Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Sick

Movies to watch while sick?

kylej — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 10:50:45 -0800

I'm home sick today and probably tomorrow too. What are your favorite guilty pleasure movies to watch while incapacitated? Yesterday I watched "She's the Man" and "Not Another Teen Movie", but don't limit yourself to just teen flicks (though those are of course welcome).

Thanks for making my stay at home much more bearable!

I want to stop coughing, damnit!

Reverend John — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:16:28 -0800

A few years back I was diagnosed with pneumonia after being sick on and off for about three weeks. When I was finally diagnosed I seem to recall that they gave me antibiotics and a codeine based cough syrup. This combo worked like a wonder. The codeine knocked out my cough and let me sleep, and the antibiotics killed the pneumonia. At least that's how I remember it. Fast forward to today. After being sick all week I visited the local acute care facility (man, if I had only made my regular doctor's sick call yesterday!) and was diagnosed with pneumonia. OK, no big shock, I'm just glad to know what it is and how we're going to attack it, EXCEPT: the doctor refused to prescribe me any codeine (he did prescribe Levaquin, and Albuterol with an inhaler, which I'm somewhat dubious about). He claimed that I had to cough up the stuff in my lungs, and that suppressing my cough would be a bad idea.

I'm shocked at this, given my past experience. Am I remembering this wrong? Or is this guy full of baloney and I should contact my regular doc asap.

Why is my feverish kitten twitching?

wo — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:19:17 -0800

Why is my feverish kitten twitching? My 9 month old kitten has had a fever since Sunday. I took her to the emergency vet when she didn't seem to get better on Sunday, and he gave her some antibiotics and an antiinflammatory, and a subcutaneous fluid injection t okeep her hydrated.

Today (Monday) I brought her to my regular vet because she wasn't any better-- still not eating or drinking. She still had a fever, and my regular vet took blood and gave her another fluid injection-- she thinks it might be a virus. She gave me a syringe and suggested I try force-feeding her some high-nutrient wet food if she doesn't start eating on her own. Since she refused food when I got home, I followed the vet's orders and have given her three syringes full of food (mixed with a bit of water)-- 30mL each-- over two sittings.

Now she's doing this weird twitching thing. Her skin and paws twitch, then she starts frantically licking it. Her ears twitch wildly and she starts shaking her head. It comes and goes in little fits... is it just from the stress of the last two days?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Can we ask a sick person to leave?

MorningPerson — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:48:59 -0800

Can we ask a sick person to leave? I work on a college campus. In our office, we have several video editing workstations that are available by appointment only. Today, a student who reserved one station came in, and is VERY ill. For the last two hours, he's been sniffling, sneezing explosively and coughing without covering his mouth.

In short, he is making me extremely uncomfortable and paranoid. I cannot afford to get sick right now.

Our workspace is not open to the public and the university has asked sick students to stay home and self isolate. Do you think it would be fair to ask him to leave and reschedule his appointment for when he is well?

What's wrong with my cat who is now mostly unresponsive after a day of vomiting?

enoent — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 07:52:35 -0800

What is wrong with my cat? We've been to both the regular and emergency vets in the last 24 hours, and we still don't know what's wrong or why she isn't improving. (Details within.) Our geriatric female cat (about 14 years old) is extremely listless, almost to the point of unresponsiveness. In the past six months, she has been drinking a lot more than usual (polydipsia), as well as urinating more than usual (polyuria), but our efforts to determine what was wrong through blood tests had not been successful (elevated BUN but normal creatinine and phosphorus; tyhroid panel normal). Behaviorally, otherwise, she seemed perfectly normal and active, perhaps even more hungry than in previous months (she's fed a tin of wet food a day, and always has dry food available).

On Thursday evening, she managed to trick my girlfriend and I into feeding her two tins of wet food, and seemed happy to eat both. On Friday, my girlfriend discovered that she had vomited all over the kitchen (food with chunks of solid kibble, some hairball) as well as left stool on the kitchen floor (highly unusual for her!). Friday night, there was more vomiting, of thin brown foul-smelling liquid. By Saturday, the cat was listless and showed no interest in eating or drinking. We took her to the vet, who ran a blood workup (elevated BUN, normal creatinine and phosphate, no elevated white blood cell count, still awaiting thyroid results) and provided sub-Q fluids and suggested a bland diet of baby food. The cat was down from ~ 8 lbs (six months ago) to ~ 6.5 lbs, which was very worrying. Feeding her baby food via syringe seemed fine at first -- she held it down for a few hours -- but it all came up eventually, as this thin brown foul-smelling liquid. Some urine was produced after the vet visit, but no stool.

