My cat is dying and we don't know why - can any vets help? Our eleven-year-old cat does not have the greatest health record. I don't know the details, but I know that in the past he consistently has had blood in his - for lack of being able to think of a nicer word at this moment - dung, used to have tapeworms, and so on. Recently, as of about a week ago, he stopped being able to jump up on the counters (which was good for us, but obviously not for him. We chalked that up to him finally deteriorating from his poor health). But it declined quickly from there. Very, very soon after that he stopped eating. He has not touched anything more than a taste of something here or there since, which naturally is a *major* factor in why he's dying. He hardly moves anymore even though he used to be the only one out of our six animals who could jump up on the counters, and he actually *feels* dead. You know how a cat or hamster or dog feels when their body stops functioning and it's just stiff and lifeless? That's how he feels, except that he's still alive. There are other things, of course, like how his nose is thoroughly dry, but that pretty much covers his condition. Oh, and when I brought my rats into his presence they didn't react at all, although not too long ago when they were so much as in the same room as him they'd stiffen and would have "prey" written all over their faces though they did that with none of our other pets, not even our other cat. That kind of hit home for me. Anyway, I have a theory. Our largest dog is nearly two hundred pounds and had a skin issue for a while. To help him, the doctor prescribed four Claritin (pills, not syrup - I already looked up that the syrup is bad for cats) a day. We've mixed it in with his food, and had also been giving two Claritin a day to our one-hundred-pound dog. We'd mix the pills into their food because we had no other reasonable means to get them to eat the pills. Because feeding the animals *is* such a hassle, it's hard to pay attention to if the dogs and cats aren't eating each other's food, which we have to because the two little dogs get sick if they eat the cat food. I usually try to be good about it, but because the two-hundred-pounder is so lethargic, it's hard to get him to eat and so in defeat we usually end up leaving the dog food on the ground for him to eat whenever he wants. The cats like the dog food and the dogs like the cat food. My theory is that my cat ate my dog's food and accidentally ate one (maybe even more) of the Claritin and, because he never really was especially healthy, is having severely negative effects. I looked it up and it seems plausible, but I'm no vet so I'm not sure. About a half an hour ago my dad decided that we're not giving the Claritin to the dogs anymore because the two-hundred-pounder has been moving even less than the cat (it literally takes ALL of us to get him to the kitchen. At this moment, he is the single most lethargic creature I have ever seen, absolutely no exaggeration). He realized that it was because of the Claritin and that's what made me consider that maybe if four Claritin is too much for a two-hundred pound dog, then just one Claritin could be catastrophic for a fifteen-pound cat. It's what I'd worried about, and I'd already noticed that both of them were being exceedingly lethargic. Does it sound plausible? The way my cat is going, he's got maybe forty-eight hours. I want to present my theory to my family and suggest maybe taking him to the vet, but we've had bad experiences with the vet that result in a lot of money being taken from us and the pet dying anyway, especially with this cat in particular (quote, no joke: My dad said to the vet, "And this expensive test you're suggesting we need for our cat, will this really make a difference in the end?" Vet: "No, not really."). Our cat will probably die within the next year or two anyway even if it weren't for this sudden onslaught of not-eating, but I want to know if the Claritin could be the reason and if anyone knows if there's a remedy for it, if I'm totally wrong, if there's no remedy, or if he's too far gone to get any treatment. Please help! I really don't want him to die! O.O Wow, that was long. Apologies for the length of this. I just want to add that I have no say in the matter. My mom said that at this point there's nothing we can do, and yes I already saw that link that was posted in the answers. I told my mom my theory. I personally *really* think that the cat needs medical attention, but I can't do anything about it. It's up to my parents. I wish they'd call the vet or something but...I don't really know what they're thinking. I just asked my dad and he said that eating Claritin while dangerous would just making him very sick (I'm not thoroughly convinced, but I trust him) and that he'd get better eventually. Our cat has moved a little bit more than he was before, but he's still not doing well. I'm going to try to feed him again, and if he doesn't get better by tomorrow I'll call the vet (are they opened on Sundays?).