New here, hoping someone out there has experienced this and can offer some insight.
We have a 13 year old ragdoll mix kitty that has been losing weight for over a year. At her biggest, she was around 8 lbs so she's never really been a BIG girl but she was healthy with a fluffy, healthy coat.
About a year ago we noticed she was dropping weight. We took her to the vet, ran labs including glucose, thyroid everything. It was normal, perfect down the board. So, we attributed it to aging and went on. She continued to eat normally. However, the weight continued to melt off.
We had the labs run again in February this year and again, perfect. The vet couldn't explain the weight loss. He recommended we see a feline specialist so we took her in. She did x-rays and found nothing in her digestive tract, however she was severly constipated. We put her on enzymes to help digest food, pumpkin to help move the bowels and kitty 'ensure' to get calories in her. She was at about 5.4 pounds by this point.
The vet was concerned it was cancer that wasn't showing itself yet so we tried the above treatments, however, she continued to drop. The feline vet then did a steroid shot as a hope that it would give us a little more time for the cancer to show itself.
She rebounded quite well and her weight got up to around 6.4 pounds but her coat didn't rebound. She dot the shot in March and in July I began noticing she was dropping weight again. Took her in for a weight check and she was down to 5.7. Met with the vet again, bloodwork came back perfect again. That was July 16. I took her for a weight check today and she was down to 5.2.
My DH works from home so he feeds her wet food throughout the day, if he can get her to eat. A lot of times she won't eat the wet food but she will munch happily on dry. But she just isn't either eating enough or isn't absorbing it to put on/keep on weight. We have bought every.single type of wet food available. She will eat some for a couple of feedings and then refuse it. Others she won't eat at all. While we prefer to feed the cats premium brands, we are feeding her whatever she will eat, even Fancy Feast or Friskies, we just want her to put on weight.
So, medically we can't find anything wrong with her. But she is melting away before our eyes. Has someone experienced something similar and can point me in a new direction? We are going to try Hills Prescription A/D tomorrow (getting it at the vets office). We've forced nutrition on her before but we won't do that again.
Anyone?
We have a 13 year old ragdoll mix kitty that has been losing weight for over a year. At her biggest, she was around 8 lbs so she's never really been a BIG girl but she was healthy with a fluffy, healthy coat.
About a year ago we noticed she was dropping weight. We took her to the vet, ran labs including glucose, thyroid everything. It was normal, perfect down the board. So, we attributed it to aging and went on. She continued to eat normally. However, the weight continued to melt off.
We had the labs run again in February this year and again, perfect. The vet couldn't explain the weight loss. He recommended we see a feline specialist so we took her in. She did x-rays and found nothing in her digestive tract, however she was severly constipated. We put her on enzymes to help digest food, pumpkin to help move the bowels and kitty 'ensure' to get calories in her. She was at about 5.4 pounds by this point.
The vet was concerned it was cancer that wasn't showing itself yet so we tried the above treatments, however, she continued to drop. The feline vet then did a steroid shot as a hope that it would give us a little more time for the cancer to show itself.
She rebounded quite well and her weight got up to around 6.4 pounds but her coat didn't rebound. She dot the shot in March and in July I began noticing she was dropping weight again. Took her in for a weight check and she was down to 5.7. Met with the vet again, bloodwork came back perfect again. That was July 16. I took her for a weight check today and she was down to 5.2.
My DH works from home so he feeds her wet food throughout the day, if he can get her to eat. A lot of times she won't eat the wet food but she will munch happily on dry. But she just isn't either eating enough or isn't absorbing it to put on/keep on weight. We have bought every.single type of wet food available. She will eat some for a couple of feedings and then refuse it. Others she won't eat at all. While we prefer to feed the cats premium brands, we are feeding her whatever she will eat, even Fancy Feast or Friskies, we just want her to put on weight.
So, medically we can't find anything wrong with her. But she is melting away before our eyes. Has someone experienced something similar and can point me in a new direction? We are going to try Hills Prescription A/D tomorrow (getting it at the vets office). We've forced nutrition on her before but we won't do that again.
Anyone?