How long before a cat can eat/drink following intestinal blockage aurgery?

For background, I am a volunteer at a local and small cat shelter in a Middle Eastern country. Our resources are very basic unfortunately, and the whole veterinary medicine field in the country is years behind Europe or the USA. We work with several vets to treat the sick cats, and many of us have undergone what could be considered a first aid class, but for cats, so we know how to give injections and administer IV fluids for instance. So yesterday, we got a stray cat that had an intestinal blockage surgery. The vet told me that a bone was completely blocking his small intestines, and before the operation he was suffering from repeated vomiting and complete lack of appetite. According to the vet, his condition is not yet stable. He is a bit dehydrated, and so he needs to be put on re-hydration plan. Also, his intestines were affected by the blockage - the part after the blockage were swollen and, if I understood correctly, there was some necrosis in the tissues. All in all, his prognosis is guarded at best, and he needs deep care. However, the part that baffled was the recovery plan put by the vet. Basically, the vet told me that for the first 3-4 days he should never eat or drink anything, and will be put solely on intravenous fluids. From day 4 onward he could start to drink water again, but no food at all. In the second week, soups could be introduced. Only after 2 weeks could he start to eat some food, and only extremely wet food. Finally, after about 20 days he can resume eating normally. Moreover, he warned me that if he broke any step of this plan, such as drinking some water today, or eating even a nibble of food before 2 weeks, he could die in no time. So my question: Is the recovery plan reasonable? Is the vet overly cautions? How could a cat survive on nothing but water for a couple of weeks? Is eating or drinking after a couple of days this dangerous? Is not the plan going destroy his liver? Also, I made several searches on the internet and found nothing that remotely resembles this plan. On the contrary, the English resources I read merely said that a cat can eat and drink after 3 days, but gradually, and the food should be easily digestible. Any help is really appreciated.

Hello and thankyou for this difficult question.  Difficult because, the recommendation is at odds with what I understand to be normal UK practise.  I am no gut surgeon myself, but usually we would encourage cats to drink and even eat very soft food relatively early - within the first couple of days - on the basis that food and water directly stimulate the gut lining, encourage gut movement, and help to nourish enterocytes (gut cells).  There is a recent article supporting this in the Veterinary Times dated within the last year, although it is a referenced overview- I cannot access the reference article and I am unable to find anything out about the qualifications of Samatha Woods, the writer - I will try to research and keep you posted.  I found no reccommendations for starving for long periods.  However I am in no position to give you a second opinion, having never seen the patient or even read the clinical notes.  I therefore can only reccommend that you ask your vet for more information about what they are basing the decision on - or seek a second opinion.  Certainly in the UK, I would reccommend that second opinions are sought openly / transparently, through the vet by means of speaking to a specialist - vets pride themselves on getting things 'right' and usually appreciate it if they can improve their practise.  However, I know little of the clinical culture where you are.  I hope that sonething here helps a little.

Thanks a lot, Dr. Liz. I really appreciate you taking the time to write the reply. It means a lot. As for the cat, actually, your response is the reason why I wrote to you in the first place. I too did not found any veterinarian references that advocated such a plan. I even reviewed some resources on human medicine, and again, the recommendations were starkly different. They all agreed on how eating and drinking promote healing and how patients can resume these activities, even post surgeries like resectomy. Nevertheless, I am going to rediscuss this with vet once more today, and will definitely seek a second opinion. Unfortunately, however, the clinical culture here is kind of toxic. Vets, and physicians in general, do not like it when the patients express concerns over treatment plans, and many view second opinions as a personal insult. The cat is doing fine today. We managed to rehydrate him with IV fluids over the past 2 days, and his skin is now fully elastic, while his gums are wet again. He even expressed a desire to play and eat food, but we did not give him any yet. I will definitely introduce some water to him today and see how he will respond. Thanks a lot again, and if you managed to get any other useful resources or some info from a gut surgeon you know, withen the bounds of what is legal of course, then please do not hesitate to share it with me.