I don't remember seeing your original post about your CRF cat's dental problems. But then I usually don't remember what I did an hour ago. ;-)

Tanya's CRF information website has a terrific section on dental care for CRF cats and the precautions that should be taken before, during, and after any necessary dental procedures. I strongly recommend that you read and follow the guidelines provided on that site. You can find them at the link provided below. One of the recommendations is for the cat to be put on the antibiotic Clindamycin for at least several days BEFORE and continuing for a week AFTER the dental procedure. One veterinary dental specialist in my region recommends Clindamycin for 7-10 days PRIOR to the dental procedure, and continuing for a week afterwards.

Make sure your cat will also be receiving fluids before, during, and after the procedure. This again is outlined on the site linked below. There are other precautionary recommendations provided on the site, as well.

I will send good thoughts for a successful procedure and good dental and renal health for your cat.

Laurie

Here is a link that might be useful: dental procedure precautions

Dry food causes teeth trouble plan and simple- go to www.Felinefuture.com. They have an artical about dry cat food.
DO NOT believe a word about vets and dry.

Hope all goes well.

Thank you for the good thoughts thus far. I think it is going to be a couple of long days of anticipation- hopefully the after will be well worth it.

Laurie, we are following the guidelines on Tanya's site, thanks for posting that so I could review it again. I had a long list of questions for the vet, some from that particular set of guidelines, and she made me feel pretty comfortable about the situation. Kitty's teeth are so awful right now that the quality of life issue is worth the risk, IMO. I'm so worried that the procedure will be too much for her little body, but at the same time, I can't leave her to live with teeth like that day to day. I feel caught between that proverbial rock and hard place.

Runswalker, I have only recently learned in depth about this problem, called FORLs. My understanding of it is that it is caused by cells that are active in kittenhood (to dissolve milk teeth), and then are suppose to "turn off" for the rest of the cat's adult life. Some unknown factor triggers those cells back to activity and they begin to destroy the adult teeth. It is sad, but interesting, should you want to learn more about it. Thank you for the positive thoughts.

Weird and scary! Hope everything goes well.

If this cannot be fixed or controlled correctly, .... its time to PTS, sad to say.

I bet you won't sleep well tonight.. I'll have special thoughts for your cat tomorrow (is this the one who gets 'shaved' for bloodwork?) Big hugs to the both of you. Keep us posted,
Anne-Marie

Thanks Anne Marie. No I did not sleep well- at least not after 3 am when she got hungry and started poking her paw in my mouth! Yes this is my shaved kitty.

Her blood work from Tues came back all in the normal range (with meds and fluids to control her conditions), and she's gained a pound in the last few months, so I suspect there's probably not much better time to take a risk.

Thanks for the positive thoughts.

Hope all goes well.

Don't want to press, Quasifish.. but I've been wondering how your Kitty handled the dental work.. It's always a little scary to bring them home (shaky on their legs, tongue sticking out as they are not used to not having teeth to keep it in, somewhat bloody mouth, probably a pain killer patch on their side...). Our 2 male cats went through 3 dental works (all together). One of them hardly had any teeth left, the poor thing!

Anyway, hope all went well for her. Please keep us posted whenever you can.

BIG hugs to the both of you,
Anne-Marie

Thank you for thinking of my kitty.

All seems to be going well. The weekend and yesterday (Monday) she was really tired and it's hard to get a reading as to what exactly is going on, simply because there is so much going on with her (mainly wondering if her kidneys were okay). Today seemed like a turning point and she seems much more like herself- eyes looking very alert, and she's eaten quite a bit.

We also found out through a routine poop test done the same day as surgery that she has giardia, so that's one more facet in her myriad of problems. I've felt so bad prying her mouth open 6 times a day to administer 3 different meds every 12 hours.

She lost 8 teeth, one of which had fused to the jaw and gave the vet a bit of a problem. It was a rough day and a long weekend, but I'm feeling optimistic today- finally! In a few more days I'll really breath a sigh of relief. So far so good though.

Thanks again for your concern.

I'm so glad your girl is doing well after all of that dental work. I've really been dragging my feet having dental work done on my beloved Mew because I know the work is going to have to be extensive, and I'm very nervous about the pain and accompanying inappetance that he's likely to experience. It makes me feel better knowing that your girl is eating well just a few days after her procedure. Did they provide any sort of pain meds for your girl, and if so, which one and for how long after the procedure?

Laurie

So glad to hear that your Kitty went through this like a champ!! If anything else, she will be able to eat better as her bad teeth must have caused her pain while eating.. Yes, it is no fun to pull her mouth open for meds and have to look at the missing teeth.. and have to do this as gently as possible as to not inflict more pain... I do remember!!

