end up running out of vacation time again this year like I did two years ago.

Tapering the prednisolone starts tomorrow.

Fur is essentially roughage, which is all fiber really is.  Just to try to clarify.  And I agree that cats don't really need fiber.

Is Upstate open on Saturdays?  Maybe you can connect with them then?

I wonder why the vet won't give you liquid instead of pills.  I wish she would listen to you, as you know what works best for Queen Eva.

   

The clinic is open 24 hours a day, but they only do things like schedule appointments during regular 8-5 business hours.

Well there are different types of fiber that provide different benefits.Soluble and insoluble. Vet wants her to be on a combination of. Right now I'm putting her on just some SEB added to one meal a day and well see. I will get the Vet's Best though. Slippery elm apparently provides both soluble and insoluble, from what I've read. Too bad I didn't start with that instead of the psyllium, when this issue first started three years ago.

Liquid pred doesn't keep long.  So there's no point in dispensing it in advance. Pills are more shelf stable.

If she goes on it long term, I will have them send the script out to Wedgewood, which was where I was getting Mazy cat's pred in liquid form.

What I asked was that she put a standing order in Queen Eva's record, so that if I called, they'd be able to dispense it (the liquid pred) when I asked for it, even if my vet wasn't there.

She said that wasn't practical, that it was better for me to keep the pills on hand.

Fur is essentially roughage, which is all fiber really is.  Just to try to clarify.  And I agree that cats don't really need fiber.

Is Upstate open on Saturdays?  Maybe you can connect with them then?

I wonder why the vet won't give you liquid instead of pills.  I wish she would listen to you, as you know what works best for Queen Eva.

   

Queen Eva had a solid poop this afternoon, but no fur. Almost too hard, now that she's not getting any added fat or yolk or anything that I was giving her, none of it wasn't working more than temporarily.

She does not take GLM, except what's in the EZc.

I don't know about prey animals providing fiber in the form of fur, that doesn't make much sense to me, fur is fur not fiber, and Queen Eva probably has a gut full of fur again because she isn't passing it in her poop.
Cats do not need fiber in their diets, generally speaking.

Queen Eva's issue is poor motility, and where is it originating and why. Cisapride is the drug for poor motility, but I don't even know if it's still being used, seems like I remember reading it had been taken off the market. Ootay was on cispride for many years.

I'm tired of guessing I just want to get her in to see the specialist, and they have still not called me at a time I am able to take the call. I left a message this morning, and again after I got back from lunch saying I was available at work number until 4 pm, and after four they should call me at home, but not before 4:20.. I get home at 4:20 pm and there is a message from them they called at 4:07.

I know it won't be long before she crashes again and I just don't know how much more of this I can take. But keep in mind it's the end of the work day and almost the end of the work week and I am so exhausted I can barely move.

Just sick and tired of the run around. I don't remember having all this bullshit when Jennie was sick.

All the records have been sent to Upstate for the ultrasound referral. The delay in getting an appointment is you can't get a person when you call there. You have to leave a message and they don't bother to take note of instructions like "I'll be at this number until such and such a time" so then I have to start all over again, because they inevitably call at a different time.

I did not have this hassle 5 years ago with Jennie. I called, got a person and got an appointment right away.

No diarrha, but no poop at all since 3 a.m. Tuesday/Wednesday. So it's close to 36 hours since any poop at all.

Vet says a balance of fiber is needed, soluble and insoluble. The psyllium isn't really a good choice on it's own, it has to be constantly increased, and she'll end up with a megacolon, and it obviously wasn't working, nothing I'm doing on my own is working, because she crashed, under my care. This is what the vet and specialists are for, but my vet cannot let go of the idea of prescription kibble as some miraculous resolution.

I also think she isn't keeping up on other things, because in the Raw for IBD group I was told that new studies and insights are saying now that IBD and SCIL (small cell intestinal lymphoma) are variations of the same disease, all falling under the GI issues, and my vet looked at me like I was nuts when I said that to her, after she assured me she would not be prescribing chlorambucil unless SCIL was positively diagnosed with a biopsy. I will not be putting Queen Eva through that biopsy surgery.