Late Saturday night, as she became increasingly unresponsive (she normally would put up a bit of a fight if you picked her up) and she continued to sit in a hunched-over posture, we took her to the emergency vet. An examination suggested nodules on the thyroid, and the vet could feel stool in her abdomen. They provided her with more sub-Q fluilds, an antiemetic to help relieve the nausea and vomiting, and 1/4 of a 15 mg mirtazapine to stimulate her appetite. After the mirtazapine, she looks somewhat stoned, and her heartrate is very rapid. Her discomfort hasn't improved since we brought her home several hours ago, and in fact, the mirtazapine may have made her more uncomfortable. In principle, it was *supposed* to perk her up and get her interested in eating again, but it doesn't seem to be having this effect.

Longer-term, I'm hoping that the thyroid retest will give us some clue as to her excessive thirst/urination problem, and then we'll probably need to address any renal issues that show up as well as the possibility of irritable bowel disease or feline leukemia, but I'm honestly at a complete loss as to how to pull her through the current acute issue. The best I can do right now is to try to make it comfortable, it seems, and make sure she stays hydrated with sub-Q fluids and see if she will keep some force-fed bland food down.

But I wonder if we might be missing something obvious. She's an indoor cat, so parasites would seem unlikely. She's had similar vomiting/hairball issues in the past, but has always pulled through them in quick order. We've been in a number of times for urinal tract infections, but urination seems fine and there's no elevated white blood cell count.

Does anybody have any other ideas? Should we pursue other types of screening (X-ray, ultrasound) that are expensive and likely won't actually tell us anything definitive?

How can I kill a cough that lingers for a month?

joshrholloway — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:50:12 -0800

Why do I always have a cough that lingers for about a month after I've had a cold, and how can I get rid of it? For as long as I can remember, after I've had a cold, I still have a hacking cough for about a month afterward, which tends to finally go away abruptly. The cough is the only symptom that lingers after everything else goes away, and I feel fine otherwise. I've had asthma since I was a kid, which I'm assuming is the cause of (or at least a large contributor to) this problem.

This is a dry cough. I don't ever cough up any phlegm or anything like that. If it gets really bad, I can use my rescue inhaler and it will help me for a few minutes. Cough drops also help, but not a lot. The weird thing is that I never have any other real problems with my asthma besides this.

I've talked to multiple doctors about this and they have all kind of shrugged it off and implied that it's just something I have to deal with. While I can deal with it, it's just annoying to have to explain to people that this terrible hacking cough is just my asthma acting up and that I'm not contagious.

So has anyone else ever dealt with anything like this? Do you have any recommendations on how to kill this stupid cough without waiting a month?

Can employers tell people when employees are sick?

um_maverick — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:45:19 -0800

My employer just asked us to contact HR if any of our employees are diagnosed with H1N1 flu. Is this allowable under HIPAA? It was kind of a weird email that came not from HR-on-high, but from a local HR manager. Are managers even allowed to ask this question? If they come across it somehow ("hey boss, I have pig flu, be back in a week"), can they pass it along? I don't know HIPAA that well, but this seems to be a violation...

Should I attempt a long bike ride even though I'm sick?

misskaz — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:45:27 -0800

I had plans to ride my bike from Chicago to Milwaukee tomorrow with my husband and two friends (about 100 miles). Now I've come down with a pretty bad cold. Should I cancel or try to power through? Have you ever done a lot of physical activity while recovering from a cold, and how did you fare? Pros:
I really, really, really want to go on this ride. We've been planning on it as a capstone to our season all year. I think it will be fun, and it would be a nice accomplishment (my first century). I rode a metric century a couple weeks ago and other than being sick, feel fairly well prepared. We are planning to take it easy anyway as not everyone has really trained as much as would be ideal for such a long ride. Although we'd like to make it before sundown, we can take as much time as we need to complete the ride. We've already made the hotel reservations to stay in Milwaukee overnight and bought the Amtrak tickets to get back home the next day.

