Scooter's dental problems (a bit long)

[Peggy Ankney]

Hi All,   This is my first medical problem with Scooter, my first FeLV cat, who has been lethargic for about a week.  Sunday I noticed he had very bad breath, and though I didn’t see anything wrong with his gums he was acting like he was uncomfortable or even in pain so I took him to the vet Monday morning.  He was dehydrated (I now know how to test for this – when you pull up on his fur at the back of the neck the skin should snap back, but if dehydrated the skin will “tent.”)  They did blood work and found everything looked fine, but he has lesions in his mouth, which is common for FeLV kitties.  The weird thing was that he only has them on one side of his mouth – apparently this is common in FeLV kitties but they typically get them all over the mouth, says the vet.  The infection caused him to lose a pound and the lesions make it very painful to eat solid food.  So the vet gave me liquid antibiotics for him and scheduled surgery, including dental extraction (if needed) for Thursday.  Apparently he may have stomatitis which means the cat is allergic to the tartar on his teeth.  The fix for this is to remove the teeth causing the problems.  I left Scooter at home around 11 am today after trying to get him to lap up as much of the gravy from the cat food as possible, as well as some vitamin gravy from the pet food store.  He ate some, but cried like it hurt to even swallow.  Tonight, my husband came home before me and apparently found Scooter crying behind the computer, squatting down like he was about to urinate.  He did, which is unusual because he’s always been very good about using the litter box.  So I called the vet (closed) and left a message telling them I was bringing Scooter in tomorrow for observation and possibly sub-Q fluids instead of waiting until Thursday, as he will likely continue to lose weight and I don’t have any idea what else to expect.  Does anyone else have any input about this?  He’s going to undergo surgery, but since his blood work looked OK I’m not so worried about that as I am about the weight loss and of course the fact that my baby is in pain.  He’s OK for now, curled up near the wood stove, though he’s probably getting even more dehydrated from the heat of the stove.  Thanks for any advice you can give, or just support.  I’ve been a wreck since Sunday about this.