on April 4th I took Jasio, The Niblet and Hector in for the yearly exam and vaccine visit. The Niblet checked out all fine and
dandy, Hector had a partial urinary blockage that I had suspected (I saw it that morning, little pee clumps in the pan) and Jasio had mysteriously lost nearly a pound despite the fact that he will eat anything and everything in sight.
*sigh*
We got Hector all sorted out and his bladder is no longer a geode (yays!) and he didn't require a urinary catheter since we caught it so early (double yays!)
On physical exam Jasio checked OK, except the vet noted his intestines felt a little thickened. Since I was planning on doing some routine blood work on him to just make sure his anti-crazy cat drugs weren't doing anything bad to his liver we decided to make it a bigger panel and check his GI system as well. 8 months ago he weighed in at 14 pounds 9 ounces, now he is down to 13 pounds 11 ounces. He is a rather large cat, built tall and lean, but the vet didn't want him to get any lighter than where he is now.
His CBC came back normal, on the Chem 25 the only thing out of range was his glucose which was just below normal. Which is odd considering he wasn't fasted for his blood draw and had eaten a can on Fancy Feast about an hour before. His T4 is well within normal. On the GI portion of the panel his PLI (looks at pancreatic function) was normal but both his Cobolamine and Folate were high. Usually this is due to bacterial overgrowth in the small intestine so I was given the option of either metronidazole or forti-flora for a month then re-weigh and reassess at that time.
So we've been doing forti-flora for the past two weeks, and I think he is getting worse. I'm taking him in on Monday for a weight check since my kitten scale is broken.
I'm so frustrated, and frightened. He isn't usually a vomiter, doesn't eat weird things, his stool is normal and he eats his cat food like he hasn't been fed in months. What worries me even more is that for a couple months before this I had increased his daily food since he was always hungry and wasn't gaining weight.
Last October I euthanized my 13 year old tabby, Xerxes, after we found two large masses on ultrasound. The pathology report came back as carcinoma. The whole thing started with him mysteriously losing weight, followed by lack of appetite.
Now all I can think about is the worst case scenario, that Jasio is growing some bad jujus and I'm going to lose him too... Not totally rational of me for sure but I can't be the rational one in this house hold all the time, ya know.
dandy, Hector had a partial urinary blockage that I had suspected (I saw it that morning, little pee clumps in the pan) and Jasio had mysteriously lost nearly a pound despite the fact that he will eat anything and everything in sight.
*sigh*
We got Hector all sorted out and his bladder is no longer a geode (yays!) and he didn't require a urinary catheter since we caught it so early (double yays!)
On physical exam Jasio checked OK, except the vet noted his intestines felt a little thickened. Since I was planning on doing some routine blood work on him to just make sure his anti-crazy cat drugs weren't doing anything bad to his liver we decided to make it a bigger panel and check his GI system as well. 8 months ago he weighed in at 14 pounds 9 ounces, now he is down to 13 pounds 11 ounces. He is a rather large cat, built tall and lean, but the vet didn't want him to get any lighter than where he is now.
His CBC came back normal, on the Chem 25 the only thing out of range was his glucose which was just below normal. Which is odd considering he wasn't fasted for his blood draw and had eaten a can on Fancy Feast about an hour before. His T4 is well within normal. On the GI portion of the panel his PLI (looks at pancreatic function) was normal but both his Cobolamine and Folate were high. Usually this is due to bacterial overgrowth in the small intestine so I was given the option of either metronidazole or forti-flora for a month then re-weigh and reassess at that time.
So we've been doing forti-flora for the past two weeks, and I think he is getting worse. I'm taking him in on Monday for a weight check since my kitten scale is broken.
I'm so frustrated, and frightened. He isn't usually a vomiter, doesn't eat weird things, his stool is normal and he eats his cat food like he hasn't been fed in months. What worries me even more is that for a couple months before this I had increased his daily food since he was always hungry and wasn't gaining weight.
Last October I euthanized my 13 year old tabby, Xerxes, after we found two large masses on ultrasound. The pathology report came back as carcinoma. The whole thing started with him mysteriously losing weight, followed by lack of appetite.
Now all I can think about is the worst case scenario, that Jasio is growing some bad jujus and I'm going to lose him too... Not totally rational of me for sure but I can't be the rational one in this house hold all the time, ya know.