Posted in Feline nutrition and health, tagged cats, cholongiohepatitis, feline, IBD, Latifah, liver, lymphoma, pancreas, pancreatitis, Rumpelmintz, triaditis on September 29, 2009| 46 Comments »
Feline triaditis is actually three conditions occurring simultaneously: pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas), cholongiohepatitis (inflammation of the liver), and inflammatory bowel disease or IBD (inflammation of the intestines).
There may be no known “cure” for triaditis, though I would argue that proper nutrition is the absolute BEST method of treatment and prevention. By proper nutrition, I mean a raw diet or a canned diet – and most definitely no dry food/kibble of any kind.
Posted in Chi-Town Fur Gang, tagged cat food, cat nutrition, hyperthyroidism, IBD, Latifah, stomatitis on January 24, 2008| 5 Comments »
Latifah, aka Tifah, aka Teefie, aka Teefah da Teethless… a sweet sad little princess who wishes she had a home she didn’t have to share with other cats, and who’s life-long ambition is to hold the world record for most diseases/ailments in a single cat.
Latifah was found wandering the streets and admitted to the shelter in June of 2005 by a kind person who realized she needed help. She was in bad shape, down on her hocks (neuropathy), matted, and thin – and was quickly diagnosed with diabetes mellitus. She had obviously been someone’s cat as she was declawed, and most likely was thrown out when she became ill. Maybe the former owner didn’t know she was ill, only knew she was urinating excessively (and perhaps out of the litter box), or maybe they just didn’t care.
I originally agreed to foster Latifah for a cat shelter, in an effort to better regulate her diabetes with a diet change to all all canned food (from canned and dry). She wasn’t on a large dose of insulin at the shelter, 2 to 3 units twice daily, but she’d had episodes of hypoglycemia (insulin shock) a few times. In looking back at her records, the cause became rather apparent to me. Latifah loves canned food. She’ll eat dry if canned isn’t available. During the day, caretakers provided her canned food three to five times daily. During the night, there was only dry food. Her “hypo” episodes occurred during the day. She was eating significantly lower-carbohydrate food (canned) during the day, but getting the same insulin dose. This dose was too much on the lower-carbohydrate diet. This was compounded by the fact the dry food she ate at night effectively put the liver “to sleep” so it wasn’t prepared to release glycogen to save her from these “hypos”.
I fostered Latifah from March 17, 2006 to October 20, 2006. Her blood sugar levels quickly decreased and grew more steady on the canned diet. She went off insulin completely for weeks at a time. Unfortunately, when her other medical conditions (stomatitis, arthritis, gastro-intestinal issues, pancreatitis, etc.) flared up, so would her blood glucose levels and she’s need some insulin to bring them down.
I grew so enamoured with her, I adopted her on October 21, 2006. Besides the diabetes, Latifah has pancreatitis, stomatitis, a heart murmur, and an intestinal disorder. However, she does very well on a proper diet – primarily homemade raw food based on the recipes at CatInfo.org and CatNutrition.org. She does well on Dr. Hodgkins’ treatment protocol for feline diabetes.
Latifah showed symptoms of hyper-thyroidism (ravenous hunger, thin, poor coat), so in early 2007 I took her to a specialty center for a technitium (or scintigraphic) scan. The scan confirmed the hyper-thyroidism, although her T4 blood levels were normal. She had radioactive iodine treatment and the hyper-thyroidism resolved quickly.
Her stomatitis (mouth inflammation) was a huge source of pain for her. The shelter veterinarian extracted all her teeth in September of 2006. Still, sometimes the inflammation was so bad she struggled to eat. We finally found a protocol that keeps her comfortable, using Metacam (a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory) and cyclosporine, as well as the supplements lactoferrin and agaricus blazei. The drugs have risks, but I feel they are with it as they improve her quality of life significantly.
Latifah thinks of the kitchen as “her” room, but most days she’ll let the other cats come in for their meals.
Update: Sadly, I lost Latifah on February 16, 2008 to something neurological. Fly free, my sweet princess.
