Cow Mau has some health issues, the most serious being his hypertrophic cardiomyopathy which is being address by blood thinners now.
But besides this, he also has other more minor but not less significant and uncomfortable issues.
One of these is the mouth pain. He has gone through two dental scaling and tooth extractions already and he definitely is too old to go through another one now. He has had all his teeth extracted except for the canines and incisors. The back teeth are all gone.
And yet, the mouth pain is still there. The vet says it is due to he being FIV+. Gum inflammation is one of the common maladies of being FIV+.
We’ve tried Orozyme, but it is counter-productive because it is a paste and anything pasty would just exacerbate the mouth pain. Now, we are on Gum Max, but it hasn’t shown any positive results at all.
The only thing left is to give him transdermal Tramadol, which is a painkiller that is applied to the inner part of the ears. This helps a little bit. It used to help a lot, but now the effect seems to be decreasing.
But one thing that is good is that Cow Mau has a very good appetite. So I sometimes give him Cindy’s baby food (Cindy’s pureed canned food with goat’s milk), mixed with a bit of water to make it more liquid.
In this photo above, he has just finished one whole can but is already pawing again. So even this liquidy food gives him the mouth pain.
I’ll have to figure out something better for him.
Or maybe this is why Cow Mau keeps asking for food so frequently. He cannot eat a big amount each time because the mouth pain makes him stop eating. Well, it’s a good thing I’m home almost all the time. He knows he can just come to the screendoor and I’ll know he wants to eat.