Mina's Moments: Still going strong

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Still going strong

Mina is still doing very well. I have not tube fed her since Tuesday, and she is back to her healthy eating habits :) She eats throughout the day, little bits here and there. She is also so much more playful than I remember!

I found some old tissue paper this evening, and laid some out on the ground in her favorite spots, and of course she's all over it. Paper + Crinkly sounds = A very happy Mina. For some reason, Rat-Bear doesn't really care. Probably because it's not plastic, which he is obsessed with, little weirdo.

I'm sitting here at my computer, and all I can hear is: crinkle crinkle....crinklecrinklecrinkle...crinkle. She keeps pawing and rolling around on it, lol

I went to the SPCA on Friday and donated the left over A/D food I had, along with some of the extra syringes. Hopefully they can use them!!

Since she is most likely getting her feeding tube removed on Tuesday, I will post a new pic of what she looks like without it! Yay!!

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What exactly is Feline Hepatic Lipidosis?

Before Mina got sick, I had never heard of this disease. I had heard of it in humans, frequently called Fatty Liver, but it never crossed my mind that cats could get it too. Essentially, when a cat stops eating for whatever reason (stress, new food, or an underlying condition), their body starts to use their fat stores for energy.

Now in humans, this is okay because our livers can metabolize fat pretty well. I thought this was the case with cats as well, so when I noticed Mina wasn't really eating, I thought "Well, she's overweight, so she might just lose some weight. When she's hungry, she'll eat".

What I didn't know was that a cat's liver cannot metabolize fats as well as other species. Cats are meant to be lean without a lot of body fat. So when a cat starts to starve, and use it's fat stores, the liver becomes bogged down with unmetabolized fat, and begins to fail. This causes jaundice (yellowing) of the skin, a rise in liver enzymes in the blood, and nausea. A cat who is already not eating, plus nausea, will be even more likely to not eat. So begins the vicious cycle.

Treatment

Once your cat is diagnosed with feline hepatic lipidosis, the treatment is food food food!! You need to stop the liver from using the fat stores that are left, and allow it to recover. You need to give your cat lots of protein so that the liver will eventually get rid of the extra fat in it. The usual way to do this is by force feeding. Remember, your cat will be nauseated and will probably not eat on their own.

You can try syringe feeding via the mouth (holding the cat and squirting food into their mouth and allowing them to swallow), or you can go the way I went with a feeding tube inserted into the stomach. I can say with all honesty that the tube saved her life. It stays in for as long as the cat needs it, and is removed once the cat started consistently eating on their own.

Mina tolerated the tube really well, and it doesn't bother her at all. It's easy and not stressful to use as you and your cat sit on the floor or on the couch, and you push in some food every few seconds. Kitty will most likely not even notice that you're doing anything!