Question:
ok, where to begin. i am living in china right now and over the past 2 years have taken in 1 dog and 4 cats-we all get along. i am pulling my hair out in regards to my 1st female cat- she is about 1.5 years old,was spayed the first time when she was about 6-7 months old. she had had no heats prior. she healed beautifully and i thought we were fine. but no, she went into heat about 6 months later-i was like what? took her to a different vet, this was after calling the previous vet and confirming that she had done the job correctly-she told me my cat's "soul was broken". thus the going into heat. i hunted high and low for another vet-this was difficult as most of them i just got a creepy feeling from-i'm a foreigner here and therefore they look at me with dollar signs, and cats are also very low on the totem pole here, dogs are getting to be acceptable-sign of wealth. in short it's just very different here as to how animals are treated.so on January 13 i took the cat to another vet-she had been in heat for like a month- and after he said that the previous vet had indeed messed up the operation. now the question i have is -because she was in heat when we did the second operation does this affect anything? why is she in heat now? i am pulling my hair out and at my wit's end-do i need to do the operation a 3rd time? i absolutely hate putting her thru this again. i will also have to redo my dog as it was the same vet who did my female cat. she went into heat also-bleeding a little for like a week, about 4 months after the operation. but i think i will save that nightmare for when we go home to canada. sigh.need some western thinking on this and i have exhausted my computer "knowledge" as far as searching for info on this.

Answer:
oh goodness... i don't know what to say... this is shocking! when are you coming back to canada, and are you bringing all your pets with you?.. this nightmare can end when you cross the border... wow.

Answer:
Hi! Do you know if the vets did a total hysterctomy or maybe they just tied her tubes?
I had one of my cats spayed, and for a year afterwards you would swear she was not operated. She displayed heat-like symptoms, meowing and going near males as if she was in heat. This lasted for about a year and now she displays no symptoms. I thought it could be hormones that were still in her body.
Will you be back in Canada soon? Maybe you should wait till you come back home, as this is not any life-threatening illness. Just a thought...

Answer:
Heavens, what a mess! I guess when you think that in China dogs and cats are considered a food source, you realize that perhaps the attitude is not quite the same. I suppose the main question is when you are coming back to Canada, and if you can bring your pets with you. But did the 2nd vet say how the 1st vet screwed up? Here (in Ireland) there is a pill that you can give your pets while they are in heat, so that they don't get pregnant. Perhaps this may be an option for you, so you don't have to put your pets through a 3rd operation, and wait til you get back to Canada and see what's going on. (Are there no western vets anywhere near you?)

Answer:
Wow, this sounds 3rd worldly at best. I remember when I was living in Dubai in the late 70's we were lucky to have a British vet installing a cabinet in nearby Abu Dhabi, they took care of anything from a budgie to a lion cub (cute little thing too, at that age!) I don't even know if there were local vets, or if so for horses and chamels mostly I guess.

I know dogs and cats aren't highly regarded anywhere in that reagion either(except maybe ancient Egypt), so I can fully relate to your problem, but I can't really see what you could do other than maybe contacting the local US, Canadian, French, Australian, German, and British (and any other European country's) Embassies and try to find out if there is a western vet around.

Good luck!

Answer:
It happens here in North America as well,

What happened is some ovarian tissue was left behind during the initial spay.
and now causing heat cycles I have heard of it happening before in dogs. usually another surgery is required to find the remaining ovarian tissue and have it removed

A couple of topics in vet info
http://www.vetinfo.com/catrepro.html

A test to check without surgery if this is the case
Give GnRH (25 mcg/cat IM) while the cat is in estrus. Recheck progesterone in 2 to 3 weeks. If the serum progesterone concentration is high (> 2 ng/ml), you have proven that luteinized ovarian tissue is present.
under Feline general> Ovarian remnant syndrome http://www.tc.umn.edu/~rootk001/Clas...stritz.htm#ors

Answer:
Anyway to fiond a new vet - even there? This is deplorable - and yes, it can occur here but we do have more vets than many China and cats are treated with more respect. I would search for a vet in maybe another city - if that's possible, or another country? Your poor kitty - "lost its soul" does not suond all too scientific!

Answer:
Originally Posted by CyberKitten
Your poor kitty - "lost its soul" does not suond all too scientific!

???????
you have to keep in mind CHina is a very spiritual country. Not every country in the world is like North America who is purely scientifical. The vet most likely truly believes that she did a good job(although she didn't) and the cat is acting up due to some spiritual reason. You can't blame someone for that. Also in some countries, depriving an animal of its reproductive system is no a good thing to do, and if the vet believed that, she should've just said no instead of wasting time

raclyn72...sorry you had to go through this. Obviously that vet wasn't well trained and as others have mentioned, she might've not cut off all the pieces that had to be removed. In countries like that I wouldn't be surprised if they payed much attention to that kind of procedure since maybe they don't see it as important...?? I don't know. Poor kitty and dog. I hope that when they open her up again they don't find out that the vet did nothing at all in the operation.

