World’s most expensive poo!

[TastingTheRainbow]

Ended up at the vet with one of the cats today, not been herself the last few days and refusing food. Today she was refusing water and treats too so thought best her checked out.

1 consultation, round of blood tests and ultrasound and the verdict is she’s constipated!

£482 and an enema later she’s more like herself again.

Has she got the record of world’s most expensive poo or can anyone beat that.

I spend a min of £30 on litter per week. That’s £1560 per year, which is quite expensive I think!

Wow, that's expensive.

I wish vets could give something like an enema a try before they jump to expensive tests.

In Tobias's case, an enema would be an expensive test! He needs to be at least sedated and even completely knocked out for a blood test let alone anything more than that.

Slightly surprised they didn't find the blockage by palpation though, seeing as at my vets they can tell if there's been any progress in the bowel lining thickening, or whether he has anything in his bladder.

Nope. We had one of those... one sedation, various ultrasounds and laxatives and a very unhappy kitten later we were down £950. Thank heavens for Petplan! And that he's not got constipated again...

They could feel a blockage by palpation but said without the ultrasound she couldn’t be sure it’s faeces and not an abnormal growth.

Think we might be heading there. After the enema working well the first day she now seems to be struggling again. She’s tried to poo a few times and nothing happening. She’s had her lactose today but if not passed anything further by the morning we are going back. They said she will likely need sedation and manual extraction then. Sadly no insurance, we cancelled it once she turned 8 as the premiums became too expensive to be worth it. She’s almost 10 so we’ve still saved money not having it to be fair.

Oh poor thing! Hope they get it fixed.

We kept the insurance on our old cats despite it being eyewatering. Now they're both hyperthyroid, and I'm extremely glad we did keep the insurance as the (frequent) blood tests are £200 a pop plus the meds! Each!

Well she’s in the vets having manual extraction now. £800. So now we’re on £1200+ for constipation.

That would still be cheaper than what I was quoted. They wanted £160 a month for her premium and the excess was 20% of the bill. As soon as she turned 8 it went crazy. She’s a pedigree breed so not sure if that affects the premium but would have thought the fact she only has secure outdoor access would mean she was lower risk.

Ah. Our old ones are moggies and so cheaper. I dread what will happen to the premium for the young one, who is a GCCF maine coon and already (at 3) on the same premium as the older ones.

Mine is a Ragdoll, she will be 10 in April but still looks young except for when she’s ill like recently. This was taken before I took her back to the vets so she looks very uncomfortable, poor girl.

Awww the poor girl. Hope she's on the mend very soon.

Not a cat but I once paid a 7k bill for my horse who couldn't poo so she had to have an emergency operation (colic surgery)

I thought this was going to be a thread about civet cat poo.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopi_luwak

Woah I had no idea pedigree cats were so expensive to insure! My 15yo moggy is £19 and 7yo Savannah is £12. Maybe they will hike up the Savannah’s cost next year. I hope your pretty ragdoll is feeling better soon after she’s been unblocked

I can beat it, in that my old cat for about 6 years had to have numerous enemas due to constipation costing about the same as you. Including one at the animal hospital over a bank holiday. Towards the end she was having one every 6 months or so as she had developed mega colon. Thank god for Tesco Pet Insurance who paid out every penny!
Sadly it came to quality of life for her 😕

£19! Wow, that’s brilliant for the age of your cat, we were paying £58 a month until they hiked it up once she turned 8.

I've had a couple of cats with constipation issues (one v elderly, and one just naturally a bit sluggish, I think).

You can add a tsp or two of plain tinned pumpkin to their meals and it really helps. Plus they seem to like the taste. You can do this on an ongoing basis, too, for prevention.

Pumpkin isn't so great for cats with renal problems. So for them you can use Protexin Pro-fibre pellets. I leave about 6-8 pellets to soak with a bit of water, and mix the resulting mush in with their wet food. One canister lasts forever because you don't need many pellets for each meal. You can do this on an ongoing basis, too.

(Both of these approaches are assuming that your cat has wet food and not just dry food. Not sure what you do if they only have dry food. My cats don't seem to like the Protexin pellets dry - they somehow manage to eat around them. Little furry constipated bastards.)

Mine wasn't vet related. When she was a kitten, about 6 months old, she would try and get me up all night long (she still does, to an extent). About 5am the shouting started so I stuck my head under the duvet. She jumped on me, then peed on me.
Can't fault the logic, the feel of urine seeping through my (new) duvet and onto me got me out of bed sharpish.

Sadly no washing machine big enough to wash a duvet and by the time I got to a laundrette, it would've dried/been hard to remove. And the very expensive mattress topper was ruined too. That one pee cost me about £340.

Ps - my vet told me to feed my cat weetabix to stop constipation - I do wonder sometimes if vets actually know cats at all. (she never had constipation anyway!). Good luck with your girl OP. Hope all ends ok.

Just picked her up and she’s a lot brighter already. The x-ray is shocking, she was never clearing that on her own poor girl!

She is on liquid food and Lactulose over the weekend and back on Monday for a check up to determine ongoing plan, they suspect megacolon has led to this level of constipation unfortunately.

She’s looking much brighter already and having cuddles feeling sorry for herself.

That x-ray is amazing! Hope you got to keep it as a souvenir 😄

I took a photo of it so yes I can keep it. It’s crazy looking how much poo there was stuck inside her!

It looks like stones 😱

I know poor girl, they said it was severely compacted and solid. No wonder she was so unwell. She’s like a different cat today! She’s eating, she’s walking around, it’s amazing! She still hasn’t had a poo yet but it’s early days, never thought I’d be hovering round a cat hoping she poos. She’s on laxatives for life now due to the severity of it as they suspect she has megacolon but we will find out for sure on Monday when she has her checkup.

Ouch! But what a lovely cat and good owner.
I’m afraid I have no idea about my cat’s poos because I am not involved. We back on to a small river and he spends a lot of time down there so I assume he goes around there on the riverbank. Never seen him digging in the back garden.
Something to look out for if he’s ever ill or off his food.