Cat being sick

Hi, hope you can help. My mum and dad are both in hospital and currently looking after misty (female cat). She started being sick and not drinking water and we have been to the vets 3 times in about 2 weeks. They have carried out scans and could not find anything wrong, just said to change her diet incase was a pancritis. We have been told on the 1st occasion to change to dry food, which she would not eat, then 2 types of low fat wet food, she picked at then left and then plain chicken or tuna. The issue is she might eat a mouthful then that is eat.   When she is sick it is yellow/orange color which suggests bile and she will drink water, sometimes after water or eating some small food she is sick within an hour or 2, other times it can be 6 hours plus. Taking her to the vets gets her very distressed so trying to avoid that again if I can. Any help or advice would be great, thanks

Hello.  I wonder if you can call your vet and ask for over the phone triage to establish how soon you need an appointment.  The concern, as you have likely understood, is that continues vomit and lack of fluid intake will result in dehydration, which affects cats rather quickly - they don't need to lose much fluid for their kidneys to be at risk.  There are two components to sickness cases; one is establishing the cause, but the other is assessing your cats' hydration levels, and this is important.

Your vet may well want to do, or talk you through, an urgent review of your cats' hydration.   As far as I understand it, there are blood tests available for pancreatitis now that should help with a diagnosis over the course of a day or three - hopefully, from what you've said, this is pending.  Your vet will have other concerns - preventing damage caused by stomach contents moving up the throat, reducing sickness (which does make a cat feel lousy) and potentially treating abdominal pain, which is often underestimated as a concern and may be another cause of the lethargy.   I find that good questions for your vet include, What is left that could be causing this?  Is this the best we can do to relieve the symptoms?  What is your plan for if things are not improving?  Are there any options left?  And even, Is there a medical specialist who could give an opinion about this case?   A specialist cat clinic may help, with no dogs, quieter wards and high attention to cats' pastoral needs and so on.  Either way, it sounds as though your cat is uncomfortable and although nobody likes going to the doctors or being hospitalised, it may prove very necessary in order for your girl to get appropriate treatment.

Thinking about this, I have known vets to offer intravenous fluids at home, but this is difficult as it really does require trained nursing staff.  The bottom line is that if your cat is dehydrated, intravenous fluids are probably needed to protect the kidneys. As you might guess, it can be life threatening not to receive them.  However, I do hear that the hospital is potentially a scary place for a cat.  Your vet, who knows the case, will help you to prioritise and balance these conflicting needs.

Frustratingly, there may be a chicken and egg situation here; chronic stress does of course increase the long-term likelihood of pancreatitis.  Perhaps you and your vet, with or without a specialist, could talk things over without the patient present until the point that any actual examinations are needed?  In some cases, this can prove useful to consider.  However, depending when you and your cat were last seen, addressing any potential risk through the hydration levels may well important at this stage and pancreatitis care can be a complex balancing act.