Maggie

My Siamese female cat, aged 10 years, has lost five pounds in the past year.     She's down to 7 from 12 so she is skin and bones.    Her annual senior checkup was today and her blood work came back "good."      The vet has no answers nor suggestions.        Since she is one of two cats, I am going to feed them separately so I can monitor her intake.       What would be the reason for this weight lost that didn't show up in her blood workup and what can I do?

did they check the thyroids?

Monitoring what she's eating is a good idea to make sure your other cat isn't eating more than their fair share.  Otherwise, yes, I would agree to make sure they tested her Thyroid.  That isn't necessarily part of the normal testing.  I'm sure they tested for kidney and diabetes, though, yes?

You  might try adding an egg yolk to her food to try to fatten her up.  Or give her a cooked egg.  Even scramble it up in a little unsalted butter.  It's ok to give her a whole egg if it's cooked.  If she eats canned food, maybe bump up her calories even further by feeding a higher calorie food.  Hound and Gatos, for example is pretty high calorie, in comparison to Weruva.  (I have no idea WHAT you are feeding, just giving examples)

Massive weight loss can often be hyperthyroid, but that's always been part of my vet's senior cat blood test.   What I did learn with my cat Charlie and my cat Etta is that cancer doesn't show up in the blood test. Etta had elevated thyroid but also likely some sort of gastrointestinal cancer (I didn't opt for the biopsy). Her condition was bony haunches, visible spine. Very thin.

Does she seem interested in food and are you able to see her eat? 

While it's not the best quality food, you may want to consider some urgent care Hills A/D. It's very palatable to kitties and very high calorie. It was something that literally saved the life of a cat I had years ago who had developed fatty liver disease.  I used it again with my oldest cat who had a terrible reaction to the methimazole for his hyper thyroid and became anorexic.

joyce1940 said:

 
My Siamese female cat, aged 10 years, has lost five pounds in the past year.     She's down to 7 from 12 so she is skin and bones.    Her annual senior checkup was today and her blood work came back "good."      The vet has no answers nor suggestions.        Since she is one of two cats, I am going to feed them separately so I can monitor her intake.       What would be the reason for this weight lost that didn't show up in her blood workup and what can I do?

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I am a human physician in internal medicine, not a vet and any advice that I give concerning a cat should be checked with a vet.  Weight loss of this nature suggests hyperthyroidism or a covert malignancy.  Infection is likely to have been excluded by the routine tests.

Is there any lump in the abdomen?  Routine blood tests are not likely to pick up any malignancy but an MRI may pick up a tumour. 

You ask "What should I do?"   The first thing that you should do is to discuss the symptom of weight loss with your vet and perhaps mention thyroid and malignancy with him/her if the specific tests have not been performed.

With kind regards

Geoffrey

She has no lumps based on the physical exam. Blood work is going. ..no sugar thyroid issues kidney etc. Took her back yesterday as I was concerned about not eating or drinking. Left her over night to get hydrated and x-ray. Didn't mention anything about urine testing. Going to call when they open up to see how she's doing and ask about the urine test.

keep us posted