A few years ago I saw a statistic that 70% of all cats develop some form of kidney disease. I lost my first cat to this and was damn determined my girl wouldn't develop it too.
I watched for the wrong things. When she started having litterbox issues, I took her to the vet. Blood panel and urinalysis were great. Bought a water fountain and added probiotics to her food. She seemed to do well.
Then I got a puppy and the pooping on the bed started. I figured it was a spite thing (and probablydid start that way), but it continued past the time she made friends with the dog. She also vomited a couple times a week and licked her fur off her belly (which I figured accounted for all the hairballs).
Eventually this stopped and things were good for a few more months. Then last month she stopped eating her food and her weight dropped dramatically. I took her to the emergency vet. Again, her blood panel and urinalysis were good...other than signs of malnutrition. They offered to do xrays and ultrasound or try appetite stimulants. I tried the outpatient treatment with no success. She was wasting away.
The second time she went to the emergency vet a couple weeks later (just a few days ago), it was because she'd had diarrhea all over the house and tried to do it in the bed while I was still in it. Again at the vet they had nothing to tell me and gave her a B12 injection (when my friend suggested I bring it up) and more stimulants. Again suggested an xray to look for masses which I declined, certain she could bounce back.
Another 3 days of her starving and I felt at a loss. Like I was watching her starve to death. I looked up cat cancers that went along with her symptoms and found gastrointestinal lymphoma. Which is usually preceeded by inflammatory bowel disease. My girl was less than 50% the weight she'd been at this time last year. When we went back to the vet and I raised the possibility of gastrointestinal lymphoma, they said the only way to truly diagnose it would be biopsy and my cat was too sick to safely do that procedure.
I am so mad at myself and the various vets for not thinking about inflammatory bowel disease sooner. It's highly treatable but for my girl it was just too late. Xrays and ultrasound wouldn't have likely picked anything up had I done them. Please- if your kitty has symptoms but the blood work is fine, insist on a fecal test or ask the vet about inflammatory bowel disease. I failed my girl and will forever feel guilty about it. She was one of a kind.
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/oeweq6/psa_cats_and_inflammatory_bowel_disease/
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