liver problems

[ferrisandripley]

hi

thanks for your kind words, i didnt get any figures from the vets as it was a conversation over the phone, i think it may be the a good idea if i can find out how high. The vet said that his liver results were slightly high if i remembr correctly, i think he has been tests for everything else as when we rescued him 3 years ago he was completey done. I know this sounds daft but all this has come about over the last few months since him and his sister have decided to butcher the local mouse and rat population. Living next to a farm attracts these things and the love to go out and kill them and eat them. I know that cats are set up to digest these types of creature but i cant help thinking it cant help him, rats are dirty creatures.. who knows what they eat..

Ripley last night brought one in to the kitchen which we saved and got out the back door, so she went flying out the front door catflap and within a minute walked calmed back through the catflap with same mouse...... cheeky monkey

Ferris has taken to his new food of hills I/D which was a worry for me as he loves to eat and i thought he would do his normal trick of turning his nose up at anything new, but he hasn't

Il keep you posted, at the mo he is sat on the bed curled up wth is sister all nice and warm , just like there pic.

once again many thanks for your thoughts

steve

[CurlyCatz]

Just out of interest, has he been fiv/felv tested. my rip boy was +ve for both and ran higher liver enzymes for a year or two before becoming terminally ill when they shot through the roof.

There are many reasons why this may be the case and obviously retest of the elevated parameters a month or so down the line will be needed...dont worry if he needs biopsys, they;ll be able to do this easily.

out of interest do you have a list of what was elevated and what the results were ??

if he's happy & healthy at the moment and they were only moderately raised then i'd honestly not worry too much just now.

[Amanda (mad4moggies)]

Hi Steve,

I`m very sorry to hear about Ferris. If the antibiotics don`t do the trick then a scan would be a very good idea as it isn`t invasive and can sometimes be done without sedation. Your vet may be able to do this or you might need to referred to a specialists. It`s good that your vet checked his thyroid levels because this can often cause the liver enzymes to be raised. When vets run bloods to check for this sort of thing they usually do a full blood count too. Did your vet mention anything about Ferris`s white blood cells being high which might indicate an infection??

You might find this link useful for information http://www.fabcats.org/liverdisease.html

[Desley (booktigger)]

i had a cat with raised liver enzymes, the vet said that diet should control it but she hated the prescription food, so I decided to feed her what she would eat, even if it did shorten her life. She had 11 months before it developed into something more serious, but even then there was meds, just sadly she didn't respond, but it was up to me when. When the vet has a better idea of exactly what the prob with the liver is, there are loads of articles on the net about them, and some are very promising.

[cheekee_munkee]

It depends on the liver problem to what the prognosis might be.

It might be useful if you could post the blood results here if you wanted to.

Liver problems in cats range from hepatic lipidosis to cirrhosis and neoplasia. The liver is an organ which can repair itseif and can function well at around 25 % capacity. If the cat seems happy and its quality of l;ife is good then thats great.

Hope all goes well

[ferrisandripley]

hi

sorry for your recent losses, he is only about 8, and he is normal in evey way, loves to eat, loves to play, goes out,fights with his sister, it was only the constipation that led us to the vets...

im going to give up on him just yet, he is stll my boy..

steve

[crb600f]

i know how you might feel as my cat was 16 yrsold and had liver problems they did tests and told us that we could do all these things for him but at the long run of it i said would he be in pain and they said that he could be so it was then when we said no and asked about what kind of life he would be having tho she was very helpful tho she gave use 2 things to think of that was medication and diet the other was just a chose that was to let him go to sleep there was one thing that my mum had to say about it was that he was old and that he had a good life and that she didn't want him to be in anymore pain so it was done they put him to sleep. it was hard for us to do it but we had another cat which died last Tuesdays thats was only 6 months after the other at a good age of 14 yrs old. do hope that you do the right thing for you all the best and merry Christmas

[ferrisandripley]

Ferris has been a little constipated so we took him to the vets about a month ago, anyway he still wasn't right so we took him back today, the vet said to do a blood test so we did, just got the results. It points to liver problems, either infection or damaged at some point in his life. He is to go on antibiotics for 4 weeks and a special diet to see if that helps, if not a scan , and if not that  biopsy of the liver as the worse case, to find out exactly what is wrong with it. He tested the thyroid as well and that was fine, any one been through this??

advice please .

many thanks