Post by jarrett on Apr 28, 2019 14:52:37 GMT -5
About 3 weeks ago I was attempting to coax the fuzzies into trying the commercial chicken grind I have without being pre-blended with extra water. They liked the flavor and I got them to eat it reliably from a spoon left in their food dish but the texture when pre-blended with water, which was slimy to the point of almost being glue-y, seemed to overwhelm them quickly and they'd get bored and walk away. I hoped if I could get them to try the grind without water the texture might be less off-putting. Ishtar, my girl, didn't give me too much trouble when I popped a small but into her mouth. Loki however, my boy, put up quite a fuss and in my attempt to apply pressure to the corner of his mouth to pop the chicken bit in I think I may have hurt one of his teeth! Lord knows I've pried his mouth open before to remove something, but as he's aged he's stopped trying to eat things he shouldn't and I'm afraid that his teeth are in such bad condition now that they were too weak to take this basic procedure. I even wondered as I was doing it if his teeth were perhaps too weak to tolerate me messing with his mouth, but then brushed it off figuring I was being over-concerned. Big mistake. He immediately began rubbing his face on the ground, and the next time I saw him go to drink water he began to gag/cough and shake his head. He hasn't eaten his kibble since.
After I realized he had stopped kibble altogether I brought him to the vet. He looked at his teeth and didn't find any damage beyond the pre-existing dental disease. He said it is very unlikely that tooth pain would cause a hunger strike like this, and that me messing with his mouth was likely a coincidence and perhaps he was already not eating hence his stubbornness on trying the food. Frankly, I wasn't convinced and am still inclined to blame myself. Anyway, he gave Loki an antibiotic and a pain med, which is what we did last time Loki went on hunger strike when I suspected he hurt a tooth eating stale kibble he found under the enclosure. Last time he began eating again immediately. This time no luck.
I returned to the vet and they did blood work, an x ray, and kept him overnight to keep him on fluids since by then he was losing weight and dehydrated. The blood work showed sky high ALT (liver enzyme) levels. Over 1000, normal range is around 100 I believe. The x ray found nothing. The vet said with an issue with the liver he may be refusing to eat, and that because Loki keeps going to the food bowl and sniffing but not eating, that he might have a blockage. They sent me to another place to get an ultrasound. The ultrasound showed no blockage but did show inflammation in the liver, unsurprising with the high ALT levels. They prescribed flagyl and gave me carnivore care to syringe feed. Loki took to the syringe feeding, but the flagyl caused him to lose his s**t and claw at his own mouth so bad he drew blood. I decided we would not continue with the flagyl after that, as I didn't want to risk further mouth injury or a violently negative association with syringes.
I returned later in the week to the hospital in which the ultrasound was performed when the exotic specialist was back in. She had no real insight into the food situation, but said the liver results could indicate an infection or lymphoma. She also pointed out that the original blood work performed by my normal vet showed a BG of 75 so she suggested he may have the beginnings of insulinoma. She was very against raw food, and felt the grind I was giving them could have been contaminated (despite the fact that they never showed any other GI symptoms, no diarrhea etc). She suggested many things, including a tissue sample from the liver to test for lymphoma, teeth cleaning, etc but after spending $1600 in two weeks (I'm 24, and not bathing in money over here), I settled for two antibiotics and a liver supplement. The liver supplement was a compounded solution of Denamarin that she said would be around $30. When the pharmacy called, it was actually $180. Big difference, and I don't think I'm down to pay that for a supplement when after $1600 no one has actually helped or gotten closer to understanding the main issue at hand- Loki refusing to eat solid food. I asked about getting the brand name version, a tablet, on amazon and using a scale to crush and measure out the proper doses for him, but of course the vet is against that.
As of now he is voraciously eating his carnivore care, and I've begun to grind his kibble in my coffee grinder and mix that in in hopes that maybe I can incrementally increase the size of the grind until he's back on his kibble. He's acting normal besides being active for shorter periods of time, but frankly that's been slowly proceeding with both of them as they've gotten older, most especially because their enclosure is enormous and they get so much free run time that they're not overly excited by "play time." The worst part is I fly out to Colorado the 7th of May for my nephews second birthday. This means I'm hesitant to even start these antibiotics that I'm not even sure why they've been prescribed as after the last antibiotic my desire to risk resistance from him and then leave that for my roommate to deal with for four days while I'm gone is essentially nonexistent. I had also considered using this as an opportunity to just switch him to the commercial grinds mixed with water now that he's used to the idea of liquid food, but I'm uncomfortable being in the beginnings of a switch and then leaving town and leaving my room mate to deal with feeding raw meat to my pet and not even knowing how reliably he will eat it.
