Expert: Tina - 12/31/2008

Question
Hi there. My 5 year old male Tabby had emergency surgery 3 days ago to remove a foreign mass from his stomach. he has also been diagnosed with fatty liver diesease, and a urinary tract infection. he is not eating on his own and i am administering food and medication through a feeding tube (e-tube). I brought him home from the hospital last night, almost 24 hours ago. when i got him home he was still a little cooky from the sedatives he had been given in order to re-place his feeding tube. but today he has been extremely lethargic and barely moving all day. he has gotten up to go to the litter box after his 2 feedings, and changed psotions a few times, but that's about it. i know this is probably to be expected, but i just want to make sure. he also seems uncomfortable with the feeding tube and kind of gags on it a little when purring. it sounds like he has some problmes swallowing. the technicians at the animal hospital said that was normal, but for this long? is there anything that seems abnormal, or anything i should expect? thankyou so much

Answer
Hi Katie,

I am sorry to hear about your cats' illness. Unfortunately holiday time is a popular time for cats to ingest things they should not, and any time a cat does not eat for more than 24 hours they are in danger of fatty liver disease.

In your case, I assume you are giving antibiotics because your cat supposedly has a urinary tract infection. Bacterial infections in cats urinary tracts are very rare, more often it is an idiopathic inflammation of the lining of the urinary tract, often due to the formation of crystals in the urine. The tiny crystals cause microscopic cuts in the lining of the urinary tract leading to irritation. Dry cat food is a major cause of urinary tract disorders because it is dehydrating and leads to a high urine pH. If there are no bacteria present, antibiotics will do nothing to help the urinary tract problem, and instead will only potentially cause stomach upset and other side effects.

Did your vet do a culture on the urine to determine what type of bacteria were present in the urine and what antibiotic they are sensitive to? If not, he should not have been prescribed antibiotics. Antibiotics can cause discomfort and lethargy, but your cat could also be having a bad reaction or allergy to the antibiotics. Consider giving probiotics through the feeding tube. Your vet can provide probiotics or you can use Jarrow Pet Dophilus (sold online and at health food stores) or a human probiotic that is dairy free and has no extraneous ingredients - for example Renew LIfe or Vitamin Shoppe Ultimate 10 are fine, just give about 1/5 the human dose. Probiotics will help alleviate some of the stomach upset from antibiotics, just mix them with food and put into the feeding tube. Continue probiotics at least 1 week after the antibiotics are finished to replenish the natural flora of the digestive tract.

Fatty liver disease itself causes nausea and lethargy, so your cat is also going to show these symptoms due to the liver problems. You can give him milk thistle - a herb safe to use for cats that helps support the liver. You should use a standardized extract available at health food stores, 250mg per day divided into as many does as you are feeding meals. Just mix into food. You should give this for 1 month to help heal and support his liver, then discontinue.

Another safe herb to use that helps ease all kinds of digestive and stomach upset is slippery elm bark. Buy it as a powder or capsules at the health food store, and mix 1 tsp of the powder (open the capsules if that's all you can find) and mix with enough water to make a syrup. You can also put this into the feeding tube, it works best given 1 hour before feeding a meal. You can give it up to 5 times a day indefinitely. Slippery elm bark has anti-inflammatory properties and coats the digestive tract to soothe and protect it.

Info on safe herbs for cats:

http://www.holisticat.com/cat-herbs.html

Here is a helpful site with information on managing feeding tubes for cats:

http://www.catinfo.org./feedingtubes.htm

You may also want to check out her main web page on feline nutrition, because a healthy diet can help avoid urinary tract disorders in the first place as well as treat the one in existence.

Even after the feeding tube is removed, you must feed your cat canned food and no dry food, because dry cat food encourages the formation of crystals in the urine by making your cat chronically dehydrated, creating an overly-concentrated urine. Even without crystals, a very concentrated urine can irritate the urinary tract lining due to the ammonia content.  Canned food on the other hand provides more water, diluting the urine and flushing it out of the urinary tract faster before crystals have a chance to form.

To learn more about why you need to feed a meat based canned food - or a home made raw meat diet, please read the following websites:

http://www.catinfo.org
http://www.catnutrition.org
http://www.felinenutrition.net

Good luck, and feel free to follow up with additional information about what medication your cat is on and whether bacteria were actually found in the urine.