stepcutnut
Ideal_Rock
- Joined
- Aug 11, 2008
- Messages
- 2,898
We don't have another appt. for our almost 14yr old cat until tomorrow morning, so thought I would turn to the PS'rs for some ideas. This is long-sorry, but would love to hear any personal experiences others have had.
Our cat will be 14yrs old next month. He had been eating ravenously, starting about 3 weeks ago and began to lose weight about a week ago and very quickly. He has always been a big eater and very vocal about wanting more than he would get for food. But this was even more than his normal food wantings.
When he began losing weight we brought him in for a thyroid test and a fructosamine test(gives a picture of what his blood sugar has been like over the last 3 weeks) and both were in normal limits.
He was diagnosed with diabetes last January, was on a decreasing dose of insulin for several months as we changed his diet and he was eventually able to come off insulin all together and just have the diabetes controlled with diet.
He was on dry food only and always a high quality dry food, but we finally got him to switch to all soft food after 13yrs of trying. He did well on the soft and lost weight(which he needed to do) thus a good thing at the time.
I kept pushing the Vet for other ideas than to begin insulin again, because he was going hypoglycemic on just a half a unit of insulin before we took him off all together. She said the only other thing she could think of was to test for Exocrine Pancreatic Enzyme deficiency. But they would need to send the blood out to be tested and with the Holiday we would need to wait until this week to do it.
I wasn't comfortable doing nothing over the couple of days we were out of town for the Holiday, so while he was as the Vets office I had them start him on digestive enzymes to see if that helped.
He ended up beginning to eat less with the enzymes in his food(which the Vet said is normal, as they don't tend to like them) and lost more weight over the weekend(he's down to 7.9lbs---10lbs is pretty good for him).
He hasn't been himself yesterday or today-you can tell he's not feeling well and is cold and not vocal about his meals.
We also tried a small dose of insulin this morning with his breakfast and he doesn't seem to be feeling well from it....we are scheduled for the enzyme blood test tomorrow, a CBC, a liver and kidney panel.
Our Vet seems at a loss as to what to do help him and I am the one pushing for the other blood tests---she said he is just not presenting with specifics for a certain disease. Kidney disease is next on the list since his eating has slowed over the weekend.
Any suggestions as to any other things to try/do for him??? I know we have alot of PS'rs with cat experience!
I feel so bad that he has gotten so skinny and not feeling well! We lost our dog to cancer in July, so cannot have another loss this year!!!
Our cat will be 14yrs old next month. He had been eating ravenously, starting about 3 weeks ago and began to lose weight about a week ago and very quickly. He has always been a big eater and very vocal about wanting more than he would get for food. But this was even more than his normal food wantings.
When he began losing weight we brought him in for a thyroid test and a fructosamine test(gives a picture of what his blood sugar has been like over the last 3 weeks) and both were in normal limits.
He was diagnosed with diabetes last January, was on a decreasing dose of insulin for several months as we changed his diet and he was eventually able to come off insulin all together and just have the diabetes controlled with diet.
He was on dry food only and always a high quality dry food, but we finally got him to switch to all soft food after 13yrs of trying. He did well on the soft and lost weight(which he needed to do) thus a good thing at the time.
I kept pushing the Vet for other ideas than to begin insulin again, because he was going hypoglycemic on just a half a unit of insulin before we took him off all together. She said the only other thing she could think of was to test for Exocrine Pancreatic Enzyme deficiency. But they would need to send the blood out to be tested and with the Holiday we would need to wait until this week to do it.
I wasn't comfortable doing nothing over the couple of days we were out of town for the Holiday, so while he was as the Vets office I had them start him on digestive enzymes to see if that helped.
He ended up beginning to eat less with the enzymes in his food(which the Vet said is normal, as they don't tend to like them) and lost more weight over the weekend(he's down to 7.9lbs---10lbs is pretty good for him).
He hasn't been himself yesterday or today-you can tell he's not feeling well and is cold and not vocal about his meals.
We also tried a small dose of insulin this morning with his breakfast and he doesn't seem to be feeling well from it....we are scheduled for the enzyme blood test tomorrow, a CBC, a liver and kidney panel.
Our Vet seems at a loss as to what to do help him and I am the one pushing for the other blood tests---she said he is just not presenting with specifics for a certain disease. Kidney disease is next on the list since his eating has slowed over the weekend.
Any suggestions as to any other things to try/do for him??? I know we have alot of PS'rs with cat experience!
I feel so bad that he has gotten so skinny and not feeling well! We lost our dog to cancer in July, so cannot have another loss this year!!!
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