Cat losing weight, no other symptoms

Hello, I already know we need to make a vet appointment - and we have, but it is not till the end of January.  We found ourselves in a position where we have more cats than we can afford care for...

So anyway, until the vet appointment.... has anyone ever had a cat who lost weight to "keep up with" a rival cat?

A month or so ago Bcups was having a blackish foul smelling discharge from her ear.  We took her in and the vet said it was part yeast, part bacterial.  He helped us get it all cleaned out and then put her on drops for 10 days.  The ear has cleared up, but she has lost 2 pounds in the last month.  She seems to be feeling fine, she is affectionate, and playful. 

There is one cat she has a rivalry with... Snowy... Snowy likes to be up high.  Even if she just climbs on a paperbag, she likes to sit on stuff.  A 1/4 box lid... Snowy is on it.  She has a bed on my counter in the bathroom where she can go hide to get away from Bcups.  Bcups on the other hand, does not climb.  She has always been pretty stocky and pudgy, ... but now that she is losing weight, she is climbing and jumping on stuff.  Could she be on a health kick?

So managed to get Bcups into the vet yesterday.  Vet said he thinks its IBD.  Ran some tests and will not get results until tomorrow.  Still would like input on if anyone has had a cat lose weight that was not sick... I mean, she looks good now. If she continues to lose weight, she will be getting on the sickly side...

Cats losing weight like that is usually a worrying sign. We have to take Pushy in at the end of January because he's lost over 2 lbs since the summer with no good explanation. I think losing 2 lbs in a month is way too much for a cat and would be concerned. Sorry about the negative reply, it's just that this has been on my mind lately with my cat and I'm preparing for health issues. I hope Bcup is OK!

I have an IBD kitty and he is on a steroid.  About a year ago he started loosing weight with no other symptoms.  All of the diagnostics were done, we upped his dose and he gained the weight back that he had lost.

I would ask if her B12 and folate levels were checked.  The thickened intestinal walls affect absorption which is why  IBD kitties will often loose weight and it affects the B12 and folate levels.

I like my vet because he is very nice, and my pets like both him, and every tech we have had while going in... we just have not had a bad experience other than not always hearing what we want to hear... knowing that he does declaws... and he is expensive.  But, I guess I am really bugged that before we took her in last month for her ears, she was doing fine.  Then - suddenly after ears clear up she just started dropping weight.  Snowy is the other cat we have at the vet all the time, and we had a good idea she was gonna be a chronic kitty before we adopted her... but now I am wondering if maybe taking her in so often is keeping her sick.  Its my daughter's cat, and she is the one that took her in, we will see what the vet says.  I asked her what all they tested and she did not say, but the vet is usually pretty thorough and tests everything... good money in that testing business. 

A food allergy of some sort could be responsible for both.  I know it sounds improbable but yeast infections in kitty's ears is often caused by a food allergy, that was the first symptom that one of mine had when he had developed an allergy to chicken.  The allergy can also cause the inflammatory response in the intestines.  You could try a protein that she hasn't eaten before to see if that helps.  Kitties can develop an allergy to a protein that they have been eating with no issues for a long time.

Just got the results back from the vet.  Her liver enzymes are elevated and he believes she may have hepatitis.... Now what?!  Is kitty hepatitis treatable?  Can she pass this to the other cats or from Cat to Human and Human to Cat? 

Vet started Bcups on Clavamox and Denamarin.  I guess we wait and see how it goes. 

I just am mad because she seemed fine before we took her in for ear infection.  Does ear infection travel to liver?  or come from liver?  She is still very playful, just not really any appetite, and now that she is on pills, if she sees you coming, she will head the other direction.  She doesn't like being picked up on a good day... but when you are picking her up to give her meds, it worse! 

So, the hard part on feeding, or trying a protein she hasn't had before is that we have 4 cats.  We feed 1/2 can of wet food per cat, each has their own dish,  at 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.  They have one communal bowl of dry food available 24/7.  On rare occasions they will actually eat all of everything, but normally there will be crusties left in the wet dishes and almost always food left in the dry dish.  They are a fed a variety of fancy feast gravy lovers and sliced beef, chicken and turkey with an odd can of fancy feast gourmet with garden greens thrown in. 

So, when you say different protein, do I need to switch brands, or quit rotating and see if she does better on one than the other.  Since he has started her on the meds, do we wait until she is off those so we know if it is actually food causing the change or how to handle that? 

More often than not cats with IBD need to either be on a homemade diet or a very high quality limited ingredients diet. I would caution you against feeding any of the FF varieties that have gravy because they are loaded with wheat gluten which is very irritating to IBD cats especially. They often don't do well with kibble, because kibble is not only harder to digest but loaded with things that are irritating to IBD cats like veggies, wheat, corn, and other starchy ingredients. Here's some reading info for you. Probiotics are hugely important for IBD cats as well. Since you have more than one cat the best thing to do is to transition them al onto canned or homemade food that way you don't have to worry about your IBD cat eating the other cats food. 

http://www.foodfurlife.com/raw-feeding-and-ibd-in-cats.html

So over the phone before the appointment he said maybe IBD, then when my daughter took her in he said Hepatitis, now I am not sure what he is saying, just said liver enzymes are high and gave her the antibiotic and the Denamarin. Raw sounds like it is going to difficult and expensive.  I will have to do more reading over the weekend and maybe get my daughter to do some research as well.  It probably would be healthier for all of them, but they just don't like human food.  I don't know how they would feel about dead mice and stuff... and I am not sure I could get past that either.  I get queasy easy... like if I see a spider in the bathroom... Its in my mind for months and years... I gotta stand way back and reach my arm WAY out to turn on the light and scope it out before I can go in.  Not sure I will be able to eat food that has been hanging out with dead rodents. 

MollyBlue said:

 
So over the phone before the appointment he said maybe IBD, then when my daughter took her in he said Hepatitis, now I am not sure what he is saying, just said liver enzymes are high and gave her the antibiotic and the Denamarin. Raw sounds like it is going to difficult and expensive.  I will have to do more reading over the weekend and maybe get my daughter to do some research as well.  It probably would be healthier for all of them, but they just don't like human food.  I don't know how they would feel about dead mice and stuff... and I am not sure I could get past that either.  I get queasy easy... like if I see a spider in the bathroom... Its in my mind for months and years... I gotta stand way back and reach my arm WAY out to turn on the light and scope it out before I can go in.  Not sure I will be able to eat food that has been hanging out with dead rodents. 

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I don't feed whole prey so no dead mouses in my house! There are a lot of options when it comes to raw or homecooked so don't worry too much about it yet the more info you can get the less overwhelming it will feel. Feeding raw is basically like making a meatloaf Liver enzymes could be elevated from not eating, I imagine. Cats are obligate carnivores, so while they aren't designed to eat "human" food, they are designed to eat meat. Sometimes it's just a matter of training them to see meat as food, but most of the time they recognize that meat is food because that's how they are biologically designed. 

Well I have never just placed a whole dish of raw, chunks, or ground meat in front of them, but none of the cats like cooked meat we eat as I have been perfectly willing to feed them chunks of chicken or beef as treats and they turn up their noses and walk away.  I will give them raw chicken too, when I am trimming it up for me to cook and they won't even taste it - but, maybe they have just never been hungry enough.  Two of them do like to eat spiders and moths and flies and bees and wasps and all manner of insects they can get their hands on... but Bcups isn't one of them.  We will try this weekend.