Hello everyone,
I write out of desperation because my cat is very ill.
I'm hoping that someone on this board might have some insight into the source of her condition (she has defied diagnosis so far)
Here is her medical history:
[1] ~4 years ago she manifested signs consistent with idiopathic feline vestibular disease (rapid onset, head-tilt, inability to walk straight, and general listlessness). Thankfully, the condition improved dramatically within 3 days.
[2] She seemed quite healthy for some time afterwards, though her weight ballooned to 18 lbs over the next several years.
[3] Concerned about her weight, we switched her diet to R/D and she lost weight rapidly... too rapidly probably. She dropped from 18 to 13 lbs within 6 months.
[4] ~2 weeks ago she had a recurrence of the apparent vestibular disease symptoms she suffered 4 years ago. She barely drank/ate food for several days. Blood tests showed nothing unusual except for a slightly elevated glucose level, but urinalysis revealed no glucose passed in the urine. This latter result, coupled with the absence of typical behavioral indicators of diabetes, suggest that the elevated glucose may be simply due to stress. The urinalysis also revealed no sign of bacterial infection.
[5] She seemed to recover from the apparent vestibular episode after 3-4 days and resume eating/drinking. However, after a few more days she suddenly had developed a severe limp, as if her back rear leg were injured. We took her in to be examined, and there were no obvious signs of injury, so we chose to wait and hope for improvement.
Her limp seemed to improve over the next several days, but then she suddenly relapsed into the vestibular disease symptoms we had observed before. She refused to drink/eat and became severely dehydrated. We gave her IV fluids for 24 hours, and afterwards we were terribly alarmed to find that she could barely walk at all.
Both her hind limbs seem to be either weak or unresponsive, though she seems fairly mentally alert, and does not have the severe head tilt that she suffered earlier. Our veterinarian is unable to reach a diagnosis, and we fear that she will die unless we can discover the root cause of her problem and treat her so that she will drink/eat once again.
[6] The only other possibly relevant information is that an exploratory x-ray revealed ~12 bladder stones (though none appeared to be obstructing any passages).
Many thanks for reading... any advice on how to proceed with treatments or diagnostics would be greatly appreciated.
I write out of desperation because my cat is very ill.
I'm hoping that someone on this board might have some insight into the source of her condition (she has defied diagnosis so far)Here is her medical history:
[1] ~4 years ago she manifested signs consistent with idiopathic feline vestibular disease (rapid onset, head-tilt, inability to walk straight, and general listlessness). Thankfully, the condition improved dramatically within 3 days.
[2] She seemed quite healthy for some time afterwards, though her weight ballooned to 18 lbs over the next several years.
[3] Concerned about her weight, we switched her diet to R/D and she lost weight rapidly... too rapidly probably. She dropped from 18 to 13 lbs within 6 months.
[4] ~2 weeks ago she had a recurrence of the apparent vestibular disease symptoms she suffered 4 years ago. She barely drank/ate food for several days. Blood tests showed nothing unusual except for a slightly elevated glucose level, but urinalysis revealed no glucose passed in the urine. This latter result, coupled with the absence of typical behavioral indicators of diabetes, suggest that the elevated glucose may be simply due to stress. The urinalysis also revealed no sign of bacterial infection.
[5] She seemed to recover from the apparent vestibular episode after 3-4 days and resume eating/drinking. However, after a few more days she suddenly had developed a severe limp, as if her back rear leg were injured. We took her in to be examined, and there were no obvious signs of injury, so we chose to wait and hope for improvement.
Her limp seemed to improve over the next several days, but then she suddenly relapsed into the vestibular disease symptoms we had observed before. She refused to drink/eat and became severely dehydrated. We gave her IV fluids for 24 hours, and afterwards we were terribly alarmed to find that she could barely walk at all.
Both her hind limbs seem to be either weak or unresponsive, though she seems fairly mentally alert, and does not have the severe head tilt that she suffered earlier. Our veterinarian is unable to reach a diagnosis, and we fear that she will die unless we can discover the root cause of her problem and treat her so that she will drink/eat once again.
[6] The only other possibly relevant information is that an exploratory x-ray revealed ~12 bladder stones (though none appeared to be obstructing any passages).
Many thanks for reading... any advice on how to proceed with treatments or diagnostics would be greatly appreciated.
