Sunday, June 7, 2009

Constipation

Really san..you should just have called the hospital..tsk...


I was really concerned and anxious for Megat as he had tried to go to the toilet twice today and was not successful at the 'poo' business. I followed him the 2nd time he tried and saw him trying vainly to poo. I had given him some pumpkin for dinner and he ate some of it. Actually this week he was not very eager at eating dinner at all. So I went to the web to read up on ts and saw Online vet. of course, always curious, I asked my question and after 5 minutes got an answer. Of course I didn't have to honour my promise to pay the vet through paypal but I thought I should as she had ansered the question (at least I hoped it was so and the question was not naswered by some robots!)

PS: Eversince I gave him pumpkin, he has been very regular and it was today that I noticed he was not going regularly! I immediately thought of that this might be one of the side effects of the treatment. :(

I thought I should post the answer since I had bought it.


My question


My cat has not been able to poo the whole of today. he tried twice but was unsucessful. he is 13 years old and has just had Vincristine IV on tuesday 020609 and 1.5 tablets of pendnisone 5mg. Can I give him anything to help him with this constipation? I gave him some pumpkin but it didnt help him.


The answer

Hi,
Oftentimes milk will be a natural laxative in cats. I would try giving him several tablespoons of milk to see if that will help soften his stool. I don't generally find that increasing the fiber in a cat's diet helps with constipation, so I wouldn't give any more of the pumpkin. Sometimes giving a hairball medication, like laxatone or petromalt, can help stool "slide" easier.

The more liquid you can get in your cat, the better. If he likes canned food, I would feed him that and actually mix a little more water in it to make it soupier. If he likes tuna, I recommend making "tuna cubes"--1 can tuna in a blender full of water. Mix well, then freeze as ice cubes. Give several cubes each day. Diluted low-sodium chicken broth is also good.

If the constipation doesn't resolve on its own in a day or two, I would take your cat to your regular vet. He may need an enema to get rid of really hard stool. Then your vet can prescribe something like lactulose as a stool softener for long-term use, if needed.

Good luck!
Dr. Scarlett
Dr. Scarlett (Online) -- Cat Veterinarian -- 100% Positive Feedback on 146 Cat Veterinary Accepts
I am a practicing small animal veterinarian with 14 years experience.


Anyway megat had a few licks of milk (before I went online of course) and now he is already in his night cage. I had always made his wet food dinner more soupy right after he had to have the sub qs. Maybe I would try the tuna ice cubes. :)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Megat's on Sub-Q? That's fluid. I give my cat 1 dessp mix of duphalac(lactulose)/pumpkin/papaya daily. Vet said duphalac softens the stool, how much to give is the difficult part. I give Laxatone too. My cat licks melted ice-cream (milk) readily. i use Babylax (available at pharmacy) at the rear end abt 2x a wk. Lastly, when when all else fails, there's enema which i hate to use on my cat. The China-made enema at a*** is pretty powerful ;(
BTW, my cat's constipation is kinda solved when we squeezed rear end as instructed by vet & got anal sac fluid in face. This is not common though.

KXBC said...

How about Megat on a completely wet food diet? And adding water (not too much) will help increase his water intake too.

CC is on 100% wet food diet with added water. He does not even bother drinking from the bowl. And he is well hydrated (pinch test).