After all this money, and 3 weeks of constant anxiety and stress and not being able to keep up with my daily life tasks or focus on anything else, I'm at my wits end. Should I bother with the antibiotics? Should I just bite the bullet and get the name brand liver supplement tablets to break up and weigh out? Should I bother with a liver agate(?) sample if his potential insulinoma might require steroids anyway? Should I keep shelling out cash when we've gotten no answers? Should insist that I feel my messing with his mouth caused this and ask for more pain meds despite his poor liver function? I'm lost and really losing hope of any answers over here.
After I realized he had stopped kibble altogether I brought him to the vet. He looked at his teeth and didn't find any damage beyond the pre-existing dental disease. He said it is very unlikely that tooth pain would cause a hunger strike like this, and that me messing with his mouth was likely a coincidence and perhaps he was already not eating hence his stubbornness on trying the food. Frankly, I wasn't convinced and am still inclined to blame myself. Anyway, he gave Loki an antibiotic and a pain med, which is what we did last time Loki went on hunger strike when I suspected he hurt a tooth eating stale kibble he found under the enclosure. Last time he began eating again immediately. This time no luck.
I returned to the vet and they did blood work, an x ray, and kept him overnight to keep him on fluids since by then he was losing weight and dehydrated. The blood work showed sky high ALT (liver enzyme) levels. Over 1000, normal range is around 100 I believe. The x ray found nothing. The vet said with an issue with the liver he may be refusing to eat, and that because Loki keeps going to the food bowl and sniffing but not eating, that he might have a blockage. They sent me to another place to get an ultrasound. The ultrasound showed no blockage but did show inflammation in the liver, unsurprising with the high ALT levels. They prescribed flagyl and gave me carnivore care to syringe feed. Loki took to the syringe feeding, but the flagyl caused him to lose his s**t and claw at his own mouth so bad he drew blood. I decided we would not continue with the flagyl after that, as I didn't want to risk further mouth injury or a violently negative association with syringes.
I returned later in the week to the hospital in which the ultrasound was performed when the exotic specialist was back in. She had no real insight into the food situation, but said the liver results could indicate an infection or lymphoma. She also pointed out that the original blood work performed by my normal vet showed a BG of 75 so she suggested he may have the beginnings of insulinoma. She was very against raw food, and felt the grind I was giving them could have been contaminated (despite the fact that they never showed any other GI symptoms, no diarrhea etc). She suggested many things, including a tissue sample from the liver to test for lymphoma, teeth cleaning, etc but after spending $1600 in two weeks (I'm 24, and not bathing in money over here), I settled for two antibiotics and a liver supplement. The liver supplement was a compounded solution of Denamarin that she said would be around $30. When the pharmacy called, it was actually $180. Big difference, and I don't think I'm down to pay that for a supplement when after $1600 no one has actually helped or gotten closer to understanding the main issue at hand- Loki refusing to eat solid food. I asked about getting the brand name version, a tablet, on amazon and using a scale to crush and measure out the proper doses for him, but of course the vet is against that.
As of now he is voraciously eating his carnivore care, and I've begun to grind his kibble in my coffee grinder and mix that in in hopes that maybe I can incrementally increase the size of the grind until he's back on his kibble. He's acting normal besides being active for shorter periods of time, but frankly that's been slowly proceeding with both of them as they've gotten older, most especially because their enclosure is enormous and they get so much free run time that they're not overly excited by "play time." The worst part is I fly out to Colorado the 7th of May for my nephews second birthday. This means I'm hesitant to even start these antibiotics that I'm not even sure why they've been prescribed as after the last antibiotic my desire to risk resistance from him and then leave that for my roommate to deal with for four days while I'm gone is essentially nonexistent. I had also considered using this as an opportunity to just switch him to the commercial grinds mixed with water now that he's used to the idea of liquid food, but I'm uncomfortable being in the beginnings of a switch and then leaving town and leaving my room mate to deal with feeding raw meat to my pet and not even knowing how reliably he will eat it.
After all this money, and 3 weeks of constant anxiety and stress and not being able to keep up with my daily life tasks or focus on anything else, I'm at my wits end. Should I bother with the antibiotics? Should I just bite the bullet and get the name brand liver supplement tablets to break up and weigh out? Should I bother with a liver agate(?) sample if his potential insulinoma might require steroids anyway? Should I keep shelling out cash when we've gotten no answers? Should insist that I feel my messing with his mouth caused this and ask for more pain meds despite his poor liver function? I'm lost and really losing hope of any answers over here.
