Cat mysteriously losing weight....

pandorahbear

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Hello. My name is Amanda...and I currently have two beautiful cats. A long haired calico named Ginger. And a medium haired domestic black and white boy named Remy.
For the past 3 months....Remy has lost weight. He has gone from 8.5 to 7.4 pounds. He has always had a problem with sneezing,runny nose on and off...and one eye that is sometimes a tiny bit swollen then the other. I.always thought maybe he has allergies. I have told my vet about this but he has seen nothing wrong with it at all.

He is eating. He isnt having any diarrhea. I want to say he is peeing slighrly more then usual...but i work all the time..so i cant exactly keep an eye on him. And when he drinks water...he is literally at the bowl for a good 2 to 3 whole minutes. He does sleep though.. A LOT. More then a cat normally sleeps. And he has been attached to me at the hip more then usual.

I have had him into the vets for a checkuo and to check his thyroid. All was fine there. Gave him dewormer...and some hair ball treatment..and changed his diet, cause the food he was on...he would normally throw it right back up after eating it. Since the change..he hasnt thrown up but once. So its an improvement. I will be getting blood work done on him soon as well to see if anything is going on there.

I am fearing that this could be either renal disease...or somethong worse. I just lost a cat back on July to thyroid disease. And I am just petrified that i am seeing my boy go don the same path.....

Any advice?? I could really use some guidance....
 

margd

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It's good you're getting the blood work done. That's what I was going to suggest. The water drinking and weight loss sounds very much like Wesley, my cat with kidney disease. However, to reassure you, Wesley was diagnosed at age 12 and lived to be 19. I know we were lucky but I did want to let you know that some cats with kidney disease do lead long lives.

Good luck with your boy. I'm sorry to hear you just lost one so recently. I know that makes you worry much more. [emoji]128062[/emoji]
 
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pandorahbear

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I really am hoping its something I can manage with medication. Remy..along with my other cat that I had to put down..werr both adopted. Just weird how one goes and now my other one is going down hill. Talk about bad luck....

And he is only 8 years old. So hes not that old at all.
 

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Did the vet check for diabetes as well? If not, have the vet run the blood work for that. The specific test is called the fructosamine. The regular blood glucose test included with general blood work only tells what the cat's level is at that very moment. The fructosamine is similar to the AC1 in Human diabetics and gives the average blood glucose level over the past few weeks. Diabetes can cause a cat to lose weight. Other symptoms may include excessive hunger, flooding the litter box with sugary sticky pee, and excessive drinking of water.  8 years is a common age for diabetes to occur in cats. You can manage diabetes at home with insulin and the right diet. No expensive vet visits are needed after the initial diagnosis. The vet may recommend in office blood glucose curves but you can save your money and do it at home yourself by using a Human blood glucose meter (there are pet specific meters but they tend to be pricey and you can't just run out to a store to buy test strips) and just call or email the vet with the curve numbers for review and dosing advice.
 

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Do you know what his T4 levels were? I know you said they are normal, but there is actually a normal value that is considered a "grey area".

Once you get the blood test results for the other stuff, could you post them here? With renal failure, weight loss is certainly a symptom, but usually as a result of loss of appetite, which is usually the first noticeable symptom. So, hoping that your kitty's kidneys are doing well. But if it is that, please understand that it is manageable. Not curable, or even directly treatable, but manageable as far as symptoms.
 

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He could have urinary track disease. My cat drinks so much water it is unbelievable. He parks himself at the water bowl. You should have a urine test done.
 

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Adding, did the vet check the teeth? Dental issues can cause a cat to not eat much. It doesn't make a cat drink more water to use the litter box more, though.
 
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pandorahbear

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I dont think its his kidneys because he isnt peeing any more then he normally does. He just sleeps. And he has been sleeping a LOT.Super clingy. I wonder if he is suffering from depression. After going on vacation for a week....having to put my cat down from cancer....and having to rehome one kitten we had. He was close to both of them...
 

donutte

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I dont think its his kidneys because he isnt peeing any more then he normally does. He just sleeps. And he has been sleeping a LOT.Super clingy. I wonder if he is suffering from depression. After going on vacation for a week....having to put my cat down from cancer....and having to rehome one kitten we had. He was close to both of them...
It well could be depression. Did you ever get the test results back? That would give you a better idea of what it is (or is not) rather than symptoms alone.

Sick cats in my experience are not very clingy, so you may be on to something. There are always exceptions, but hopefully the blood work has ruled out anything bad physically.
 
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pandorahbear

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Update: I took Remy to the vets today and they did a full blood work panel. Along with a urinalysis and a test for diabetes.

My vet said that he was losing protein from his kidneys. That he has Renal failure..and most likely cancer of the kidneys.

I have looked it up. And I have read that this type of cancer is rare for cats. How can he have renal failure and a cancer that is really rare....

These are his test results...

