Fun times for Derry...Not

Poor little mite. (Pic from last week.)

 

 

I took Derry to the vet yesterday for a full work-up because he's been throwing up fairly regularly since the latter part of February, usually at night and usually just clear liquid. I was concerned it was his pancreas, kidneys, thyroid, or liver. They sent off a full blood panel and the urine sample and we came home.

Well, I don't know why I forgot how sick he gets after the vet visits, being so stressed and traumatized. That's how he ended up at ER the second time last summer. Duh, Kim.

He ate a little bit late yesterday afternoon, but nothing since, not even water that I could see. By early this morning he was drooling with nausea.

I gave him some Cerenia, as I have several tablets on hand from the fall, unopened of course. That was at 5 AM. Then, around 6:30 AM I gave him some Mirataz (appetite stimulant), assuming the Cerenia would have kicked in and settled his stomach.

Wrong.

The drooling continued all day (it's about 4 PM as I type this), and while he was starving and wanting to eat, he just wouldn't touch anything. Not even two flavours of Fancy Feast (with and without FortiFlora on top), not his regular Hills z/d hydrolized protein canned with Greenies treats ground up (I have a little coffee grinder). Nothing. I tried all day to get him to take something, even putting a bit of canned on my fingers several times and rubbing it into his mouth. All that did was make him drool more.

I had been in touch with the vet clinic three times, spoke with the vet once. I called again about half an hour ago, but the vet doesn't want to give Derry anymore Cerenia until tomorrow (i.e. via injection instead of pill) because too much can cause inappetence. They told me to bring him in for 9:30 AM and we'd go from there.

In the meantime, in desperation, I opened a can of a vet gastroenteric food I still have on hand (most of it has been donated, but I still have three cans...two now). It's quite moist (unlike the Hills z/d) and has a fair bit of "gravy", even though it's a paté. He actually licked up the "gravy" and wanted more, so I've been giving him bits of the paté mushed up with lots of water, so it's more like a soup. It's going to give him diarrhea, but that's not my priority at the moment. I really hope it kick-starts his eating again, that he keeps it down. I don't want to take him back tomorrow, that's just going to make the whole situation even worse.

By the way, the vet did speak to me about Derry's test results and most everything is okay (surprisingly), except a few values that are high normal, and the crystals he now has in his urine. I blame that on the vet dry food, even though it's supposed to be formulated to prevent the formation of crystals and stones. The vet mentioned that Royal Canin makes a urinary hydrolyzed protein dry, which I've now ordered, though who knows if Derry will eat it. Until the SIBO/IBD issue he developed last year, he ate mostly canned food and very little dry, but in spite of all the limited ingredient and premium brands of wet food I've tried, the only thing that hasn't given him diarrhea is the hydrolized protein vet food (i.e. Hills z/d). 

I'll see how things go tonight and early tomorrow morning; I so hope that Derry won't need to go back to the vet.

 

Oh, and the next time Derry (aside from tomorrow) does have an appointment, I'll ask for a Cerenia injection right off the bat.