Cleo’s mouth pain and her kidney disease

Cleo has been having mouth pain for sometime now.  It started a few weeks back, but it wasn’t frequent. Since she is very hard to handle, I’ve decided to put off taking her to the vet’s until it is absolutely necessary. She is stressed in the car as well.

Of all our cats, Cleo is the hardest to handle and it had always been impossible to pill her or open her mouth to do anything even though she has been with us for more than 14 years now. Cleo has somehow retained her defensive nature. It is easier to handle a stray than Cleo.

So, regarding her mouth pain, she seems to be in pain when she eats. She would be eating and suddenly, she would give a jerk and run away. I’ve seen this same behaviour in Vincent before, so when it got more frequent, I knew a vet’s visit would be inevitable. I’ve tried Orozyme as well. It helped a little and surprisingly, Cleo seemed to like Orozyme. Too bad it only helped a little.

So I took her for a check-up today.

It’s her top molars. There is tartar and it is also possible that her gums have receded. Since she is so hard to handle, the vet gave her an antibiotic injection (Convenia) which would last for 2 weeks and an anti-inflammatory injection (Vetacortyl). There’s also transdermal Tramadol for the pain. The vet said we could try and postpone the scaling and extraction until a few weeks but it would still have to be done. Since it has to be done sooner or later, we decided to get it done next week.

Meanwhile, Cleo’s blood test is also due. She has been a kidney patient for two years now, with twice-weekly subcut. We’ve managed to maintain it for more than two years with subcut alone. But we know that kidney disease is progressive, so again, it will deteriorate with age. The vet palpated her kidneys and one kidney is smaller than the other. There is some shrinkage and the shape is irregular. Her kidney readings also have to be checked for the dental procedure.

The blood test shows that Cleo’s creatine and urea readings have increased from last year, which is expected. Cleo is already 14 years plus, coming to 15 years old next February. The vet expected the readings to be worse, actually, judging from the smell of her breath. Her creatine is 273 and urea is 18.9, which isn’t surprising. To address this, her subcut sessions will be increased to three times a week now or alternate days. Even for her subcut, two persons is needed to handle her.

The vet suggested we change her diet to a renal one and there is also a supplement called Renal N to address the creatinine level. We will try with the diet and increased subcut first, do the dental next week and take it one day at a time.

While there are many things that can be done to help with the kidney disease, it is Cleo’s defensive and suspicious nature that make it very challenging. I’ve dealt with two kidney patients before this, Vincent and Pole, and both required very different treatments based on their needs and temperament. Cleo will be different as well. The priority would be to keep her as comfortable as possible and not to stress her out by doing too much.

The only thing that is bothering her now is the mouth pain when she eats, so we will address that first.