Posted in Chi-Town Fur Gang, tagged Afer, cat food, cats, Latifah, Louie, Omaha, Rumpelmintz, Studley on November 28, 2007| 3 Comments »
My friend Heather has inspired me to make some small steps toward being more eco-friendly. I started with some easy things. Rather than scooping the litter boxes and putting the “nasties” in an empty (used for cat food) plastic freezer bag, I’d use paper bags. Hopefully, even though they’re still going to landfills they’ll eventually disintegrate so future generations aren’t dealing with plastic bags full of cat poo. Also, rather than putting the homemade cat food in those plastic freezer bags, I’m using plastic tubs, which can be washed and reused. Baby steps.
The drawback to the tubs is the food takes much longer to warm than in the bags. I was tossing a bag of food in a bowl of warm water before meals, doing some other things, then pulling it out and serving. I’m doing the same with the tubs, but perhaps because they float so they’re not surrounded by warm water, they just don’t warm nearly as quickly. This morning, the food was still cold – still frozen in the center, but I had to get going (see Late-ness) so I just stirred it up and served it.
The cats were HORRIFIED. Louie didn’t eat. Afer ate only a little. Omaha barely nibbled. Rumpelmintz was yelling and complaining and hitting other cats for eating any of the cold breakfast, as they might convince me this was acceptable.
Studley and Latifah still ate well. Latifah ate her own and tried to finish everyone else’s. She said she didn’t mind.
Posted in Chi-Town Fur Gang, tagged cats, Jellybean, Latifah, Louie, Omaha, Rumpelmintz, Studley on November 5, 2007| 4 Comments »
I planned an “early night” last night. I was plenty tired, because of the time change, and thought it’d be a good opportunity to catch up on some sleep. It was a disappointment.
It took me a while to fall asleep – then I woke up around 2:00 because my legs hurt – so I rubbed menthol gel on them. Then I woke up around 3:00 because Studley was playing “How loud can I make Jellybean scream” and Louie was cheering him on, so I made both boys leave the den and I shut the den door. Then I woke up around 4:00 because Omaha and Rumpelmintz were fighting over who got to sleep on my right side. Then I woke up around 5:00 because Latifah decided to come upstairs into the bedroom and was fighting with Omaha… so I let her go in the den with Jellybean.
I got up this morning to find Latifah had pooped on the bathroom floor, Omaha had pooped in his pants, and one of the cats had a hairball in the living room. There was also a “shortbread cookie heist” in the den. The cats had managed to get a tub of Trader Joe’s shortbread cookies off the top of the desk, get the lid off, and there were shortbread cookies with bites out of them all over the floor, desk, etc. (When I questioned them about it, they said they did it to save me from the cookies.) My suspicion on the shortbread cookie massacre is that either:
1) As part of the “Let’s see how loud we can make Jellybean scream” game, Jellybean climbed up to on top of the desk, and knocked the tub of cookies off the desk and the lid came off when they hit the floor – and the cats tested them to see if they were any good. (I didn’t notice them when I made the boys leave the room – but it was dark and I was half-asleep so I just removed larger furry objects, leaving smaller screaming furry objects in the room, and shut the door.)
or
2) Jellybean and Latifah were in cahoots and managed to get them off the desk and tasted while they were in there together.
or
3) A combination of the above.
Latifah and Jellybean are the most likely suspects for the little kitty bite-sized missing bits from the cookies, as they are both carbohydrate addicts. Jellybean has been caught red-handed eating bites out of a blueberry waffle before…. and staff at the shelter used to laugh at how they could feed Latifah bites of bread. Jellybean’s blood sugar was only 90 this morning (still no insulin since Dec. 31, 2006!), whereas Latifah’s blood sugar was 225 – further indicating Latifah in the crime.
I also discovered this morning that my favorite radio station, which was all music, all the time (no annoying talk), with a wide variety of music – had suddenly changed formats to all talk, all the time.
To top off the morning, Studley sprayed pee on the back door, then Omaha pooped on the bedroom floor. Glorious morning. One bit of happiness – I started reading the “Crazy Aunt Purl” book, aka “Drunk, Divorced & Covered with Cat Hair”. It is not a disappointment. Though I don’t knit, I love Laurie Perry’s style of writing, and who can’t relate to her feelings of disappointment and frustration with life. The first chapter, where she has to resort to repairing her skirt at work with staples, is priceless. If you haven’t already, you should check out her blog at crazyauntpurl.com, and buy her book!
Life of the Lintee Bean 