Cons:
I'm sick. I have a bad cold and feel, frankly, like crap today. I'm congested, going through boxes of tissues, and tired. The ride is just the four of us - bailing mid-way will be difficult, if not impossible. (There are no Amtrak stops mid-way; the only chance to bail is the final Metra stop which I think is in Kenosha.) There's a 30% chance of rain in the morning and it will be fairly cold (high in the upper 40s).

I think I know the smart thing is to stay home and wish the others well, but the idea of it is so disappointing that I would like to know if anyone else has done something like this and survived - and even enjoyed him/herself. Also, any tips for feeling better quickly, riding under such circumstances, etc., would be appreciated. I'm already taking Cold-Eeze and doing the usual rest, chicken soup, and fluids bit.

Most comforting things in the world

mthomps00 — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:25:08 -0800

What are the best ways to comfort someone with a bad cold/flu? My boyfriend's been ailing with a miserable flu for the past couple days. He's got constant body aches, a hacky dry cough, occasional fever, and dizziness. We've got him on lots of medication, and last night I made him a good lentil/garlic/curry/tomato stew.

He'll get better in a few days, but in the meantime, what's the absolute most comforting thing I can do for him? I'm thinking less in terms of medicines and remedies and more in terms of pure wondrous comfort - foods, drinks, lullabies, you-name-it.

Mystery illness??

I_Love_Bananas — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:30:14 -0800

Never-sick person + sickness = hell. For the past 4 days I have been plagued with symptoms that have baffled me.

No fever; yet: nausea (vomited once), headaches, near-constant dizziness/equilibrium problems, some fairly epic diarrhea. Most persistent issue is what I describe as a thunderstorm in my stomach- rumbling, gassiness, etc., worse after eating.

Today my nausea felt like it had subsided but later in the day (after grocery shopping) the dizziness increased to the point that I got re-nauseous (moreso the way you get when you are carsick or otherwise equilibrim-based nausea). What is going on? Is there any new/bizarre strain of flu or other type of illness going around that would account for it?

In the past I suffered some post-surgery dehydration that gave me similar dizziness. I drank a lot of water today thinking perhaps that was it; maybe the diarrhea exacerbated fluid loss. But this evening it's worse than ever. And if it were food-based, wouldn't it have run its course by now?

I am hardly ever sick and this is about unendurable. I've been irritable, impatient and jumpy. I am very reluctant to go to the doctor with these symptoms because they sound like just the random set of things that will guarantee either a result of "Don't know; take a few days off and see what happens" or worse, "go see specialist(s) X, Y and/or Z" and spend time and money I do not have to waste right now.

I know YANMD but all insights appreciated as long as you don't rag me for my anti-doctor stance).

Comfort foods for the sick around the world?

illenion — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:03:29 -0800

What are different cultures' versions of comfort foods that are prepared for people who are sick and feeling under the weather? The dishes I know from firsthand experience are American chicken noodle soup, Japanese okayu (rice porridge), and Italian pasta in bianco (pasta, parmesan, olive oil). I'm curious about what other sick folks around the world are eating.

mystery diagnosis

WeekendJen — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 13:04:45 -0800

Did the hospital save my blood samples and could they be retested? Would swine flu cause a positive test for regular flu? In March I was in the hospital for 7 days with an undiagnosed virus. In April the swine flu was identified and the county I reside in had the highest # of infections in my state and my town's schools closed for 2 days due to student infections. While in the hospital I tested negative for regular flu, but was not tested for swine flu becuase it was not a known issue yet. So if I had swine flu, would my regular flu test have come back positive? If not, is there any chance the hospital would have saved any of my exorbitant amount of blood samples and could those samples be retested? If I gave a new sample, would that test positive for swine flu fighting blood particles (or, um, whatever fights viruses) now that I am recovered?

Thanks for any help!

Does Norton offer a human anti-virus?

