lady_curmudgeon (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lady_curmudgeon) wrote2015-08-03 01:21 pm
lady_curmudgeon) wrote2015-08-03 01:21 pm
State of the Lars: Lackluster appetite...again, or is it still?
Used to be if Lars' appetite waned we could give him a dose of Mirtazepine (appetite stimulant) and his appetite would soar! He'd get the Cat Crazies, sure, but his appetite would be voracious! Eat anything we'd give him, and the effects of the dose would last a good 3-5 days.
Not so the last couple of weeks...I'll put down his bowl of either gushy fud or kibble, he'll eat with gusto for a few minutes, then he'll slow to a crawl and eventually wander off like a homeless person, leaving a goodly portion of whatever food he's been given behind. If I stand nearby and coax him, he'll stick around and continue to pick at his food until it's mostly gone, but otherwise it goes half-eaten.
This could be any number of things: rejection of the prescription food (he's a finicky fucker), the house being stuffy and a bit warm rendering his tummy a bit queasy and therefore not as hungry, something related to his now myriad health conditions getting worse that we're as yet not aware of...Hard to say.
Gave him a dose of Mirtazepine yesterday morning and it seemingly did much of anything for his appetite, so I called Dr. B this morning for advice. He suggested perhaps Lars is feeling a bit dehydrated and sluggish, so if we've still got a bag of fluids hanging around the house to give him 150ccs of sub-qs. I reminded him of Lars' stage 4 heart murmur and posited that perhaps 150ccs might be a bit much for him. Dr. B asked had Lars just been diagnosed with a physical exam or had an electrocardiogram been done? Just a physical. He suggested I contact internal medicine at the VCA to schedule an electrocardiogram to further study the heart murmur to make sure it's not a factor in his current state, or if it could become a factor if Lars needs to receive regular sub-qs. I'm all like "what-what???" Now I've got to worry about this heart murmur I was told not to fret about??? Sigh...
Dr. B also suggested trying a common sense approach to Lars' food--try to feed a 50/50 mix of his old non Rx food/Rx food and see if he showed more interest in that plan of food attack than just his Rx food. I tried it and he did show more interest--in fact he largely ate around the Rx stuff in favor of the non Rx stuff so that says a lot about how he feels about the K/D kibbles right now... :/ The folks with internal medicine out at VCA don't even prescribe Rx renal diet until a cat's in stage 3 so technically speaking Lars probably doesn't need to be on the Rx renal diet just yet, but we'd like to keep him on it to be more aggressive with treating his CRF, so after work J's going to pick up a bag of Royal Canin's version of renal care kibbles for us to try with Lars to see how he likes it. I daresay he's probably going to eventually end up rejecting it as well, LOL, but...it's worth a try.
As far as the temperature in the house goes, we've got a working solution in the works for that until we can afford to fix the whole house AC unit, too. We bought a 12,000 BTU window AC unit on clearance from the Meijer last night which we're going to place in the kitchen window; we're hoping it'll help cool not only the kitchen, but also the den and part of the living room as well with the help of the standing oscillating fan we also bought on sale at Meijer. J's installing the unit tonight after he's done with getting the renal food.
Hopefully the combination of cool places in the house and the change in food will help Lars eat more...Not holding my breath, but...yeah.
Sigh. This cat is truly my soul mate cat--finicky as fuck eater and sensitive to temperatures like his mama... :/
Not so the last couple of weeks...I'll put down his bowl of either gushy fud or kibble, he'll eat with gusto for a few minutes, then he'll slow to a crawl and eventually wander off like a homeless person, leaving a goodly portion of whatever food he's been given behind. If I stand nearby and coax him, he'll stick around and continue to pick at his food until it's mostly gone, but otherwise it goes half-eaten.
This could be any number of things: rejection of the prescription food (he's a finicky fucker), the house being stuffy and a bit warm rendering his tummy a bit queasy and therefore not as hungry, something related to his now myriad health conditions getting worse that we're as yet not aware of...Hard to say.
Gave him a dose of Mirtazepine yesterday morning and it seemingly did much of anything for his appetite, so I called Dr. B this morning for advice. He suggested perhaps Lars is feeling a bit dehydrated and sluggish, so if we've still got a bag of fluids hanging around the house to give him 150ccs of sub-qs. I reminded him of Lars' stage 4 heart murmur and posited that perhaps 150ccs might be a bit much for him. Dr. B asked had Lars just been diagnosed with a physical exam or had an electrocardiogram been done? Just a physical. He suggested I contact internal medicine at the VCA to schedule an electrocardiogram to further study the heart murmur to make sure it's not a factor in his current state, or if it could become a factor if Lars needs to receive regular sub-qs. I'm all like "what-what???" Now I've got to worry about this heart murmur I was told not to fret about??? Sigh...
Dr. B also suggested trying a common sense approach to Lars' food--try to feed a 50/50 mix of his old non Rx food/Rx food and see if he showed more interest in that plan of food attack than just his Rx food. I tried it and he did show more interest--in fact he largely ate around the Rx stuff in favor of the non Rx stuff so that says a lot about how he feels about the K/D kibbles right now... :/ The folks with internal medicine out at VCA don't even prescribe Rx renal diet until a cat's in stage 3 so technically speaking Lars probably doesn't need to be on the Rx renal diet just yet, but we'd like to keep him on it to be more aggressive with treating his CRF, so after work J's going to pick up a bag of Royal Canin's version of renal care kibbles for us to try with Lars to see how he likes it. I daresay he's probably going to eventually end up rejecting it as well, LOL, but...it's worth a try.
As far as the temperature in the house goes, we've got a working solution in the works for that until we can afford to fix the whole house AC unit, too. We bought a 12,000 BTU window AC unit on clearance from the Meijer last night which we're going to place in the kitchen window; we're hoping it'll help cool not only the kitchen, but also the den and part of the living room as well with the help of the standing oscillating fan we also bought on sale at Meijer. J's installing the unit tonight after he's done with getting the renal food.
Hopefully the combination of cool places in the house and the change in food will help Lars eat more...Not holding my breath, but...yeah.
Sigh. This cat is truly my soul mate cat--finicky as fuck eater and sensitive to temperatures like his mama... :/