other causes of excessive drinking than diabetes?

[Taxcat]

My just turned 14 yr old female cat beatrice received radioactive iodine treatment this past spring for hyperthyroidism. She is a medium haired tabby and her coat is alwasy greasy, but I am noticing that it is matting more lately which is not good. She also has an improper urinating issueand is currently on amitrypteline, but it is not working. She is constantly drinking water. So much that her chin is always wet and it has discolored the white fur under her chin and down her chest a little. She pees a fairly good size amount about 4 times a day. She is on a mostly wet diet of wellness. She gets a 3 oz can of wellnes in the evening and about 1/4c wellness CORE dry in the AM while I am at work. Due to the radioactive iodine treatment earlier this summer and some recent dental work that was done a few months ago, she has had extensive blood testing by 2 different very well respected veterinary facilities. I have also made sure to let the vets know that she is drinking more water than normal. Nothing has showed up as abnormal on any of the blood work with the exception of the over active thyroid. After the radioactive iodine treatment she has gained all of her weight back and is borderline overweight now at 13lbs. Ideally she should weigh around 11-12lbs. I thought this could be diabetes, but she has been tested a several times and nothing has shown up. She is also gaining weight and not losing weight. Does anyone have any idea what other possible causes there could be for this?

Thanks,

Elizabeth

[catloverami]

Excessive thirst and urination is a symptom of Chronic Renal Failure (CRF), Maybe a possibility as this is more common in senior cats. Was your cat checked for this?

[Kattt]

Has your vet done a urinalysis recently to check for crystals? Or an xray to check for bladder stones?

The behavior you describe is exactly how my cat was acting, and he ended up having bladder stones. He always had his face in the water bowl, and always had cold sores around his chin/mouth with thinning fur from the constant wet mouth/chin. And he was always smacking his lips like he had cotton mouth. He couldn't ever get enough to drink.

He's overweight - 21lbs at the time, so I thought it was diabetes too. So I took him to the vet mid-june and described his cotton mouth/water drinking obsession, and had them do bloodwork, and asked them to do a urinalysis. The bloodwork came back just fine, but they said they couldn't get a urine sample out of him at the time. So we went on our way happy that they gave him a clean bill of health. Well, not so happy 2 weeks later when we ended up there as an emergency visit at 1am. He was blocked and unable to urinate because of bladder stones, which required surgery to remove.

I have also heard from my vet, as well as read many forums online that Wellness has caused struvite crystals in quite a few cats, especially the dry Wellness Core. And before anyone gets worked up reading what I just said - I am by no means making any accusations that Wellness causes it in all cats, but if you google it - You will see alot of posts where cats developed struvite crystals while eating that brand of food. Reason being, Wellness tends to raise the pH levels, often too high for some cats, which causes them to develop the struvite crystals. My vet put my cat on Wellness food for this very same reason, he's proned to calcium oxalate stones, so he needed a food that would raise his pH level. So I would use extreme caution when it comes to that brand of food if your cat has no current urinary issues.

But anyways, thats an option to explore with your vet, to check for crystals/stones. Plus like the previous poster already mentioned, CRF is a possibility as well, especially with her age.

Greasy and matted fur, and the fact that she can't get enough to drink is definitely a sign of dehydration. So it sounds like something is going on healthwise for sure, and you should get the vet to dig deeper ASAP. She may needs some fluids administered.


Good luck. Please let us know what they figure out.

[Taxcat]

Thanks for the replies. As I stated in my original post, the excessive drinking has been going on for some time and I have made several mentions of this to my Vet. In fact, she was just at the vet a couple of weeks ago. She has been tested for CRF extensively due to the radioactive iodine treatment she received earlier and because she also recently had a dental cleaning. None of these procedures would have been done had she shown any signs of CRF. I know that CRF can be difficult to diagnose in some cats until the disease is fairly advanced. Her urine has been tested many times since as follow up. Her urine concentration is good and her BUNN and Creatine levels were all perfectly normal. She has no problem urinating. Also, what I may not have mentioned previously is that she has had somewhat of a greasy coat all of her life. I guess what I was trying to say is that I think it has gotten worse. The matting issue was not so prevalent before.

While I appreciate the information you provided about the Wellness food, that is only for the dry food. My cat gets both wet and dry. The only reason I keep some dry food in her diet is that I need her to still accept dry food for the times that I am out of town.

Thanks for the advice. I will probably bug my Vet again to see if there are other possiblities.

Elizabeth

[laurief]

If she hasn't had a blood chemistry run since her dental, have another one run now (including TT4). Anesthesia can trigger renal problems, so even if her pre-dental bloodwork indicated normal renal function, that may have changed since the anesthesia.

Greasy, matted haircoat and excessive thirst are typical signs of dehydration. I strongly recommend you decrease the amount of kibble you're feeding to 1/8 c or less daily, and increase the canned. Also, mix warm water into her canned food to make it "canned food soup" to increase her water intake. It's possible that she may even benefit from occasional subQ fluid administrations, so that's something you might want to discuss with your vet.

If you don't already have them, go back to both of your vets and request copies of all of your cat's blood and urine test results as far back as possible. By keeping a chart of your girl's test results, you may very well notice trends and changes in the results that your vets have missed, esp if your vets haven't been sharing their test results with each other. I can't stress enough how important it is to keep copies of all of these results yourself so that you can keep track of any changes yourself.

Laurie