Kippersoft — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 16:51:36 -0800

My mom has been in constant pain for the past two months (likely from a virus). I'm hoping someone may have a suggestion to help her get back to a normal life. Details to follow... Two months ago my mom (early 50s and always reasonably healthy) began coming down with a fever. It wasn't anything too serious, but it lasted about two weeks before dropping down to a relatively normal temperature. However, during this time, her entire body began to feel sore. It was a aching pain mostly in her arms, shoulders, neck, back, and sometimes spreading (although only faintly) into her legs and sides. This pain continues today and is only showing slight promises of receding -- two months in constant pain is not fun.

Some days are better than others, but many days she is mostly restricted to sitting on the couch the entire day to avoid any unnecessary movement which causes pain. It's not a strong pain, but (from what I can understand) more like a lasting ache or soreness; like you just ran two marathons and lifted weights for 8 hours straight. This lasts 24 hours a day and has made sleeping difficult as well.

She has been to a couple different doctors during these two months, but none know what the problem is. She has had a bunch of blood tests for west nile, flu, arthritis, infections, and others I can't recall, but all came back negative. However, two different doctors believe it might be a virus. This is our best lead right now.

She has also been going to the chiropractor once a week (she has had some back problems throughout her life) which has helped somewhat. The chiropractor has said it is possible that all of this is caused by her neck being out of place (which it was), but it's starting to seem like this is not the main cause.

I hate seeing her just sit around being sore and she hates not being able to get out of the house and do anything. I know you're not a doctor, but any insight or experience with anything similar would be appreciated. Does anyone know of any treatments for a virus? All the doctors have been able to suggest is taking Tylenol and waiting it out. But how long will we be waiting?

(In case it's of any use, she had a fairly routine operation to fix a twisted intestine about 6 months ago which was 100% successful. As far as we [and the doctors] know, the operation should not be a factor here, but it's worth noting.)

Anybody have a stomach flu horror story? How long did it last?

burlsube — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:40:39 -0800

Does any one have stomach flu (gastroenteritis) horror stories? I am going day 5 and I have never heard of anyone having it longer than 2 days.

If I'm so healthy, why do I feel like crap?

motsque — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:52:36 -0800

I'm thirsty, fainting, dizzy, and cold. Do you know why this might be? YAND, but have you been here? I'm 26, fairly healthy with some one controlled medical condition. Since Saturday, I've been thirsty. SO, SO thirsty. I drink and drink, and my mouth is dry again before the water hits my belly. My mouth tastes dry and disgusting, even after brushing.

This morning during an exam I started blacking out -- unusual because I was sitting down. Ears ringing, vision blurry, speech slurred. I laid around in a staff lounge until I started to feel better (about an hour and a half).

Went to the doctor --- it's not diabetes. No virus, no infection. My throat even looks normal despite a bit of a cough and a scratchy feeling. They checked my blood for glucose levels (I think that's what it was -- it was 90 and they said that was normal), and they checked my urine for infections and sugar or something. Everything is FINE.

YANAD, so you can't tell me why it is I feel like total crap despite normal tests. But maybe you can answer if you've ever had any similar symptoms, what worked out for you, and most importantly, how to stop dying of thirst.

Was there something in my drink?

emilyd22222 — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 12:26:48 -0800

Is it possible that something was put in my drink? If so, what? I got way more drunk than I should have/typically get given how much I drank last night, and I also got violently ill from drinking for the first time ever. I remember the entire night. I drank the equivalent of 3 shots and a then a beer over the course of a few hours (not switching back and forth between beer and liquor). I ate dinner first. I drink socially on a weekly basis, so it's not like my tolerance is down.

I carried my cup with me all night, but I did use someone else's bottle of lemonade as a mixer, and was given the beer by a male friend who didn't try to pull anything weird once I was drunk.

I'm not particularly worried about this, more so just curious whether this is a possibility or my body's ability to cope with alcohol is on the wane.

flufilter....

St. Alia of the Bunnies — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:56:59 -0800

With all this flu talk, it got me wondering...I got a really bad case of it back in March. (Doctor confirmed.) Could it possibly have been of the swine variety? I know they didn't start tracking it till mid April, but I do kinda wonder. FWIW it took me forever to get over, and I did have some mild nausea with it (the doc gave me medicine for that as well.) I did have a nasal swab to confirm that it was flu and not some other virus, fwiw.

So, could it have been?

