How Do You Feed A Cat With Cancer? Important Tips!
Diet is a very important factor in preventing, treating, or relieving any disease. It plays a key role in positively influencing the quality of life of a cat with cancer or another serious illness.
Why is it important to properly feed a cat with cancer?
It is very common for animals suffering from cancer to lose body weight. This weight loss can be a physical result of the disease itself, or it can be caused by treatment for the tumor. The animal usually loses not only fat, but also muscle mass.
Not all cancers have the same symptoms. A cat with cancer may or may not be nutritionally deficient. If your cat is nutritionally deficient, it can manifest itself in the following ways:
- Anorexia. Anorexia is an abnormal lack of appetite and can occur intermittently in cancer. It is related to taking the medication.
- Cachexia. Cachexia is progressive weight loss regardless of whether the animal eats a sufficient amount of food. This may be due to a change in his metabolism caused by the disease or cancer treatment.
Vomiting and anorexia are more common in cats than in dogs treated with chemotherapy.
In many cases, the treatment of a cancer patient, especially when it is complicated, is not aimed at curing the patient but at improving their quality of life and extending their lifespan.
How to feed a cat cancer
Do not force the animal to eat, as doing just the opposite can result in the cat becoming averse to food if you force it, because it will associate the meal with a bad experience.
There are other more effective things you can do to feed a cat with cancer:
Increase your appetite
In order to increase your appetite, you can offer her something tastier. Canned wet food can be very tasty for cats. It also has a different texture and consistency than the dry food, which can be enough to get the animal to eat.
Buy high quality feed
There is a large selection of feeds on the market that are adapted to diseases, age or special dietary needs.
A cat with cancer needs a rich and balanced diet to keep its body strong against the progression of the disease. Therefore, you should always choose high quality food.
Offer new foods to the cat with cancer
New things can grab your cat’s attention and lead them to try and eat the new food. However, you still have to pay attention to a balanced diet; Leftover food is not an option.
Divide the food into small portions
Instead of insisting on a full ration once a day and waiting for the cat to eat, you can distribute the food in small portions throughout the day. This way, there is a greater chance that the cat will be encouraged to eat on multiple occasions.
Food supplements
You can also add nutritional supplements to cat food to make sure the cat is getting all of the nutrients it needs. However, you should discuss this with the vet beforehand to avoid possible complications or side effects.
Avoid stressful situations
Stress has a very negative effect on the cat’s health. The symptoms of the disease, the use of medication or the examination at the vet are already very stressful for the animal. Therefore, you need to make sure that your home is a relaxing environment for your cat.
Enriching the environment with toys, games or rewards also reduces stress and can help encourage the animal to eat.
Also, you should avoid feeding your cat right after taking the medication so that it does not negatively correlate it with the food, unless otherwise stated in the description.
