Please help/read, you may save my cat.
Hello, I am at my wits' end here and feel like I am fighting tooth and nail for my poor kitty and have not been able to see any results or help for her.
First things first.
Kitty’s name is Skittles
She is 10 years old
4.6 pounds.
Neutered/Fixed
Domestic Shorthair
History: A completely healthy normal cat for 10 years not a single issue, she was always a smaller cat around 7lbs at her max weight, she never had a big desire for food, would eat a treat once in a while if coaxed but otherwise ate her fill of food from her bowl and then left it, never tried to get people food or anything otherwise, she was playful, happy, and liked to cuddle occasionally when she wasn’t off doing her own thing in the house.
I live in Ohio.
Test results can be found attached: https://limewire.com/d/sLDeW#xM1dyIv076 (viewable without download)
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Now that the intro is done, my cat has been having a really, really rough year, earlier this year skittles was experiencing a bit of hair loss on her back, nothing crazy, just some thinning of her hair - being extra cautious I brought her to a vet for this, the vet made the assumption it was due to allergies as there was no mites/fleas ect that could be causing it and opted for a Depo Steriod shot (Depo-Medrol) is my assumption. I agreed, and it was given to her a little bit after skittles started behaving very weird, and was licking random surfaces, and walking around the house acting hungry, which was a brand new thing that she never did before, we assumed “Oh cause the steroid” and just made sure more food was out for her.
This persisted for a bit however, and she continued to lick random things and act in a manner that was off to what she typically does, I brought her to the vet again where she was diagnosed with kitty diabetes.
This began months of panicking and researching feline diabetes, I got a glucose monitor, tested her regularly, created a chart of her blood sugar levels, and began to provide her with a medicine that was prescribed, called glipizide.
After learning a lot about the disease and talking to communities while figuring out this journey I noticed something very off about her levels, it wasn’t reacting in a way glipzide would control her sugars or should be behaving (it was going far too low), there was some scrutiny at this point if she ever truly had diabetes.
I was prompted to get a second opinion when I posed about my observations to the group I was in, as they found it very odd as well, so I did, her new vet had concerns as well and wanted me to cold turkey the medication and keep tracking her and see what happens.
We did this and it lead to the discovery that Skittles does not have diabetes, and it was believed that instead it was steroid induced and that she would be fine.
I still tested her quite a bit after that though to make sure it stayed normal and we never had a issue with it again.
I would have loved for this to be the end of the story and we lived happily ever after, but sadly, Skittles a month or two after, developed dirrhea, we hoped it would go away and was just a upset stomach but it continued so we booked another vet appointment.
She was given treatments early on such as sucralfate, fortiflora, subcuaneous fluids, ect.
Nothing helped.
A few months later the vet wrote it off as Chronic Diarrhea, skittles weight went from 7.40 lb to 7.00 lb.
Her glucose remained stable through this period and has throughout till now.
We kept running tests, trying steroids, probiotics, food changes, diet changes, everything failed to treat Skittles.
Fecal parasite and Giardia was negative, eventually skittles hit 5.8 pounds, diagnosis changed to Chronic Enteropathy,, Spec fPL became consistent with pancreatitis and B12 and Cobalamin was profoundly low.
This now became Chronic Enteropathy + B12 Deficeiency + Evidence of pancreatitis + extreme weight loss.
This occurred with vomit at times, and mainly, she would go to the bathroom and immediately come out and throwup, this has happened a few times and I do not know if it has any correlation.
There was a small window of hope though, I finally decided to buy FMT feline pills (fecal matter transplant) from a company I found and switched skittles from prescription hydrolyzed food, to novel diet of Venison. This went extremely well and completely resolved her diarrhea and her stool was completely normal as of a few months ago (3ish)
This turnaround was great, skittles started to be like herself again but through all of this the only thing that never changed was her ravenous hunger and food seeking behavior which she never exhibited before all of this sickness.
And then, disaster hit again, even though she is acting starved, she refused to eat her venison food, I brought her back to the vet, levels were still wonky with her blood test, and we were advised to try yet another diet.
This is where we are now, skittles is now at 4.6 pounds, and is acting very ill at this point, shes a bit lousey laying around and not like herself, she sits in a pharo pose that looks a bit like her stomach is upset, and her diarrhea is persistent once more.
I don’t know what to do, I have spent in total over 5000$ in vet bills at this point, trying multiple vets to get a diagnosis.
Skittles was doing so good again and I thought we were out of the woods and here we are again, please, if you have any information that might save my cat let me know.
Her weight trend was 7.40 -> 7.00 -> 5.80 -> 6.50 and now 4.6.
So she showed signs she can get better and get weight back on her and be herself again but everything is just falling apart.