Ddifferences between colds in adults and children

graventy — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 21:25:17 -0800

Are there differences in the symptoms of a common cold with age? Are cold symptoms worse in adults than children? When I was a kid, the extent of my colds seemed to be a runny nose and maybe a cough. Nowadays, at 29, colds seem to completely sap my energy and give me body aches. I live in the same location, so I should be exposed to the same general cold virii. Are tiredness and body aches just more common in adults than children?

Please help us help a dog.

prefpara — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:14:41 -0800

A question about a dog. (posting for a friend) My sister is the proud owner of a purebred Newfoundland dog. The dog is now a year old, and has had all its vaccinations, shots, etc. He is walked, brushed, well-cared for, etc. My sister is beginning student teaching, and is recently unemployed.

It turns out that the dog, which she cares for deeply, has a serious hip problem. Dysplasia. His hip bone, basically, doesn't fit in the socket. He's gone lame and is in a lot of pain. The surgery and therapy are expected to cost roughly 10,000 dollars. She does not have this kind of money, and with her student loans, won't for a long time.

The less sensitive members of my family have proposed that this presents an opportunity to put the dog down, since though the dog is very well-behaved, most other members of the family have no love for this pony-sized fluffy monster. For obvious reasons, my sister and I would like to avoid this. Does anyone know of any solutions? A rescue service, a way to fundraise for pets, something?

How can I prove my workplace is making me sick?

Anonymous — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 17:40:03 -0800

I think my work place is causing respiratory problems for me. How do I go about proving it? I started a new job a few months ago. I've had declining health every since. I have a persistent cough and wheezing. Sometimes it's difficult for me to breathe. I have not been able to get rid of it. I've been to my doctor numerous times and am an inhaler, allergy med and prilosec (helps breathing function, go figure!). I would think nothing of this, that maybe I have developed asthma in my 30's but my husband and I have noticed that my cough disappears by Saturday morning and is back in full force after I return to work. The place where I work is in the basement of a medical facility. Our area is carpeted and the carpet is black with dirt (?). I've been told by a few that there are radon and carbon monoxide issues there. My current manager disconnected the carbon monoxide detectors because "they kept beeping after we turned them on". Given that, I think the ventilation is extremely poor. In addition, the place smells funky - there's a pungent odor that hits you when you walk in the door. It's a bitter smell, for lack of a better term.

My question is how do I prove they the area is making me sick? Or find out for sure? I never had any of these problems before working there. And I'm miserable and relying on an inhaler most of the day so I can breathe. Are there lawyers that deal with this? What do I do?

Should I be worried about my mom?

alona — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:45:48 -0800

YANMDfilter: Do these swine-flu-like symptoms require a trip to the emergency room? My mother has been feeling ill for just under two weeks I think. She is currently on two COLDEX (not the magic-pill) which I don't even think is for fever, and one advil. Her fever is at 38.2C, she's feeling very weak (can't get out of bed) and she has a cough and runny nose. Also, she was feeling a bit nauseous earlier.
She is against going to the emergency room just now, but I think she should go. Am I being hysterical? Or is her situation swine-flu-esque?

(For all relevant purposes, it is now 2:45AM and so calling our doctor is not an option.)

And yes, I know you are not my/a doctor, but medical forums are failing me right now.

What chance does our cat have of recovery after seizures and coma?

geekgirl397 — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 12:37:06 -0800

Cat in recovery from suspected poisoning. Came out of post-seizure coma, now has suspected blindness, partial paralysis. What do we do next? We found our otherwise healthy 7-year-old cat unconscious on our (5th floor) back deck yesterday at 6.30am. Got her to the emergency room within a half hour. She was limp, unresponsive, pupils constricted almost to vanishing. Tests & X-rays showed no trauma, but hypothermia (low body temp) & hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) as well as shock. She had seizures, both before and after we found her.

After ~24 hours on a glucose drip, in an incubator, with supplemental oxygen, antibiotics (in case of undiagnosed infection), atropine (I think - some kind of antidote for an unknown poison), stomach pumping & ingestion of activated charcoal, she woke up and started eating, responding, moving.

HOWEVER, as of 3 hours post-coma, she still could not support herself on her back legs, and the vet suspected some neurological problems. We've taken her to a neurologist where she is awaiting a consult (while still on an IV). The intern who did see her thinks she may be blind, but i guess we'll know more when she's had a full workup.

