The pieces aren’t hard to manage - just hard to cut up. Ollie doesn’t even notice he gets anything in his mouth.
Ollie is doing well. He was actually playing today. I did get a really good look into his left eye (the one he is blind in) and I can see how bad it looks. I wish I could have gone in to see what the vet saw. Maybe I can con them into letting me look next time.
Yay Ollie!! Playing is always a good sign.
So Ollie went for his blood work today and has the vet scratching her head. Her comment was “This is the strangest cat.” His blood pressure was low, so low that she wants me to halve his dose of amlodipine. Now I have to cut 2.5 tab into 8ths. What fun. Not. He is borderline renal failure (both BUN and creatinine elevated) but she feels that may be a result of the low bp - not getting enough blood flow to kidneys. He is borderline high for thyroid. His values were at the top end of the normal values. He also lost a pound. He has to come back next month and get a re-check or before if he continues to lose weight. She said she has never had a cat with low blood pressure before and the fact that the important values were all borderline was of concern to her.
On the other hand he is perfectly happy and having a delightful time. He actually likes the vet office because they pet him and make a fuss over him. sigh…the vet is going to check to see if we can get his pills compounded and how much $$$ it’s going to cost me.
Poor Ollie. I’m glad the amlodipine worked but it sounds like it worked a little too well for him. Hopefully they can compound something in a dose that is effective and doesnt lower it too much.
How is his sight?
Jingles and fingers crossed that the kidney and other levels is just from the bp!!!
Eta, I’m glad he doesn’t mind the vet. Jellybean serenades me with yowls from the time he’s in the carrier until he’s out of the carrier back home. 
How old is he? Is he eating OK? I hope things are better after adjusting the meds and after the re-check next month.
It’s very good that he doesn’t mind the vet. Mine are all horrified to go to the vet. When Dewey was first diagnosed with kidney disease and he was feeling bad, I took him for IV fluids. He wouldn’t pee at the vet office. He held it until we were going home at the end of the day. Totally soaked the towel that was in his crate.
Hugs and jingles - it’s SO frustrating when you can’t pinpoint exactly what’s wrong and why.
Hoping the low blood pressure is the culprit of the kidney #'s and everything gets sorted soon!
If you asked him he would probably say he was doing great. He is cheerful and playful - you would never know anything was wrong. I’m not sure the sight has improved any but he doesn’t seem worse. To me when I can see into that eye it looks somewhat better but I’m not an MD. I noticed that he seemed much more hungry than usual and was trying to push some of the more passive cats off their food but not being a growly snarly pushy jerk like he can be. Who knew a low bp could cause all these problems? Learning curve is pretty steep here.
@ravenclaw - he and Bonnie are the only ones that like the vet. Bonnie because they fed her treats at her first visit and him just 'cause he’s a goofball. He chatters at me all the way there and I’m pretty sure that if I had him on a leash he would have his head out the window smelling stuff like a dog.
Now off to find bp monitor with a really tiny cuff. lol
I had a cat with hypertensive cardiomyopathy, that ended up with chronic renal failure. He also had really bad food allergies that resulted in bad skin lesions. So, he was on metoprolol, special food, and when he developed his chronic renal failure he got sub cu fluids. The vet measured his blood pressure with a tiny cuff on his tail, which he hated so we never were really sure how high his blood pressure went when not stressed. He lived a longish and happy life, until my ex let him go on the terrace, and (as I had warned, and asked that the terrace door not be left open), he demonstrated high rise syndrome.
Oh, I’m so sorry! Poor Kitty - after all that. That’s awful. 
Noisy jingles for you and Ollie.
This makes me feel better for donating $$$ of unused meds to my cats’ vet practice. Good lord, that stuff adds up.
Definitely jingles for Ollie but the jingles I need are for my poor wallet! LOL
You are right - it adds up. Someone out there will be grateful for what you donated!
Does Ollie have claws and will he let you handle his feet to look at them? If so, take a look at his claws and see if they appear normal or thickened/scaly.
Has he been more vocal lately?
Both of those can be signs of hyperthyroid. The Internal Medicine specialist I used to moonlight with always said high-normal just meant early stages. If he still isn’t right by your recheck, see if your vet will agree to starting him on thyroid meds as a rule-out.
Oh now that is interesting. He has gotten VERY loud lately. He’s normally on the loud side but this is on a scale of 1-10 with 5 to 6 being normal for him he has gone to 8. I thought he was losing his hearing.
And his claws are getting very thick but hard to say since he gets nasty about his feet being handled.
I adjusted his BP meds and the volume has gone down slightly, but now I’m wondering if I should just have him started on thyroid meds and not wait a month. I have to talk to vet this weekend, I will see what she says.
Thank you!
Talked to the vet today and she agrees that he should be started on some methiamazole 2.5.
And since his bp readings were so low, I am to discontinue the amlodipine. She stated again that he is a head scratcher because he has so many things going on. Thyroid, poss kidney diease, blood pressure wierdness, and the eye problems. It’s all a tightrope to keep balanced.
I was looking in his eye last night and sadly it looks worse than it did before he saw the opthamologist. It looked better for a bit there. So he will go for a recheck asap.
But through all this, he is happy. He isn’t letting any of it get him down. Last night he ran through the house and up and down the stairs yelling and batting a toy. This morning he threw all the toys down the stairs and ran off chortling. He’s just going on with his life.
That’s great! Not the eye but that he’s feeling so good. 
I hope he does well on the methimazole!
Best wishes for Ollie!
Glad he’s still being a rascal!
He certainly isn’t letting this get in the way of his enjoyment of life.
One thing I did notice, is that Jack, who is normally pretty easy-going started trying to intimidate Ollie about 2-3 months ago - always sneaking up on him or backing him into corners and generally menacing him. I wonder if this is when the problem started and Jack is just being a crook and capitalizing on Ollie’s “weakness.”
Jellybean does this. Well, not backing them in a corner, but he will boss them around. At feeding time, he will rub on them and make them move, if they’re on my lap he wants to make them move and just be a right pain in the arse sometimes.
He did it to Thomas when he had ckd, Sunny with the IBD and now Sammy.
He should be a little more sympathetic I think, seeing that he either has lymphoma or IBD.
I’m sorry Ollie has a similar issue with his sibling.
Jack is not usually a jerk but true to his family tree he does have a mean streak that pops up - rarely, but still.
How is The Bean?
He’s doing much better, thank you! We have started doing the prednisolone every other day now and so far, so good. Knock on wood…
He hasn’t thrown up for over a week, ever since the steroid shot, with no Cerenia. 
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