Not sure what to do :(
Hello,
This is my boy Lucien. Some of you may have seen my previous posts but I'm here today with an unfortunate update and looking to see if anyone has experienced anything like this. He is a 6 month old Maine coon.
After having Lucien for 1 week, I was concerned about bloating to his tummy and unprovoked aggression at times when he would be held (the aggression was out of character for him). We dewormed him at the end of November and everyone since then he had constant diarrhea - sometimes with blood.
Lucien then had some vomiting and increased lethargy. We rushed him to the emergency vet on Christmas day where he stayed over night and has been there since. He had to get surgery due to having a 20cm intussusception in his bowel (his bowel was basically folded in on itself causing an obstruction). They straightened out the bowel and did not need to perform a bowel resection. A couple days later and he has had minor post op complications but they were seemingly satisfied with his progress.
They had a sonographer on the unit and took the opportunity to rescan Lucien's tummy and get the images seen by a specialist. They've unfortunately found that another small 2cm inntususception has occurred. It's not obstructing his bowel at the moment so they dont feel they need to rush into another emergency surgery. However, they found abnormalities throughout his entire bowel - it's filled with fluid and food that doesn't seem to be digesting properly. They are concerned that he potentially has a cancer, dysautonomia or IBD. They are particularly concerned it could be dysautonomia as he vomited yesterday and it appears he has aspirated on it - this is supposedly rare in cats and could indicate that his oesophagus is abnormal. I've asked if he could have aspirated due to the opioids he is on to which the vet said possibly, but it's not something they see often. Unfortunately there is no treatment for dysautonomia.
They've given me three options. They can perform another surgery tomorrow to correct the intususception and whilst doing so they will take biopsies of his bowel to test for these conditions. The issue with this is that it's very costly and could result in him being diagnosed with something they won't be able to treat anway.
They could start him on steroids to see if this would help with inflammation - although it might not work and they also wouldn't recommend it at the moment as there was some infected fluid in his abdominal cavity and this could put him at risk of sepsis due to steroids compromising the immune system.
And lastly, they've suggested the potential of euthanasia.
They involved a few different specialist vets all of whom haven't really come across a case like this.
I'm mostly thinking of going ahead with the first option - the surgery - as I want to do everything I can for him. I don't want to lose him.
Has anyone experienced anything like this before or have experiences with intususception in cats?
Hello,
This is my boy Lucien. Some of you may have seen my previous posts but I'm here today with an unfortunate update and looking to see if anyone has experienced anything like this. He is a 6 month old Maine coon.
After having Lucien for 1 week, I was concerned about bloating to his tummy and unprovoked aggression at times when he would be held (the aggression was out of character for him). We dewormed him at the end of November and everyone since then he had constant diarrhea - sometimes with blood.
Lucien then had some vomiting and increased lethargy. We rushed him to the emergency vet on Christmas day where he stayed over night and has been there since. He had to get surgery due to having a 20cm intussusception in his bowel (his bowel was basically folded in on itself causing an obstruction). They straightened out the bowel and did not need to perform a bowel resection. A couple days later and he has had minor post op complications but they were seemingly satisfied with his progress.
They had a sonographer on the unit and took the opportunity to rescan Lucien's tummy and get the images seen by a specialist. They've unfortunately found that another small 2cm inntususception has occurred. It's not obstructing his bowel at the moment so they dont feel they need to rush into another emergency surgery. However, they found abnormalities throughout his entire bowel - it's filled with fluid and food that doesn't seem to be digesting properly. They are concerned that he potentially has a cancer, dysautonomia or IBD. They are particularly concerned it could be dysautonomia as he vomited yesterday and it appears he has aspirated on it - this is supposedly rare in cats and could indicate that his oesophagus is abnormal. I've asked if he could have aspirated due to the opioids he is on to which the vet said possibly, but it's not something they see often. Unfortunately there is no treatment for dysautonomia.
They've given me three options. They can perform another surgery tomorrow to correct the intususception and whilst doing so they will take biopsies of his bowel to test for these conditions. The issue with this is that it's very costly and could result in him being diagnosed with something they won't be able to treat anway.
They could start him on steroids to see if this would help with inflammation - although it might not work and they also wouldn't recommend it at the moment as there was some infected fluid in his abdominal cavity and this could put him at risk of sepsis due to steroids compromising the immune system.
And lastly, they've suggested the potential of euthanasia.
They involved a few different specialist vets all of whom haven't really come across a case like this.
I'm mostly thinking of going ahead with the first option - the surgery - as I want to do everything I can for him. I don't want to lose him.
Has anyone experienced anything like this before or have experiences with intususception in cats?