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Of Cats, Garlic, Onions, and Death


Paladox

Tentacle God
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I had to euthanize my precious 3 year old manx cat earlier this month. Worst day ever.

He's had constipation problems his whole life, which meant having to take him to the vet every 6 months or so for enemas.
Several months ago, after we brought him home, we put him on a strict wet food only diet.
He absolutely LOVED the crunchy stuff, but didn't drink enough. We thought this would be the best solution.

A few weeks earlier we had to take him, again, for constipation. He had also had the runs too, and had lost a lot of weight.
I had hoped the vet would notice if anything else was wrong. We informed him of all the symptoms, even mentioning the possibility of something caught in his intestines.
He was really bad to get plastic stuff and chew it up. Even stole one of those baloney rings from Dad and, might have eaten some of it before he got it away from him. >.<
But they just gave him the usual enema and sent him home. I guess they missed the whole kidneys failing thing...

Skip forward to this month, and the little guy is hardly eating, just mostly drinking the juice from food.
He's losing even more weight, and we have to go out and buy him some hard food because he gags at wet food.
AND, he started having seizures. We weren't sure if one of his siblings had tried to kill him during the first one, so we weren't sure about it.
We definitely knew something was up when he had the 2nd one. he could hardly move. So we took him to the vet the next day.

So the vet said that he was anemic AND uremic (which, I've learned, is basically a more severe form of anemia).
He only offered to either put him on anti-seizure medicine and send us home with him, or keep him for observation.
Which would, of course, do nothing for his pain. So.. I decided it would be best for him to be euthanized.
Hardest thing I've ever had to do. >.<

So I've noticed that turkey snack sticks have garlic powder in them. Is the amount enough to hurt a cat?
I also just read that some dog treats have garlic powder in them, and my cat was REALLY bad to climb the shelves, steal the bag, tear it open, and eat who knows what.
I'm not even sure he managed to eat any. Plus there's his 4 siblings (who all seem fine by the way, 3 having normal tails and one having just enough of a tail to not have problems pooping).

I'm just wondering if this stuff would have had enough garlic/onion in it to cause such a sudden onset of kidney failure?
But I've also read that megacolon can result in toxins overwhelming the kidneys over a longer period of time.
He was on steroids and stool softeners for most of his life too. We ended the steroids when he was about 2 years old, because they made him twitch while sleeping, and he was still getting constipated anyway.

I've read that most cats with his problems (no tail, constipation) only live to be about 1 year old. I guess I'm lucky we had him as long as we did.
Most precious animal I've ever known. I would have given him one of my own kidneys if I could.
 
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