Hi folks-
I'm new to the site but am wondering if the hive mind can help with a puzzling situation. I have two young cats, ages 2.5 and 4. They are unrelated to each other but we adopted them from the same shelter. They are both vigorous, playful, happy creatures with shiny coats and good weights (10 and 11 lbs) and we shower them with love and attention. However, in the last months they both have been showing progressively reduced appetite, and feeding has gotten more arduous. We've had them primarily on high-quality wet food, with some intermittent Fancy Feast bouts when they were finicky with the grain-free stuff. After many frustrating vet visits to address the eating issues, both cats got ultrasounds, and the results of BOTH cats showed one abnormal kidney. One of them has slightly elevated creatinine (2.3) with all other blood and urine levels normal, and we are getting the second cat's bloodwork/urinalysis done now. We're transitioning them to renal food, but feel completely blindsided by the double diagnosis for such young, unrelated cats. Does anyone have any ideas of what questions we should ask? Could these problems be related? Should we just chock it up to chance?
For the most part they don't have any other symptoms-one cat has a bit of asthma that has improved via an inhaler and the other has had some slight changes in the pigmentation of one of her eyes (but no cloudiness, raised surface, interrupted pupil, signs of pain, etc.), They both have feline herpes but rarely have outbreaks. I'm terribly paranoid about FIP but our vets say that their symptoms aren't indicative of the disease.
Thanks in advance for any support you can offer.
Leah
I'm new to the site but am wondering if the hive mind can help with a puzzling situation. I have two young cats, ages 2.5 and 4. They are unrelated to each other but we adopted them from the same shelter. They are both vigorous, playful, happy creatures with shiny coats and good weights (10 and 11 lbs) and we shower them with love and attention. However, in the last months they both have been showing progressively reduced appetite, and feeding has gotten more arduous. We've had them primarily on high-quality wet food, with some intermittent Fancy Feast bouts when they were finicky with the grain-free stuff. After many frustrating vet visits to address the eating issues, both cats got ultrasounds, and the results of BOTH cats showed one abnormal kidney. One of them has slightly elevated creatinine (2.3) with all other blood and urine levels normal, and we are getting the second cat's bloodwork/urinalysis done now. We're transitioning them to renal food, but feel completely blindsided by the double diagnosis for such young, unrelated cats. Does anyone have any ideas of what questions we should ask? Could these problems be related? Should we just chock it up to chance?
For the most part they don't have any other symptoms-one cat has a bit of asthma that has improved via an inhaler and the other has had some slight changes in the pigmentation of one of her eyes (but no cloudiness, raised surface, interrupted pupil, signs of pain, etc.), They both have feline herpes but rarely have outbreaks. I'm terribly paranoid about FIP but our vets say that their symptoms aren't indicative of the disease.
Thanks in advance for any support you can offer.
Leah