Answer:
I understand China has its unique spiritual way of doing things, even in medicine and maybe sometimes esp in medicine. I respect that and find it extremely interesting actually. I have practiced medicine in countries with similar values. That usually does not diminish the use by vets or doctors or other personnel of less than stellar scientific methods and techniques. In fact, I would not mind even if my vet in Nova Scotia had something to say about my cat's soul. I would mind if she did not use sound scientific techniques in treating my cat! I would be a little upset if for some reason (God forbid), surgery went awry and it was blamed on my cat's soul. And the people I have encountered in Asia tend to feel the same way - at least when they have sought my treatment as a physician. This is a whole other topic however.

Even in North America, if a patient asks me to pray with them, I would certainly do that. I would not however impose my spiritual beliefs on those I treat or work with.


Sorry raclyn72 - both to go offtrack and for what you are going through. I hope you can perhaps find another vet - tho I know that is not easy there - (but veterinary medicine is changing there as more Chinese have cats as pets).

My thoughts are with you and your pets!!!

Answer:
I know this could have happened back home in canada. i am living in a -as the locals say a "small" city only 6.5 million! if i was somewhere like beijing or shanghai it would maybe be a little easier to find another vet. or maybe even a western vet.not many foreigners here. here i have not seen any vets office that have all that high tech equipment like x-ray or ultrasound and some of the western looking medicine looks as tho' they fell off the back of a truck or they just don't have them here.they don't even have the dissolving kind stitches here. so now i also avoid those medicines for me and my pets, i will try to find an alternative way to deal with a problem-using herbs or foods as medicine- i got rid of their ear mites in this way.i think chinese medicine(all kinds) is awesome.but for the first vet who did the operations to not even consider that maybe she made a mistake-with the cat and dog- and didn't take out everything,i'm thinking that's a little arrogant. both vets told me they took out everything.as far as the dog, if the worst that's gonna happen is she will bleed a little when she comes into heat , then i can live with that.-didn't notice any behaviour or other problems when she went into her heat. i am going to bring all of my animals back to canada with me.dog will get redone when i come home in about 5 years. i'm gonna keep an eye on the cat and close my ears :-)(constant crying when she's awake)for the next while and then ....i can't live with her-i'm incredibly irritable and my hands are shaking and this is just making me sick to my stomach, what's wrong and what will i have to do?

Answer:
You can always do some of the comforting things we do to pets in heat. pet her, comfort her. Do you have access to say cocculine or Rescue remedy? They are alternate type solutions that might make her relax and I am wondering if they might be available there where some traditional western style meds ar not. (Not that they can help a cat in heat either mind you). I know it is hard to watch a cat in heat suffer like that! I'd never make a good breeder if only for that (I mean, I would love kittens but if I want to look at kittens, all I need to do is go to the local rescue).

I do know ppl who have had ovarian parts left inside but that is malpractice - I am guessing this vet does not get that connect there. Can you order online there? What about Feliway???

You can find Rescue Remedy here - online. Or read about it .

And Feliway:

http://www.amazon.com/Feliway-Comfor...&s=home-garden

Finally, see if you can find cocculine. It is actually being used in a double blind study to see if it assists people suffering from nausea due to chemotherapy being given for breast cancer. (Note the company that makes the product is also in part paying for study and it is comparing it to a placebo and not other meds that accomplish what it does! )In Canada, you can buy it at a health food store or Superstore (Lolaws, Provigo) and it may just be available in Canada. It helps my cats sleep when travelling. (I did not try it when undergoing my own chemo - I will await the findings of this study, call me cautious). But it might relax her while in heat. (You can read about the study here

Good luck - and again, I am sorry to hear what you have gone through.

Answer:
relaxants for cats in heat do NOTHING!!!

My cat was given pills from the vet and i wasted my money because they had no effect. The only way to get a cat to get off her heat is to create a simulation of what the male cat would do during mating, and well that borders weirdness and i wouldn't ever do it.

Try finding another vet in a bigger city. Honestly, having a cat deal with heat for 5 years is a LONG time I don't know how much the other vets asked for spay charges, but I'd take the offer.

good luck

Answer:
JUst a thought, but maybe the vet thought that animals require estrogen from the ovaries much like women do, so removed the uterus only, or maybe simply tied the tubes

Answer: