Medical Advances And Cholangiohepatits

Science and Medicine advance rapidly. If fact, the American Dental Association, describes the advancement of dentistry in humans now as "daily." I graduated from veterinary college almost twenty five years ago, in 1985. I thought medical science was really advanced then! Fortunately for us and our pets though, advancements continue to come.

Axioms that described some of the lack of veterinary medical knowledge three decades ago included, "Sick Sheep Seldom Survive," and "a yellow cat is a dead cat." I can honestly say that four word axiom encompasses my entire knowledge of medicine in sheep. (Good thing they were never a part of my patient base.) Sheep and farm animals are their own specialty now and each veterinarian has knowledge that mostly encompasses their personal interests.

My interest has always been cat specialty practice, so I know the most about cats. I do know a great deal about horses and birds too, but those animals did not gather my interest the way cats do. I have also had people wonder how I ever kept busy just seeing cats. We were overwhelmed with business and I had five veterinary hospitals devoted to just seeing cats.

So, I learned that a "yellow cat," that is a jaundiced cat, can survive and do well, and I am glad many people came to me for a second opinion when they were otherwise given a hopeless prognosis. My first really close experience with jaundice and liver disease was actually with one of my veterinary college roommates. He got jaundice after getting an infection in his liver. He looked ghoulish with glowing yellowish green eyes and yellow skin. It made me realize where many of the spooky stories came from in antiquity.

My roommate survived, so I figured cats must be able to survive liver disease too. I learned that three diseases dominate liver disease in cats, but that many other toxins and parasites can induce liver disease too. They are Cholangiohepatits, or infection or inflammation in the liver, Hepatic Lipidosis, or fatty infiltration of the liver, and Cancers of the liver, usually a lymphoma or lymphosarcoma type of cancer in the liver tissues.

The liver also can have shunts that cause Hepatic Encephalopathy, a brain affect that follows after eating a meal. This condition is treated by surgical ligation of the shunts, or feeding a restricted protein diet. The other liver diseases are treated with fluid therapy, hand feeding, antibiotics and anti-inflamatory drugs, like prednisilone. With a few days of therapy, the cats with cholangiohepatitis or hepatic lipidosis can often times be sent home. If they have liver cancer though, their chances of making it are slim.

I'm glad to be a part of an advancing era of medical science. It sure beats the old days when an entire species of animals, like sheep, where written off as goners before ever being given a chance to survive.

Dr. Doug Ikeler http://www.drdougikeler.com/

Thank you Yvonne Ashmore for the cat photos.

Cat Tails, Or Is That Cat Tales? The Story Of High-Rise Syndrome.

Cats are truly one of the hardiest creatures on the planet. That's probably why there are so many species of cats and have been for millions of years. When we studied species survival in evolutionary biology in college, the one characteristic of the best surviving species was it's ability to move fast! Good examples were horses, cockroaches, and cats. The fastest land animal is the cheetah, who haved been clocked running seventy miles per hour. Anyone who has ever seen a scared cat run up a tree will agree that cats really are fast!
The other thing cats are is agile. The theory is correct that cats can right themselves to land on their feet when they fall, if they have enough time. They use their body and their tail to twist "in their skin" to a feet down position. There is a traumatic disease in cats known as High Rise Syndrome and it came out of New York City as so many cats there fall from balconies. You may wonder why cats fall from balconies in the first place. It is because cats like a high vantage point perch, like a balcony, and also because their focus on prey is so intent that they become distracted. A bird or bug flying by can send a cat into mid-air. The results from high rise syndrome studies show an interesting capacity in a cat's ability for survival.
From one to five stories up, cats usually live through the fall and only get minor injuries. From six to ten stories up, cats get the most injuries, including broken bones, and trauma that results in death. From eleven stories up and higher, cats actually start doing better again and are more likely to survive the fall. The reason is they have time to maneuver themselves into a superman-like position to maximize wind resistance and to have their whole body take the impact, and not just their legs. Such a strategy gives the cat a real chance for a high fall survival.
A note about the cat tails, is that that body part seems to get injured frequently. It gets bitten as they try to run away from rivals. It gets caught in car motor fan belts, and it gets slammed in doors. During my veterinary career, cat tail amputations were common. It is easy to amputate and often times has to be because their is no way to save it. The tail gets crunched and degloved so easily, and once the skin or circulation is gone, there is no getting the dead tail to heal. For all the good a tail does a cat, them seem though, to do delightfully well without it. Cats truly are amazing!
Also, I would like to welcome my cousin Kristal Oz to the blogging world and encourage you to visit her web site called "The Wizard Of Paws By Kristal Oz" for "Pawsitive Helpful Hints" for your pets! http://www.wizardofpaws.blogspot.com/
Dr. Doug Ikeler http://www.drdougikeler.com/

Those Amazing Cat Eyes

One of the most amazing things I have ever seen my cat "Bunny" do is catch a fly in mid-air with his two paws. Bunny is in the picture to the right. His fly catching feat is impressive enough for any cat, but Bunny is also cross-eyed and has chronically inflamed third eyelids.

