Worn down by pet illness and dealing with vets

[Petownermisery]

Totally depressed really. I have 2 ragdoll cats. They are always ill. I did research the breed and knew there is a risk of heart issues but otherwise general consensus was they’re no sick prone than other cats.

Have pet insurance and also pet plan with vets4pets. Costs me a fortune. Like everyone else we are really struggling financially despite me and my DH working fulltime - we’re having to pay loads every month to help our twins with university costs.

Over Christmas my female cat had a respiratory infection. Lots of trips to vets including weeks of trying to get tablets down her twice a day. She is a ragdoll but hates being picked up she is according to the vets “spicy”. Couldnt claim on insurance as just under my excess.

Since then she has had chronic diarrhea, piles of it everyday. Vet couldn’t get blood out of her as she is “spicy” and blew her vein trying to do so. We have to force feed her a probiotic everyday which she hates and is now going feral running away from me as she associates me with trying to put stuff down her mouth.

Vets said they need to send a stool sample off which is about £470. My pet insurance said if vet fills in a form they can do a pre authorisation so I know whether they will cover it under my policy. Vets say yes they can do the form for admin fee of £32.

Take stool sample in and vets say no as claim has already started I have to pay upfront. End up having an argument at reception with them showing them the email from them saying pay admin fee and they will send off pre authorisation form. In the end they say “miscommunication” at their end. No apology nothing I fact they were exceptionally rude making me feel even worse about everything.

Cat is currently lying upstairs sneezing with a runny nose again,

I really can’t cope with it all. She’s been to the vets so many times now, last year it was for multiple eye infections where I was charged over £100 for a vet fee and an eye drop,

Her brother is always ill too, constantly throwing up.

I feel I do everything right, but only the best quality vet recommended food, given them heated blankets, paid thousands for a cat proof garden and my life is just miserable with them being constantly ill. I cannot afford all their illnesses and while I appreciate the vets is a business their fees are astronomical.

So depressed by it all. Everyday I am monitoring their food intake and whether they are eating - some days they barely eat, monitoring diarrhoea and cleaning up sick. All while dealing with the stress of work and having a family,

I feel for you, I don’t have any suggestions as to what could be wrong with your cats, I know and understand how you feel, it’s a constant battle of ‘I feel helpless not being able to help my cats’ alongside a ‘how much more am I going to have to pay and how’ as well as ‘why do I have to constantly fight the vets for decent service’
have you thought about changing vets? Or getting a second opinion?

in Dec 21 we adopted a 10 year old rescue Tuxedo, who’s owner had passed away, he sadly developed gastrointestinal lymphoma within 6 months, which cost us literally 5 months of back and forth and thousands at the vet to get diagnosed!
once diagnosed, he had chemo for 2 years, which was fine as he had a good quality of life, but even then the vets were sub-par!
eventually he developed pancreatitis, and then a sarcoma, at that point we had to put him down (in June 24) and honestly the most stressful part of all of this was the many many many calls, emails and battles I had with the vets!! So, I really do feel for you, and hopefully you have a better vets that you can take your cats to and get your two some treatment to help them. Vets can be crap and honestly was so drained at the end of the 2.5 years that our next two cats were kittens, as we just needed a rest from fighting with the vets for basic service.

They may have been closely interbred and are always going to have poor health. Probably kindest to put them to sleep. Can you contemplate nursing them for the next ten years or so?

I totally sympathise. I've had cats my entire life but our latest (I say latest, we've had him 10 years) is a rescue plagued with 'minor' health issues and destructive behaviours. It is exhausting and expensive. And apparently his main health issue, which is dental, is directly related to him being an abandoned rescue, which to be honest would put me off in the future.

Aside from sympathising, I'd agree with PPs who've suggested a second opinion. Google (or an MN search) can probably help here, and I'm unlikely to be the only one unsurprised to see which vet chain you're using along with the problems you're having.

People need to get a grip. I’ve got a cat in my spare room whose eye is hanging out like a burst grape and he’s going to be fine. If you can’t handle your ragdolls, there are specialist ragdoll rescues as well as more general ones. Surrender to rescue, ragdolls will be easy to rehome and if there were serious medical issues there are long term end of life fosters. Actually we had a ragdoll in whose owner wanted to euthanise because she didn’t get on with the dog! Luckily the vet called.

i thought the doctor’s advice about stuffing them with antibiotics was good. Let them live! And post photos.

Not helpful @Buffypaws

For giving medications, try Royal Canin Pill Assist. Not the cheapest but you get quite a few in the bag. Our cat loved them, she just thought she was getting a treat!

Has your vet tried doxycycline, we had to have two courses but it has cured my cats recurring respiratory infection. Not easy getting tablets into cats, breaking them up in cheese balls or squigy meat worked here.

The cats are three years old?! FGS and OP loves them.

You can get an antibiotic injection though it’s probably more expensive. Can you find an independent vet? Yours sounds shit! They aren’t getting to the bottom of anything. I’ve had elderly sick pets, it’s heartbreaking and expensive.

Could they be reinfecting eachother? I’d be tempted to put it all into ChatGPT and see what that suggests as a starting point. After three years you have nothing to lose.

You have my sympathy, we have a much-loved dog who has various health issues and it feels like my day revolves around him and his medication.
We had a horrendous time a couple of years ago when he needed over a dozen things administered at different times of the day, fortunately I work from home otherwise we couldn’t have coped with the schedule.
Now he’s on a twice-daily tablet and we tried everything to get him to swallow the bloody things, including the £10 a pack pill assist that the vet sold us which didn’t work at all. On a thread here someone suggested encasing the tablet in Arden Grange liver paste, it’s sold in Tesco, and suitable for cats as well as dogs, not exaggerating to say it saved my sanity.

Is there something in your house that is affecting them both like this? Something air bourne?

That sounds really tough for you. It is affecting you both mentally and financially. It must be hard for those poor little cats to be suffering so too. It’ll be hard to re-home them with all that vomiting and diarrhoea, and the large vet bills. As hard as it maybe, the best thing is to let them go peacefully to their final abode.

I can imagine how stressful this is for you. Have you tried a different vet? I too have a cat who won’t eat if I mix anything into her food - even crushed up treats. She can sense even a tiny grain of something and will refuse to eat it.
Have you looked at feeding balanced raw? That can often help with digestive issues. I have two with the opposite problem - one has stinky soft poops, the other solid/constipation.
Im a member of this group on Facebook not sure if there is a UK equivalent- Australia Raw Fed Cats.

For your cat with the eye issues have they looked at allergies? The rescue I adopted my cat from had a cat who got hayfever.

im skeptical of a vet who can’t get bloods - it feels like they don’t know how to handle scared cats. My girl had a dental a couple of years ago and when I picked her up they said she’d been biting everyone after the procedure (which is not like her at all) but they weren’t fussed about it at all and just said the poor baby was scared and suggested anxiety meds next time she has to have a procedure.
Just had her in the other week and this time she was booping everyone while high.

My experience with a similar breed was that vaccinations really set off respiratory/gastro events. We opted to go with indoor / catio only and stopped vaccines. We have never looked back. For us it was really stressful and expensive - like yours they were really poorly and we shelled out a fortunes.

Might be worth trying a good probiotic and going off all meds for a period of time to assess.

ALL vets we spoke to completely denied that the link of vaccinations might be the cause. To be clear, I am not anti Vax- all humans in the house are vaccinated. This was the only causal link I could identify.