Laurie, if you go through this with Mew, I'll take Peachy back for her bloodwork! Just kidding! I didn't think my boys' teeth were that bad, but after the dental work, Picasso ate so much better.. so it was worth it! He was 8 at the time. He had come to us from the street with a broken fang.

Thanks for the update, quasifish, and relax!
Anne-Marie

Anne-Marie, you take Peachy in for the bloodwork NOW! Don't wait for me, because it'll likely be next summer before I'll be able to get Mew over to Duluth for his dental. The only clinic I trust to do the sort of dental that I know he'll need is 100 miles away, and it'll be an all-day trip. I just don't know how I can work that out with Billy here at home needing to be fed every couple of hours, and me being just one person. Not to mention the 14 other cats, 3 dogs, and 3 horses who all depend on me to meet their every need every minute of every day. It's an almost impossible situation, but I'll work it out somehow.

Fortunately, Mew is having no problem eating most food and is exhibiting no mouth discomfort at all, so I think I have some time to get the logistics figured out.

Laurie

I'm a little frustrated today. She's obviously hungry, but not interested enough in anything that's being offered- though she's quite active and alert. :( I will keep trying other foods, then maybe force feed her a little baby food if all else fails. She ate pretty well yesterday morning (which is why I was feeling so optimistic), then a little home cooked chicken last night- so she has eaten, it's just been a struggle since yesterday morning.

She's also not drinking/peeing as much as usual. I've been giving her daily sub-qs for support, and on a good note, she does not smell bad in any way, so hopefully we are doing enough to keep her kidneys safe. The current vet is of the opinion that her problems are more thyroid than kidney, and that her erratic thyroid is what has caused the kidney values to be up at times (but kidney values haven't been elevated at all in more than a year).

She does seem alert and friendly, so I'm hopeful that it's just a few more days and she's completely back to her old self. I also don't know what the giardia meds might do to her, one book says there can be some not so nice side effects such as loss of balance, so perhaps she's just extra tired and not real hungry from that- it's so hard to tell.

Laurie, this was indeed a hard decision coming. I think you offered your thoughts on the subject to me at least 3 different times over the past 2 years- for which I've been grateful. The lesions had just seemed to expand wildly over the past 3 months and DH and I felt that it was now becoming a quality of life issue- enough of one that it was time to take a big risk. One of her fangs had developed a strange abscess-like growth on the length of it, the vet hadn't ever seen anything quite like it.

Another thing that we took into consideration was that our boy cat had a tooth that broke (out of the blue- his teeth are otherwise great) and he had to be knocked out to have the root removed on very short notice. We started thinking about how easily that could be the scenario with girl kitty and her awful teeth- and thought that maybe it was better to go ahead with dental on our terms, when she had a good blood test result and was acting like she felt good, rather than wait until there was no choice and we had to do it wherever she was healthwise.

I'm not sure what the vet gave her for pain, except that she did not send any meds home because she had given her 2 shots at the office during the day. We had the option of going in to pick up some pain meds the following day, but decided against it because she doesn't seem in much pain (not hiding, and she has been eating), and we didn't want to add anything unnecessary to her system. The vet did say that cats could only have the pain meds for a total of 5 days running?

It's definitely not a decision to take lightly. I know it was the right thing to do for her, and the right time to do it. I also know that almost 2 years ago when the vet first suggested it, it was not the right time. You live with your cat and know how he operates; you will know when it is having an effect on his QOL. Even knowing it was the right thing to do, I'm having a hard time with the whole process now. I know there's a lot going on with her and it's just a matter of watching her closely and getting her over the hump, but it's getting to be a long week.

Anne-Marie, thanks so much for all the positive words and thoughts. They've meant more than you know through this long week.

Off to try some other foods and see what sticks. Keep sending those positive thoughts and I'll keep you updated.

Thanks again.

Just did a little research on the giardia meds and found that the most common side effects are nausea and loss of appetite. That makes things more interesting, but might help explain what's going on too.

Poor girl kitty. Just too many physical challenges all at one time. If you can't convince her to eat adequately on her own right now using all of the usual tricks, keep syringe feeding her until she's feeling better. She sure doesn't need liver problems to crop up now in addition to everything else.

It sounds to me like you did what you needed to do when you needed to do it. That's the best any of us can do. Supporting her kidneys with fluids should help get them through all of this. Man, it's worrisome when you have to juggle so many physical issues at once. Is girl kitty being treated for thyroid, as well?

Laurie

Yes, she takes meds for her thyroid, but just about every three months she's needed a dosage adjustment one way or the other. The vet calls her "yo-yo cat."