I have often wondered what Bunny sees because he certainly sees double as I notice him looking at me from side to side, wondering which of me is the real one. Another impressive cat feat I saw was one of our hospital cats getting a look in his eye about something he wanted outside the hospital. His focus was unwavering and as soon as a client opened the door, Marbles shot out and caught a baby squirrel fifteen feet up in a tree. We were able to get the squirrel away from him and nurse it back to health luckily.

Cats have large eyes for their body size and are known for their night vision and nocturnal hunting. Large eyes gather more light, but also come with the defect of being more difficult to focus. Cats and Owls can see prey perfectly far away, but they almost can't find it when it is right at their feet.

The cat's pupil is vertical and slit shaped and can open very broadly to let in a maximum amount of light that allows them to see clearly in eight times dimmer light than we can see in. The cat's eye lens is also bigger, and can focus more light onto their retinas, but the bigger lens makes closeup focusing more difficult. The cat's retinas are larger too and have light sensitive cones everywhere on the retinas, with no cone-only areas like we have that give us fine color vision. A person can distinguish over two million color variations.

Consequently, cats have great night vision, but they would qualify as color blind in the same way that color-blind people have difficulty differentiating certain colors from one another. Greens and blues and reds and yellows blend into similar color perceptions for the cat like they do in color blind people.

The tapetum lucidum is a reflective surface behind the retina that bounces light back to the retina for another exposure to the rods and cones. This effectively doubles the amount of light exposure to the retinas and gives cats that glowing eyes in the dark appearance when a light is flashed on them.

If a cat went in for eye glasses testing, their vision would be an average 20/100, on our scale of 20/20 as they are very far-sighted, and again have poor close-up vision. Other interesting facts about cat eyes are that they have a 200 degree field of vision, because of the binocular integration of their eyes, and they have a protective third eyelid, the nictitating membrane, that covers the whole eye on the inside when they are fighting and attacking prey or acting defensively. Bunny's third eyelids are always half way up as you can see in the photo. The third eyelids being up can also be an indication of illness in your cat, so see your veterinarian immediately if your cat's third eyelids are up.

White cats with blue eyes are genetically deaf seven percent of the time. The old wives tale is that all white cats with blue eyes are deaf, but it only occurs with the double recessive gene phenotype, which is one in sixteen of the bunch. Lastly, when a cat blinks at you, it is sending you a kiss. Their blink says they like you, so look for those sleepy eyed cat blinks to know if your kitty truly loves and appreciates you.

Dr. Doug Ikeler http://www.ikelerbooks.com/

Hairballs In Cats. Those Pesky Trichobezoars.

Nothing matches the early hours experience of getting out of bed in the middle of the night and stepping barefooted onto a squishy, slimy, freshly hacked up hairball, left by your cat so conveniently close to your bed! Cats groom themselves, and during the course of all this licking, they swallow quite a bit of hair. Normally, the hair passes through the stomach and intestines and exits with the stools. Hair though can become trapped in the folds of the stomach and form into a cigar shaped mass that irritates the stomach lining to the point where it triggers vomiting.
A very odd symptom of hairballs is that they make your cat "cough." The Hairball Hack it is called and it appears as a combination cough/vomiting wretch that is often described by a person thinking their cat is very ill. A physical exam by a veterinarian is always indicated as he or she will need to rule out other diseases like asthma, pneumonia, gastroenteritis, and stomach infections. If a cat appears perfectly healthy otherwise, a diagnosis of hairballs can be made from the description of the hacking.
Prevention of trichobezoars, the scientific term for hairballs, can be made mostly by brushing your cat. A good combing is better because brushes tend to ride over the top of the fur. After daily or at least frequent combing, you can offer your cat a hairball diet if the hairballs persist. The fiber in these diets binds to the hair in the stomach and intestines and it drags the hair along with it out with the stools. If combing and a hairball control diet aren't enough, then a petroleum product like Vaseline, Laxatone, Petrolatum, or Katalax (for those of you who drive a luxury car) can be used to slide the hairballs through.
The Laxatone type products come in savory flavors too that cats like. You can offer kitty malt, tuna, or liver flavors. Or just regular Vaseline, the taste of which a lot of cats like too. It somehow amazed me early in my veterinary career that you can eat Vaseline, but I guess it is used as a lip balm, and is not toxic even with continuous use.
Cats eat grass to self-medicate when they feel the irritation of a hairball in their stomach. It is most likely an instinctual behavior and adds a nice green color to the vomited up hairball. For persistent hairball vomiters, I have often given them a shot of a long acting anti-inflammatory drug called Depo-Medrol which lasts over a month and stops the vomiting in cats that have particularly sensitive stomachs.
My last piece of advice is do not use a vacuum cleaner to vacuum hair off of your cat. The suction can do instant and irreparable harm to a cat's ears and eyes in a moment of inattention.
Hairballs can only be treated and not cured. The hairball control diets do work well though, and your cat will enjoy the combing!
Dr. Doug Ikeler www.drdougikeler.com

