Vincent’s latest treatment plans

Three days ago, Vincent refused to eat…again.

The nightmare is starting all over again – his stomatitis is back. We’ve tried many things for Vincent and looks like none of them seem to be able to solve the problem.

I googled up on feline stomatitis and this site (http://healthypets.mercola.com/sites/healthypets/archive/2012/02/06/dr-becker-discusses-feline-stomatitis.aspx) says:

Sadly, the kindest option for treatment of advanced feline stomatitis is a full mouth extraction. That means removing all your cat’s teeth.

If that sounds pretty aggressive, I’m afraid it is. But this disease process is also very aggressive, and when you have full, degenerative disease occurring in the mouth, without aggressive intervention, many cats will stop eating and begin the dying process.

Many cats with full mouth extractions experience dramatic relief and have a significantly improved quality of life after their teeth – which were the source of all the inflammation, infection and pain — have been completely removed.

I know that would be the last option if all else fails. Between saving his teeth or saving his life, of course we will opt for the latter. In fact, during the first gum jab, I had already discussed this with Vincent’s vet. If upon sedation, Vincent’s teeth turned out to be bad, we were all prepared to have his teeth removed, but as it turned out, Vincent’s teeth were all still very strong (as far as the visible parts looked) so the vet only removed the two back teeth that time.

During the second gum-jab which was hardly 2 weeks ago, again, there was barely any plague or tartar and his teeth looked good. The only thing we won’t know is if the teeth are rotting deep inside. Maybe they are and that is why the problem keeps recurring. Or maybe they are not.

Maybe the problem keeps recurring simply because his gum are over-reactive. Or he has some auto-immune problem.

That is why I thought Transfer Factors might help since it’s an immune modulator. At the same time, I bought Plague Off but Vincent refused to eat it.

After some persuasion, I managed to get him to eat some of both when mixed in his food.

At the same time, I also started giving him massages (from the back of his ear, across the back of his skull to the back of the other ear). He seemed to like these massages a lot. They are supposed to help alleviate pain.

The whole problem with Vincent is (I think) a matter of very low pain threshold. Heidi and Daffodil both dealt with bad teeth before, but they could both bear the pain. Both had no trouble eating at all, then the bad teeth just fell out. Cow is living with a bad tooth as well but it hasn’t affected him or his eating habits. But in all fairness, Cow has a very high pain threshold.

The vet did say this too – even we humans have to live with pain now and then, or for good, but if we can live with it and not let it bother us too much and if we can continue to eat, then, that’s not a problem.

Vincent’s problem is, he cannot bear pain. The next problem is, he wouldn’t let me touch his mouth, so cannot forcefeed him any supplements or medicine, much less clean his teeth or massage his gums. I can only mix supplements into his food and since he is so choosy and fussy, he usually refuses eat his medicine-laced food.

Let alone medicine-laced food, what about just food?

Sometimes he is willing to eat, but only if under cover.

This morning was a great success because Vincent was not only willing to eat his wetfood with the TF, fish oil and Plague Off mixed into it, but he did so together with the rest of the PatioCats. No need to hide under the chair or be caged up. He ate with everyone else, and he ate everything up.

And he seemed very happy and confident after that.

I was celebrating the whole day until this evening….he refused to eat again. It’s really sad to see him come to the kitchen hoping to eat, but the moment he sees food and smells it, he runs away. This is typical behaviour of a cat with stomatitis. The pain in the mouth is just too great that they would run away from food.

So it looks like that’s the way it is going to be with Vincent. When I’ve exhausted every possible treatment plan, maybe what’s left is a full-mouth extraction to save his life. If he stops eating, the dying process begins. So between saving his teeth or saving his life, surely we would have to save his life.

I’m hoping that Plague Off, Transfer Factor and the massage might miraculously work so that we won’t have to resort to the full mouth extraction.

Update: Just now, Vincent came to the kitchen when he heard food being served. He looked at the food and ran away to hide under the car. I couldn’t get him out. So I put food near him but he refused to eat. I couldn’t get him out from under the car either. Later on, I served food at the patio and he came running too, but again, looked at the food and refused to eat, so this time, I caged him and left the wet and dry food in two separate bowls. After some time, he ate up the wetfood. It’s hard to figure out if Vincent is really in pain or he is attention-seeking because this morning, he ate heartily but by evening, he is refusing food again. We’ll never know, but meanwhile, my duty is to make sure he eats at least twice a day. We need food to sustain our body, and as long as Vincent is able to eat every day, it’s good enough.