PH 7
Leu 500
Property 30
Glu negative
Ket negative
Ubg normal
Bil negative
Bld negative
That was called the UA Analyzer.

For regular blood work...

HIT is high at 47.1 % normal is between 30 and 45
EOS is high at 0.87 K normal range is 0.10 to 0.79
GLOB is high at 5.4% normal is 2.8 to 5.2
ALK is low at 10. Normal is 14 to 111
TBIL is high at 1.1 mg. Normal is 0 to 0.9

I can't read tests well. I have no idea what the abbreviations are. But there it is. I don't have the money for a second opinion. I was thinking of treating him for kidney disease and see if he improves.

Advice is greatly appreciated.
 
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pandorahbear

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Property is supposed to be PRO
 
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pandorahbear

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HIT is supposed to be HCT
 
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pandorahbear

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Does anyone have any input on this? Should I get a second opinion.
 

margd

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I don't know how to evaluate these tests but I do have to wonder why your vet suggested cancer of the kidney might be an issue. Do you know what specifically led the vet to say that?

When my vet told me 12 year old Wesley was in renal failure, I totally freaked out. However, it progressed really slowly and he lived another 7 years. Not all cats are that lucky but I do want to give you a little hope.

As for treating him for renal failure - didn't your vet suggest doing so? Vets are usually pretty eager to sell the prescription food for kidney cats. Anyway, a lot can be done through diet and it is worth looking into this.

In terms of getting another opinion, you should be able to take these blood results for an evaluation without having to have them rerun. If your boy has not yet had his kidneys x-rayed, this should be done. The x-Ray was an important tool in diagnosing Wesley's renal failure because it showed one kidney was 25% smaller than normal.

How is he doing?
 

donutte

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Is that everything that was on the blood work? I don't see creatinine, BUN, etc, as those are indicators of kidney function. If you could post ALL of the values that would be helpful. Even if they are showing as normal.

I can't really speak toward the cancer diagnosis. Was this based completely off of blood work and urinalysis? No scans, biopsies, etc?
 

donutte

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When my vet told me 12 year old Wesley was in renal failure, I totally freaked out. However, it progressed really slowly and he lived another 7 years. Not all cats are that lucky but I do want to give you a little hope.
So true, if it is caught early, and just remains chronic (ie doesn't become acute like it did with Lucky) then the prognosis is relatively good, at least for a year or more. Just depends on a whole lot of factors of course, including the age of the cat. 
 

margd

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So true, if it is caught early, and just remains chronic (ie doesn't become acute like it did with Lucky) then the prognosis is relatively good, at least for a year or more. Just depends on a whole lot of factors of course, including the age of the cat. 
Yes, it's very complicated. I was so sorry about Lucky. He was such a special boy. [emoji]128062[/emoji]
 
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pandorahbear

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These are the results of the tests.
No biopsy...no xrays...no ultra sound. He is basing the cancer off of the tests. Which makes no sense to me. You can't possibly guarantee an animal has cancer unless you have proof.

And my cat has no tumors. No weird lumps. He had a bad tooth which was pulled the same day the tests were taken..which was causing his bad breath..and mout likely preventing him from eating. Which.makes more sense to me then diagnosing him with Cancer with no proof.

I will post my pictures one by one. So bear with me
This is the first..
 

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I agree that it sounds weird to diagnose cancer off those results. The values that normally indicate kidney failure are BUN and CREA (blood urea nitrogen and creatinine), along with PHOS and CA (phosphorous and calcium), and those are normal. I'm not very familiar with reading urinalysis results, maybe that has other clues.

High GLOB (globulin) can be from anything that overdrives the immune system. An infection, an autoimmune inflammatory disease, some cancers.... But the total white blood cells doesn't seem high, which it should if there was an infection. Globulin and albumin levels are also regulated by the liver, so there's possibly a connection there.

There does seem to be something going on with the liver (ALKP, alkaline phosphatase), which is a value that sometimes changes with cancer (but I thought it normally goes up, because the liver has to deal with extra waste products from the cancer). TBIL (total bilirubin) is also a liver thing. Is anywhere you can see skin (or gums, or the whites of his eyes) more yellow than normal?

HCT is hematocrit, that's basically how much hemoglobin he has. That might also be tied to the liver, since red blood cells are recycled there. I'm not very familiar with high HCT, though.

EOS is eosinophils, it's usually elevated with parasites or allergies (including food allergies). It's a type of white blood cell.

I'm seeing more liver stuff than kidney stuff here....

Do you know how much he's eating? It could be that he's eating much less than he needs and the other cat is covering for him.

Maybe pancreatitis is a possibility? I don't have any experience with it, but I know it's frequently accompanied by liver issues and isn't definitively picked up by a normal blood test. Here's a webpage on it, basically it says it's kind of hard to diagnose because it presents so differently in different cats:
http://www.manhattancats.com/Articles/pancreatitis_test.html
 
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