This cat's recovery so far is just miraculous. We thought that she was a goner for sure, and I'm pretty certain so did the emergency vet practice, as there was a real sense of surprise & jubilation when we came to get her this morning.

I wonder if anybody else out there has had a cat go through seizures/unconsciousness and then had residual problems. Were they temporary, or permanent?

From the internet research I've done, it looks to me like neurological symptoms such as temporary blindness and paralysis are not uncommon post seizure. What I'd like to know is how soon we should be expecting a change.

We've been warned that the neurologist may want to do an MRI (at a cost of ~3K). We don't want to put our cat through anything unnecessary but we do want to give her the best chance. On the one hand, if, via the MRI, they found swelling putting pressure on nerves, spine or brain, that they could fairly simply surgically relieve, and therefore 'repair' - it might just be worth it. And I imagine we'd want to get this diagnosed & treated ASAP.

On the other hand, she was very, very, very ill and she's been making progress since waking up that you can literally measure by the hour, we strongly suspect is still in with a good chance of recovering on her own (or maybe with some anti inflammatories, steroids etc.). In the ~2 hours between leaving the first emergency vet office and being seen by the neurologist's intern, she had gone from being unable to use her back legs at all to being able to crawl a bit using them.

Anyone seen anything like this - an unidentified poison causing seizures and coma? What about recovery after seizures anyway - could we still be seeing "spontaneous" recovery days rather than minutes after the incident?

We don't want to put our cat through unnecessary pain & distress if it turns out she's unlikely to be able to be treated, or if treatment may not give her any quality of life. But we don't want to give up on her too early.

Any advice?

thanks!!

Better the flu you know?

Anonymous — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:49:26 -0800

At what point should I consider (responsibly) getting myself inoculated with the flu? The H1N1 flu seems to be spreading pretty quickly in my community. It's flu season here (southern hemisphere), and at least 3 separate groups of my friends appear to be down with the H1N1 flu.

I had a standard seasonal flu last year, and it sucks, but it seems like it'd suck less if I was actually able to plan it?

I've read that prior to immunization, children used to get sent to say, 'Measles parties' so they'd catch it at the same time, parents could pool resources and they'd then be immune as adults. How crazy is this as a tactic against a mild pandemic to which there's little immunity and no vaccine yet?

For myself,
if it was a choice between getting it soon or randomly in a couple of months, sooner would be preferable because:
1. I know it's going to be slow at work for the next month, but will probably ramp up after that. Taking time off sooner rather than later would be preferable.
2. If I visited a friend on a Thurs/Fri, I could have a quite weekend in (which fits plans anyway), and could avoid infecting others before symptoms show, if I caught it.
3. It's pretty low-aggression at the moment (what's the chances it mutates to a more worrying strain?)

This is not just a 'should I or not?', but a - under WHAT circumstances would it be logical, if any?

I'm thinking it would have to spread more widely than it currently has (I may have a skewed view from 3 different infection sources close to me) - at what point would you consider it reasonable?

Also, I'm thinking if there was news of a more virulent but immunologically similar strain, that might be a point at which 'better the flu you know' might be relevant?

And thirdly, a vaccine would have to be still many months away - otherwise I'd get a vaccine. It's looking like 4-6 months at the moment?

(Anonymous as this seems like a hot-button issue, and really, I'm NOT trying to do a stupid thing - but finding out whether it is?)

Why does my dog have no interest in any kind of food?

geeky — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 07:05:45 -0800

Why does my dog have no interest in any kind of food? I know YANAVet and YANMVet, but we are working with a vet we know and trust and at this point I'm just looking for additional suggestions.

We adopted our dog, a female beagle approximately 3 years old, from the SPCA in January. She had been a stray and needed a lot of TLC. She had bad ear infections in both ears and pretty severe worm infestations. The good news is that we've gotten both of those problems cleared up. However, throughout all of this she's had persistent periods of time where she just wouldn't eat.

We had been assuming the loss of appetite was a symptom of her various other problems over the past few months, but now that she's otherwise healthy, she's still not eating consistently. When this first started, she would stop eating for 2-3 days, then go back to eating normally for a couple of weeks. However, it seems to be getting progressively worse. Over the last 2 weeks she's been eating very little, just 1/2 cup of food every couple of days at best.

