Meet Tia the beautiful 12-year old mature lady! She was rescued from the RSPCA in February this year along with her brother Sam. Her owners brought them both in to see Dr Jeremy for a general check over.
Tia was not eating much at home and had a runny tummy. Her physical examination revealed she was adorable but underweight and her intestines were much thicker than normal, so we decided to run a comprehensive blood and urine analysis to see what was happening.
The results came back and showed that her intestines weren’t functioning as they should be and her pancreas was very inflamed, as a result of these two conditions she was also moderately anaemic (low red blood cells)
Dr Jeremy prescribed medication that would address any pain or nausea associated with the pancreatitis and specific therapy for the diarrhoea which resolved her lack of appetite and upset tummy however because of how thick her intestines were an abdominal ultrasound was performed.
The ultrasound showed that the entire wall of her entire small and large intestine was thickened which was either secondary to inflammatory or cancer cells invading this tissue.
Interestingly her pancreas was surprisingly normal looking for a very abnormal blood result – that is cats for you!
To investigate the small intestinal thickening further we booked Tia in for upper (stomach and duodenum) and lower (ileum and colon) endoscopy. The pictured below show an inflamed small intestine (1 and 2) Can you see the red dots and the 'cobblestone' appearance? The third picture on the right shows the large intestine and the junction between the small and large intestine at about 1 o'clock - the ileo-colic junction.
Tia was a champion and recovered rapidly from this. The results came back and while there was severe inflammation of multiple different types there was no sign of cancer.
Tia’s condition is being managed with a combination of specific diets and medication.
Tia was such a great patient and for a girl who had just been rehomed, to then have so many vet visits in such short period she was completely unfazed by the whole process.
Tia and Sam are both healthy and happy in their new forever home.
Well done Tia for being so brave!