She looked so miserable this morning that I decided to go ahead and force feed her a bit just to see if added calories might make her feel better. Under the advice of a cat book, I mixed cooked oatmeal with chicken baby food and fed her about a tablespoon by smushing small blobs onto the roof of her mouth. It didn't take long and she didn't seem to mind all that much. A few minutes after that she followed me out to the kitchen and ate 1.5 slices of the ham that *was* for my sandwich (no complaints!). It was as if force feeding her stimulated her desire to eat a little. I really think her lack of appetite has to do with the flagyl (giardia med). Her appetite was better the first 2 days home and then has dropped off steadily as she's been given the flagyl. If we end up force feeding her a little until that's done, so be it. After she ate the ham, she headed back to the bedroom, jumped up on the bed and was kneading and purring- she didn't know I was there, so it wasn't for my benefit. This is definitely a roller coaster. Who knows what tomorrow, or even tonight, will hold.

How much longer does she have to keep taking Flagyl? I was just reading up on it in my Pill Book Guide to Medication for Your Dog and Cat, and found several bits of interesting information. Flagyl pills are extremely bitter, so she might tolerate them better if you cut them up and put them in an empty gelcap so she won't have to taste them. Also, they should not be administered on an empty stomach. Flagyl should also be used with caution in reduced doses with CRF cats. If you are giving Cimetidine for acid stomach, you should also reduce the Flagyl dose because Cimetidine can interfere with the liver's ability to break down metronidaozle (Flagyl), causing increased levels in your cat's blood. One last note from this book, "Furazolidone may be a better drug for Giardia infection in cats, because it does not taste bad and therefore is better tolerated."

I hope some of this information is useful to you.

Laurie

Wow, thanks for all that info, Laurie. That's quite a bit better than what I had managed to find. Unfortunately the vet gave us liquid flagyl, so there's no hiding it. I think they went with liquid figuring it would be easier to administer with her sore mouth. They warned me that it was bitter and animals hated it (it's very sticky and smells distinctively like handi-wipes). It looks like there is probably another week or so in the bottle. From some of the articles online I found about CRF and flagyl it seems that it is often used for IBD in CRF cats, so I'm trying to be comfortable with it. She has taken Cimetidine in the past, but hasn't for a long while now; at least we are good on that front.

On a good note, we may have found the real problem, and it may have not had a lot to do with everything she's been through in the last week. Turns out Muddy (don't know why I call them girl-cat and boy-cat so much of the time) had a blocked anal gland. She was acting a little funny about her bottom yesterday, and she's had repeat problems with her anal glands in the past- last time was a year ago, this very same time and she acted so sick from that. We got it cleared for her and today she seems much better- whether that lasts the day remains to be seen, but she was yowling in the kitchen at 6am, which is her normal M.O.

I did have a thought for you in case you do decide to go ahead with dental for Mew eventually- take it FWIW. In retrospect I realize both my cats developed elevated kidney values after being on long courses of antibiotic. Didn't think a whole lot about that until the vet mentioned Azodyl earlier this year when Gus (boy-cat) had his increased kidney values following dental. I did a little research on Azodyl to discover that it is 3 strains of probiotic that are readily available in complexes marketed to people (for much less). It also turned out we had one of those products in the house, so I started giving him probiotics daily. After he got good results at his second kidney panel, I got a little lazy and stopped giving him probiotics, a few weeks later he was back to acting "off." We put him back on the daily probiotic and he snapped out of it completely in 3-4 days. I am certain the probiotics are a major benefit to him, and as soon as Muddy finishes her antibiotic and flagyl, she will be on the probiotic as well. There's some nugget of logic for me that if adding naturally occurring organisms to the body helps in the fight against kidney disease, that possibly killing the original colonies off with antibiotic (like after a dental procedure) might lead to kidney problems. I don't know, but I'm becoming an even bigger advocate of probiotics. Just something to consider.

Oh, and she was chewing on her claws last night, so she's acting like her mouth pain has pretty much subsided at 5 days.

Thanks again for all the help. I'll continue to keep you updated.

You're welcome! I'm so glad that Muddy's doing better and acting normal. I know that has to be a HUGE relief for you.

The book I mentioned in my last post is an invaluable resource, and it's extremely cheap (I think I bought mine for $5). It contains pretty much all of the same into as the PDR for drugs used by veterinarians. Only problem is, it hasn't been updated since 1998, so it doesn't contain any info on drugs introduced in the last 10 yrs. Still, I refer to it constantly and recommend that every animal caretaker add it to their library.

Probiotics, eh? That's extremely interesting information. I usually give my cats acidophilus during and after antibiotic administration to help restore beneficial gut organisms. It sure can't hurt to add probiotics to Billy's repertoire. I'll have to do some research on them to make sure that they won't interfere with the absorption or efficacy of his other meds and supplements. Thank you for the information.

I hope that Muddy continues to improve!

Laurie