She's had bloodwork done twice, urinalysis done twice, and numerous fecal samples taken. All came back normal, with the exception of slightly elevated protein levels in the urine. She had one incidence of vomiting blood over a month ago, which caused the vet to assume the problem is an ulcer. We've been treating her accordingly, with doses of Pepcid every night (to control acid production) and doses of carafate (sucralfate) as needed to help sooth her stomach. At first the carafate made a dramatic difference and had her eating within 20 minutes of dosing. Now even the carafate doesn't help in getting her to eat.

We've tried a couple of different dog foods (Science Diet and a no-allergen version of Natural Balance). She gets NO people food, with the exception of a small amount of peanut butter once a day to give her the Pepcid and on occasion, when it gets really bad, I will make her boiled chicken and rice. Even that usually takes some serious cajoling and literally sticking it in her face before she will eat it. The only thing she will consistently eat is Milk Bones, and even then she sometimes saves them for a day before eating them.

She has no other symptoms, aside from maybe slight lethargy and sometimes we can hear her stomach rumbling. She'll eat grass when she really doesn't feel well. Everything is, ahem, coming out properly. She's not vomiting. She just won't eat!

Like I said earlier, we are working with a vet. We have another appointment on Friday. At this point, I'm just looking for suggestions. What else could I ask the vet about and what other tests we should look into? Have you ever had a dog do this before? Does this sound like an ulcer to you? Any idea what could be causing her to not want to eat at all? We love this stupid little dog to death and it's breaking our hearts to not be able to make her better.

I just want him back.

notquitemaryann — Thu, 28 May 2009 17:35:17 -0800

Oh joy, it's another cat piss question! Sort of. Please share your experiences with cat perineal urethrostomy (PU) surgery, or other advanced treatments for urinary blockages. I'm probably going to make a decision in the next few days about whether to have this performed on my 13-year-old boy, and really need to hear about costs, complications, and how your cat is doing now. I even answered this question, which has some of what I'm looking for, but please hit me with anything else you have.

Background, if you want it:

My cat has been on a prescription diet of Royal Canin Urinary SO (dry) for the past 3-4 years, ever since an apparent bladder infection that cleared up with antibiotics. I eventually stopped giving him most treats/scraps, and the condition seemed to be under control.

And then there was a period a couple of months ago where I could, quite literally, barely afford to feed myself, much less him. So I was living off eggs, he was living off $4 Meow Mix or whatever*, and things seemed fine. As soon as I had the money, I went and bought him a big bag of his prescription food. Over my birthday at the beginning of May, I went to stay with my parents for a few days, took him along, and he received a fair number of table scraps.* A day after I brought him home, he very quickly became very sick- straining to pee, vomiting from the straining, bloody urine, extreme lethargy, and trembling from pain. I rushed him to the vet where they cathed him, put him on pain meds, an antibiotic, and a smooth muscle dilator. Labs were still good, and vet didn't believe he was suffering from kidney disease. He passed several bladder stones while at the vet's, stayed three days, and came home peeing fine. All was well for about two weeks.

Then I discovered him straining and grunting again. After he vomited once, he stopped eating. No blood in the urine, no lethargy, just pain and inability to pee. Went back to the vet's yesterday for another catheter, which they removed this morning. There was a big "sandy" plug of mucus and crystals blocking him, which they got out. But he still hasn't peed on his own, so he's spending another night. The vet will be calling me tomorrow morning. I get the feeling that because she knows I'm not well-off, she's not pushing the idea of surgery, but instead would prescribe some combination of ongoing medication.

While I was in the waiting room yesterday, a woman tried to "comfort" me by describing how her cat had the surgery for $3000. I'm willing to travel if there's a chance of getting it done for less. This is an animal that is otherwise very healthy- good bloodwork, good teeth, a little arthritis in the hips that showed up on his x-rays, but doesn't prevent him from jumping, and he is happy and friendly and playful. His quality of life, when this condition is managed, is great. So even though the expense is likely to hurt me pretty badly, it seems worth it to both of us. What can you tell me?

*Correct: on top of everything, I fully blame myself for possibly killing my cat.