B12 shots and wet food

OMG, Amen and Happy Days!! So much good has happened in the last few days that I couldn't be more thrilled!

The first positive event was that I managed to give Basti her first B12 shot without the vet present. The night before, I really felt the jitters of injecting her so to be on the safe side, I had emailed my vet (Malou) with  the last few questions. Malou is such an angel! She was so sure that everything would work out, that I felt confident enough to actually do it. Although things didn't exactly go as planned (halfway through the injection Basti started squirming and for a split second I had my doubts) I got the full amount of 1 ml into her body without too much of a fight and no broken needles. For the next hour or so, she avoided me but after that, she responded normally again.

Yesterday afternoon, while visiting the vet clinic to pick up some more Prednoral for Basti, Malou told me she had been telling other customers about the box I built for Basti. That really meant the world to me. In addition, the people at ibdkitties.net had been responding to my messages on Facebook and due to those conversations, last night I decided to try and feed Basti wet food. And she ate a whopping 56 grams (2 oz)! Plus, there seem to be no adverse effects (read: no diarrhea).

This morning she weighed 3470 grams...20 grams more than the last time, Hallelujah!  I'm crossing my fingers that this will continue and another possible relapse will be many months away...

In the mean time, I'm really disappointed in the homeopathic vet! Ten days after sending an email, I finally got a response at which point I figured that if he didn't care, neither did I. I also have been reading a Dutch article on the effects of kibble and high carbohydrate content in cat food. The article didn't just describe what happened, but also how it happened. The short version of the story is that unlike humans, a cat's liver cannot produce a particular enzyme called glucokinase to process large quantities of carbohydrates after a meal. This because carbs are not in their natural diet. They use a different enzyme to process smaller amounts during the day. This means that cats on kibble get fluctuating blood sugar levels when eating larges amounts of carbs. The suggestion that Basti would do well on diet kibble even higher in carbs than regular kibble, is nonsense. Basti has already proven that by starting to eat wet food.

My advise to all of the 'owners' of an IBD cat; read up on the disease and be aware that whatever your vet tells you to do, it's not always the right thing for your cat!

B12 shots

Today, my own vet came to the house to administer another round of cobalamin or B12 vitamin for Basti. She also left a vial for the next round, 3 weeks from now so I'm happy to say she kept her word; I can do it myself!

I mentioned the dietary changes I had made to Basti's food and she mentioned that Hill's Science Plan (the food she's currently on) also has a diet version. I checked: the amount of fiber doesn't come close to what Vet Concept has. The only good thing is that Hill's food doesn't contain potatoes, nor does it contain yeast. I recently read  that feeding potatoes to an IBD cat isn't such a good idea anyway; the complex sugars of potatoes feed the 'bad bacteria' (whatever they may be) in the gut of the cat. Then again, the probiotics I'm feeding the cat on advice of the holistic vet contains dextrose. How do I explain to my vets I really don't want sugars?!?

Not in the box, but on top of the box...

I must admit however, that she's 3,4 kg at this point (the vet weighed her today) which means she gained a whopping 150 grams in the last few weeks! Whether that's due to any dietary changes however, remains the question. Her coat is softer and she's been very cuddly the last few weeks...She's never been a lapcat but she's been asking to sit in my lap!

The last few days I've seen a gradual decline in eating but the vet confirmed my belief: after 3 weeks, the B12 shots wear off and you see the results immediately...her food intake also goes down. Let's see if the amount of food she consumes per day goes up again after the shot; if it does, than that's how we can keep her at a decent weight. If it doesn't, it's back to messing with food.

Second opinion revised

I got the package that the vet had sent with the Vet Concept food, the probiotics and the homeopathic pills. Basti was in a good mood, she was eating and when I mixed the new food in with her old food, she literally fished the new food out of her bowl and left her old food. I was ecstatic! Took out the old food, gave her a full bowl of new food and she ate that too. Of course, at this point, I went overboard and gave her the probiotics sprinkled over her new food. She ate it but wasn't happy with it.

Basti is being pensive...

The next day, I gave her the new food and she refused. I kept trying until the middle of the afternoon and then I had to cave; I put her back on her old food which she happily ate again. 

In the days that followed, I managed to hand-feed her the Vet Concept at about 10 grams a day and only fed her the probiotics on her old kibble. Additionally, I would wait until she had eaten at least 50 grams before putting the probiotics on her food; if she decided not to eat, at least it wouldn't hurt her as far as calories were concerned. 

In the mean time, I spoke to the vet tech a second time and mentioned what had happened. She said she'd discuss it with the vet and called me back afterwards. Not happy with the response: keep trying to feed her the new food. There have been mails back and forth since then but without seeing me or my cat, I get the feeling it's all very 'passive'...like they don't really care. I prefer my own vet.