Why Do Cats Purr?

A Cat's purr is one of it's most endearing qualities. When we ask why cats purr it is certainly for the obvious reason that it is expressing it is happy and communicating it's contentment and comfort with others. All cats purr. Even lions, tigers, cheetahs, and the lesser cats, including our house cats. The large cats purr so loudly, it almost sounds like a growl. On a trip to South Africa, I had a chance to pat a cheetah and it's purr was so big and loud I wasn't sure whether or not it might be growling. Some other species purr too, but the cat's purr is the most distinguished.

The creation of the purr is still not completely understood because it involves a unique coordination between both the larynx and the diaphragm, and cats purr on both inhalation and exhalation. The house cat's purr resonates at a soothing 25 to 150 Hertz. A sound frequency that is known to promote healing and improve bone density. Some theorize a cat's purring is why their bones heal so well. Cat's bones heal so well because they are tough creatures and this is part of their survival adaptation.

Some people even go as far as suggesting cats be taken into outer space with the astronauts to prevent the loss of bone density in the astronauts brought on by weightlessness. I think that's stretching the theory a little far.

Cats purr under many conditions though and the sound may be for other uses as well. The mother cat purrs during birth of the kittens and it may help them locate her and bond with their mother. Purring is certainly a mode of communication and it may serve as a general expression for many feelings as I have seen in other animals like when a dog barks. Animals generally lack specific and elaborate communication modes that are as detailed as human speech. My own experience around cats tells me they can express about ten different things. Similar to the number of major emotions we have. Cats have communication, it's just not as elaborate as ours.

Cats also purr when they are frightened, ill, and near death. The purr may release endorphins in the cat's brain and bring a soothing and pain killing effect to the cat. The last question is, "do cats purr when they are alone?" If they do, they are using their relaxing mantra to bring soothing happiness to themselves that they are also happy to share with us. Cats are just the best!

Dr. Doug Ikeler http://www.drdougikeler.com/

Old Cats and The Needs of the Geriatric Patient

In my feline specialty practice, I have seen patterns occur within the lifespan of cats. An odd one is that you can weigh a kitten and tell it's age by it's weight. A one pound kitten is a month old. A three pound kitten is three months old. Kitten's gain a pound of weight each month as they grow. I have even checked the kitten's weight with their tooth eruptions to confirm their ages. Yes, they do match. This is not a scientific discovery, just the observation of a pattern.

I also noticed the old cats died in the spring. By a factor of ten times as much as they died during other times of the year. It must be nature's way of making room for the new mouths to feed as the new year of mating approaches. Again, not a hard and fast rule, just a pattern in the lives of our feline friends.

Old cats have specific needs. For them to live beyond twenty, they must be on a special diet that is low in protein but very nutritious. I commonly recommended the Science Diet K/D or the Purina CNM Diet, NF. Both are purrfect, did I just say "Purrfect," for the elderly cat. The other thing old cats need to live longer is warmth. A heating pad under a towel, and set on LOW HEAT is just right to provide the added warmth an old cat needs so it doesn't have to use metabolic heat to keep it self warm. There are commercial cat beds available too that plug in and bring just the right warmth, in a round and sided cat bed, to keep any old kitty very happy. My favorite cat ever, "Mama", who appears with me on the cover of my book "Life Extension", loved his heated cat bed and would sleep in it every night. Yes, Mama was a male cat whose real name was Joey, but his nickname stuck, and he was quite famous for it.

If your elderly cat can make it past the ravages of kidney failure or cancer, it can live well past twenty years old and maybe into it's thirties. In my own career, I saw several cats at 22 years of age. One at 26, and even one poor old bugger who made it to 29. That's 145 in people years! Loving care, good grooming, clean bedding and fresh food and water every day are also the standards for keeping your feline friend happy for many years to come.

Dr. Doug Ikeler http://www.drdougikeler.com/