URGENT: My Cat Has An Intestinal Blockage

[Guest guest]

I'm hoping to get some extra thoughts and inspiration on what I can do for my

kitty.

 

He's 4½ years old and is typically quite healthy. Well, sort of….

 

Besides rooting through the garbage can for tasty morsels, he has an obnoxious

habit of eating inedible stuff like foam ABC letters that the kids used to play

with in the bathtub and chewing on cardboard boxes. So he vomits every so

often. And sometimes I find extra " stuff " that has come through when I'm

scooping out the cat box. What it boils down to is he's really a goat at heart

and he's trapped in the body of a black cat. He never seems worse for the wear

though despite his gastronomic indiscretions. That is until now.

 

Ray is typically very active and loves to interact with the family. But he's

been lethargic for the last week and has been up-chucking A LOT. Sometimes food

would come up, but there were several episodes of just fluid. And it was

obvious he was getting thinner. He normally weighs 10½ lbs, but he was only 8

lbs 3 oz when we took him to the vet this afternoon.

 

His temperature was 100.2 degrees so he didn't have a fever. (Did you know that

the normal temperature for a cat is 102.5 degrees? I didn't until today…) The

vet could see that he was dehydrated. She did a thorough abdominal exam and

could " feel " something that wasn't quite right, so off they went to the x-ray

machine to get a snapshot of Ray's innards. She came back shortly thereafter

and showed us a revealing image of some foreign " thang " that's lodged in his

intestines. When she said it looked like cork, it was an " Ah, ha! " moment.

 

There is corkboard on 2 of the walls in my daughter's room and on 2 of the walls

in the living room too. (It was there when we moved into the house.) Ray is

drawn to that corkboard like a magnet; he LOVES to scratch on it and he has an

insatiable appetite for the stuff. He simply will not stay away from it.

 

So now we know what the offending object is; the question at hand is how to get

it out.

 

The vet didn't have much faith that the stuff they use for hairballs would shift

the thing, so she recommended surgery to remove it. Her guesstimate of the cost

was $1,000 - $1,500 depending on if his intestines were damaged from lack of

blood flow and how extensive the damage was. She did say it was a good sign

that he didn't have a fever yet.

 

My husband just lost his job, so spending that kind of money on a cat that will

undoubtedly continue to eat rubbish until the day he dies is simply out of the

question. We moved on to Plan B. The vet injected Ray with a whole bunch of

fluid under the skin to address the dehydration and dosed him with Laxatone, the

goop they use for hairballs. I gave him 2 more doses this evening and we're

supposed to give him 3 doses tomorrow.

 

If anyone has any experience with intestinal blockage, or has some thoughts,

comments or ideas on to how to shift the cork out this cat, please do share.

Ray's not suffering now, but if that thang doesn't come out soon, he's gonna be

a goner.

 

Julie

[Guest guest]

Sorry to hear about Ray and I don’t

have that much advice except perhaps the cat equivalent of prunes?!?!?!??!

Would that possibly get things moving? Does he want to eat at all? If he doesn’t

want to eat then that makes it so much harder!

 

Keep us posted.

 

Lisa

 

 

 

 

 

herbal remedies [herbal remedies ] On Behalf Of cinquefoil176

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

1:17 AM

herbal remedies

{Herbal Remedies} URGENT:

My Cat Has An Intestinal Blockage

 

 

 

 

 

I'm hoping

to get some extra thoughts and inspiration on what I can do for my kitty.

 

He's 4½ years old and is typically

quite healthy. Well, sort of….

 

Besides rooting through the garbage can for tasty morsels, he has an obnoxious

habit of eating inedible stuff like foam ABC letters that the kids used to play

with in the bathtub and chewing on cardboard boxes. So he vomits every so

often. And sometimes I find extra " stuff " that has come through when

I'm scooping out the cat box. What

it boils down to is he's really a

goat at heart and he's trapped in

the body of a black cat. He never seems worse for the wear though despite his

gastronomic indiscretions. That is until now.

 

Ray is typically very active and loves to interact with the family. But he's been lethargic for the last week and has been

up-chucking A LOT. Sometimes food would come up, but there were several

episodes of just fluid. And it was obvious he was getting thinner. He normally

weighs 10½ lbs, but he was only 8 lbs 3 oz when we took him to the vet this

afternoon.

 

His temperature was 100.2 degrees so he didn't

have a fever. (Did you know that the normal temperature for a cat is 102.5

degrees? I didn't until

today…) The vet could see that he was dehydrated. She did a thorough

abdominal exam and could " feel " something that wasn't quite right, so off they went to the x-ray

machine to get a snapshot of Ray's

innards. She came back shortly thereafter and showed us a revealing image of

some foreign " thang " that's

lodged in his intestines. When she said it looked like cork, it was an

" Ah, ha! " moment.

 

There is corkboard on 2 of the walls in my daughter's

room and on 2 of the walls in the living room too. (It was there when we moved

into the house.) Ray is drawn to that corkboard like a magnet; he LOVES to

scratch on it and he has an insatiable appetite for the stuff. He simply will

not stay away from it.

 

So now we know what the offending object is; the question at hand is how to get

it out.

 

The vet didn't have much faith that

the stuff they use for hairballs would shift the thing, so she recommended

surgery to remove it. Her guesstimate of the cost was $1,000 - $1,500 depending

on if his intestines were damaged from lack of blood flow and how extensive the

damage was. She did say it was a good sign that he didn't

have a fever yet.

 

My husband just lost his job, so spending that kind of money on a cat that will

undoubtedly continue to eat rubbish until the day he dies is simply out of the

question. We moved on to Plan B. The vet injected Ray with a whole bunch of

fluid under the skin to address the dehydration and dosed him with Laxatone,

the goop they use for hairballs. I gave him 2 more doses this evening and we're supposed to give him 3 doses tomorrow.

 

If anyone has any experience with intestinal blockage, or has some thoughts,

comments or ideas on to how to shift the cork out this cat, please do share.

Ray's not suffering now, but if that

thang doesn't come out soon, he's gonna be a goner.

 

Julie

[Guest guest]

Sorry about the kitty. I have been a vet tech for almost 30 years and it is my opinion that he needs to have it removed by a vet if it is something like you discribed.

 

EZ

 

 

 

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