We are under the care of a veterinarian
37 y/o, access to an Emergency vet
I have a 13-year-old neutered male cat. Back in February, he started acting strangely—he would come up to me and yowl, which was very unlike him. We took him to the vet, and he wasn’t doing well- his bilirubin and ALT were high, ultrasound shows dilation of the biliary system. Bilirubin at its highest was 16 with an alt of over 800.
He has a history of a urinary blockage and had surgery for that in 2020. No evidence that this is the case now
We ended up taking him to the emergency vet. There was no blockage this time, but they suspected hepatic lipidosis since he hadn’t eaten at all for over 24 hours, which is very unusual for him (he was about 14 lbs at the time). He is now around 9.9lbs.
Since then, we’ve tried everything. He’s been on a chemo drug that we stopped shortly after. he has mostly been on daily prednisolone, and we clean his E-tube site multiple times a day. With just the prednisolone he has a bilirubin of 12 now . Despite that, about every 1–2 weeks he develops a pretty severe abscess at the feeding tube site which began about 2 months after the e tube was placed.
ER vet has given him antibiotic injections and meds so his bilirubin was down to 12.. but …Today the discharge was mostly bloody when typically it’s a yellow/green that we have seen in the past, and I’m starting to feel really concerned about the treatment , let alone his quality of life.
I am also concerned that this infection could spread- our ER vet was slightly concerned about prescribing him the abx even after the swab came back positive for two pretty abx resistant infections.
Just looking for any possible advise or info to help our poor guy …if possible.