10yr old cat is losing weight.

Hello All,

I have just joined this forum.

I have two cats, a 3 year old neutered tom and a 10 year old spayed female. It is the female that I am concerned about.

Over the last few days we have noticed that she is looking very thin bless her, especially around her back end, she is eating, but not alot, but then she has never really had a massive appetite.

She also sleeps alot, and most of the time is like my shadow, she won't let me out of her site, she sleeps with me too. I've noticed that when she goes into a really deep sleep that she snores quite loudly.

Would you consider the snoring anything to be concerned about, could the weightloss just be due to her age etc.

Hi and welcome to TCS

Your cat needs to see the vet and have a senior blood panel done. As our cats age, they can come down with many different illnesses with the symptoms you describe. Many are treatable with medication or diet changes. Good Luck and let us know how you make out.

Originally Posted by AbbysMom

Hi and welcome to TCS

Your cat needs to see the vet and have a senior blood panel done. As our cats age, they can come down with many different illnesses with the symptoms you describe. Many are treatable with medication or diet changes. Good Luck and let us know how you make out.

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please go asap

I can only echo that advice. Weight loss in an older cat could be due to diabetes or a thyroid problem, so a thorough checkup with blood work is essential.

Be sure to ask for the complete senior blood workup that includes thyroid testing, not just the standard 'pre-op' type blood tests done on younger animals.

Please also ask them to do a urinalysis and to check it's specific gravity..one of the possibilities where one will see muscle wasting in the hind legs and thinness is decreasing kidney function - doing a senior panel will check the kidney's and doing a u/a and getting the urine specific gravity will show how well the kidneys are working as the urine should not be dilute.

Hyperthyroidism, diabetes, chronic kidney failure are all treatable, and your kitty can have a good quality of life for sometime to come if they are diagnosed early and properly treated.

Please come back and let us know what you find out?

I just wanted to thank you for all your advice.

I took my cat to the vets and they have done blood tests, they came back this morning that she has kidney disease, i'm gutted, why didn't i notice the signs before? I'm now tormenting myself that i left it so long.

She is now on medication every day and has to have a special diet, its going to be so diffiicult to sort as I also have another cat who doesn't have a restricted diet, I'm sat trying to figure out how I feed them both and not let the older one have any normal food.

Anyone got any tips or advice?

Thanks for the update. I'm sorry to hear about her kidney problems. Is it possible to separate the cats for meals? If you free-feed, do you have a small room or large closet where you can put a "key-operated" cat flap in the door, and feed the cat with the non-restricted diet in there?

Originally Posted by Radley

I just wanted to thank you for all your advice.

I took my cat to the vets and they have done blood tests, they came back this morning that she has kidney disease, i'm gutted, why didn't i notice the signs before? I'm now tormenting myself that i left it so long.

She is now on medication every day and has to have a special diet, its going to be so diffiicult to sort as I also have another cat who doesn't have a restricted diet, I'm sat trying to figure out how I feed them both and not let the older one have any normal food.

Anyone got any tips or advice?

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I sure do...go to this site...www.felinecrf.org and read all of the site, every page. Then consider joining the support group I found so helpful - you can pm me for the name.

Without that site and the group, I doubt I would have had the extra years I had with my Patrick who just had to be pts recently (unrelated to his kidney disease). I had almost 4 years with him after his diagnosis.