My girl's ears have had this unsightly waxy build up for over a year now and I'm just now getting to the blood sample stage. I had our vet take a blood sample to run labs to see if she was allergic to anything. Our vet wrote to me in regards to my 3 year old girl last night around 11 pm. She said she would be out of the office today, Friday.

She writes to tell me that one of Lily's liver values "is a little bit high". She says that this could be because of a potential change in diet but never elaborates on what could cause this besides my girl's diet. She suggested a detox called Denmarin, or an ultrasound, for what I can't say. I was hoping someone could elaborate.

Lily is on a dry food diet with water available all the time. The day the blood was drawn for the tests she had been eating a new "flavor" of dry food for 2 - 3 days, and had two different brands of wet food (to hide the sedative I was supposed to feed her).

Hi

I don't know much about this but my mum was recently called back after a blood test for the same thing. Her next blood test was fine and they said it was probably something she ate during the previous 24 hours. They didn't tell her what food type could have caused it though. But if your girl had tried a new flavour or any other change in her diet immediately prior to the blood test, this could easily have caused the reading.

Re the dry food only, my vet feeds his cat dry only but I think it depends on whether your girl is a good drinker or not. I feed mine a 50/50 wet/dry just to be certain they are getting enough moisture but I know they are good drinkers as well.

Re your concerns about the water bowl, yes make sure you are using ceramic not plastic bowls as sherry said. I don't wash mine anymore regularly than you. Stop blaming yourself for everything! My two have fresh water every day and still choose to drink out of dirty puddles in the garden or water features where I'm sure the water must be stagnant. In the wild they don't have perfectly clean drinking sources.

I did see your post re vaginitis and had a Google. It can be caused by bacteria from urine or faeces entering the vagina. So maybe the urine is too concentrated and bacteria is present. Add in some wet food to her diet and see if it helps. I wouldn't worry too much about the fur falling out, that may be from the antibiotics clearing the infection. But check it out with with your vet. Sounds like your vet needs to elaborate a bit on all these matters and let you know what to expect, antibiotics can have side effects too.

Every cat is different. Another cat could be fine on dry only, maybe yours is too - you just need to sort the source of the infection. I'm assuming the vet did plenty of tests to check the cause of the infection?

Keep us posted and good luck X

_________________
Clare
Hendrix and Jagger, Brown Marble Boys (born 18 August 2013)
Hampshire, UK

The liver is one of the most important organs in cats body. How "high" was the high liver value? Just slightly elevated? Dangerously elevated? Stress in a cat can even change levels. A bigger question is why were you giving your kitty a sedative?

Here is some info regarding elevated liver enzymes that I found online:

"There are a number of potential causes of elevated liver enzymes in cats. These range in severity from very important and potentially dangerous to your cat's health to mild and otherwise relatively innocuous. However, because your cat's proper liver function is a very important element of his continued good health and survival, it's always important that you treat this issue as if it were very serious.

Liver enzymes are the chemicals inside of your cat's liver and blood stream that help the liver to complete the detoxification process that it is responsible for. The liver processes all of the blood and removes chemicals from it that might otherwise harm your cat's body. Without the proper balance of liver enzymes, your cat will be unable to adequately do this.

Enlarged Liver in Cats
An enlarged liver can come about in cats for a number of different reasons. It is relatively common in kittens, when a certain portion of the liver may be enlarged for a short period of time. Older cats oftentimes experience wholesale increases in liver size. This may be due to genetic factors, to other liver diseases and conditions, or to unknown sources.

As the liver increases in size, the balance of the various liver enzymes that it produces is likewise thrown out of proper balance. This can lead to a number of different problems, including elevated liver enzyme levels in blood tests.

Cat Liver Disease
Liver disease is a degenerative condition that affects a number of different cats as they run into old age. It is typically an end stage disease that doesn't present any unusual symptoms until the end of a cat's life. As part of the process of liver disease, the liver begins to produce enzymes in an uncontrollable way. While this typically leads to insufficient production of liver enzymes for your cat, it may also result in your pet having elevated liver enzyme levels as well.

Fatty Liver
Overweight and obese cats oftentimes suffer from a condition called fatty liver disease. This is caused by an influx of fat tissue into the liver of your pet. As this happens, the liver is unable to adequately detoxify the blood in the way that it typically would. One potential reason for this among many other possible causes is that the liver enzyme levels are out of balance. A fatty liver will oftentimes produce too much of one or more types of liver enzymes and too little of the other types instead.

All of the liver enzyme issues listed here can be at least partially addressed by a change in your pet's diet and some supplements. Liver supplements and medications are available through your veterinarian. It's crucial that you work closely with the vet in order to properly manage and monitor your cat's liver function and enzyme levels. This will ensure that he remains as healthy as possible as he deals with the condition that has disrupted his liver in the first place."

All very good points. Thank you both for your responses.

The sedative was because she didn't respond well to being poked with a needle at her first visit when the vet tried taking blood to do allergy testing, and we were hoping to even her out for the second go. I think I mentioned how her ears have a waxy build up and we're trying to figure out why. The sedative actually didn't do anything and we suspect because she's a Bengal.

I'm not so concerned about there being anything tragically wrong with her liver at this point. She's not even 3. The change in diet theory has been corroborated by various sources, and the point about a fatty diet is valid too. She LOVES freeze dried salmon treats and salmon is known to be a fatty fish. I can slow down on the salmon treats for a while just to be on the safe side.

Otherwise. I'm going to work harder on incorporating more liquid into her diet to help with the vaginitis. I was wary about giving her another antibiotic (she received one a couple months ago to treat her ears which did nothing), but it was pretty cheap so I went ahead with it. Now the trick is to figure out the underlying cause so it doesn't happen again. The first few days after the shot saw some brownish build up on her vaginal area but a bath cleared that up and her vagina looks pinkish and healthy again. Dad can sleep happy now.

Thanks for all the feedback. I really appreciate it