Last fall I noticed that Kobi was eating ravenously and had lost some weight, vomiting once in a while which was unusual for him...I was thinking hyperthyroid, at 11 years he's the perfect age for that. Vet did a full blood panel and urinalysis and everything came up perfect except that he had lost over 3 lbs. She said we could do lots of expensive tests but that she doubted that they would show anything since there was absolutely nothing suspicious in his blood work. We decided to up his food quantity and monitor. I was weighing him every couple weeks...he was still eating like a horse but holding his weight.
In Jan the vomiting increased to several times a week, just liquid...not really food. I had eliminated the little bit of kibble he was getting back in December so I tried removing the chicken and turkey and went with more novel proteins. After a couple weeks that wasn't working, the vomiting of liquid was almost daily and he had lost more weight.
Took him in and she ran another T4 test and a pancreatitis test. Both were negative. Next up was a test for checking whether he's excreting too much protein in his stool. I had to collect 3 poop samples and they had to be sent to a lab in Texas. It's been two and a half weeks (several days to collect samples and 2 weeks for the test results to come back)...yesterday it came back that he is definitely losing protein, which means he has IBD.
In the meantime, during that 2 1/2 weeks, he's lost even more weight, down a total of about 5 lbs. He was about 18 lbs and not really overweight, he's now 13 and a bag of bones. I remembered that when Callie had IBD I had good luck with giving her slippery elm for her vomiting. So I started Kobi on that about 2 weeks ago and it has helped a lot...only vomited twice in that time.
So the vet called with the test results yesterday, we decided to put him on prednisolone. We discussed diet and she said to just keep him on high quality, highly digestible proteins...he's been on a combo of canned and raw the last couple weeks and she said that should work fine. And I'm continuing the slippery elm.
He goes in for a weight check in two weeks. Crossing my fingers that the pred gets the inflammation down enough that he can absorb his nutrients again.
This is the second cat I've had with IBD...it just stinks. He's eating a 5.5 oz can of wet plus 4-5 oz of raw per day plus whatever he scavenges from Holly and Maggie's dishes....and still losing weight.
In Jan the vomiting increased to several times a week, just liquid...not really food. I had eliminated the little bit of kibble he was getting back in December so I tried removing the chicken and turkey and went with more novel proteins. After a couple weeks that wasn't working, the vomiting of liquid was almost daily and he had lost more weight.
Took him in and she ran another T4 test and a pancreatitis test. Both were negative. Next up was a test for checking whether he's excreting too much protein in his stool. I had to collect 3 poop samples and they had to be sent to a lab in Texas. It's been two and a half weeks (several days to collect samples and 2 weeks for the test results to come back)...yesterday it came back that he is definitely losing protein, which means he has IBD.
In the meantime, during that 2 1/2 weeks, he's lost even more weight, down a total of about 5 lbs. He was about 18 lbs and not really overweight, he's now 13 and a bag of bones. I remembered that when Callie had IBD I had good luck with giving her slippery elm for her vomiting. So I started Kobi on that about 2 weeks ago and it has helped a lot...only vomited twice in that time.
So the vet called with the test results yesterday, we decided to put him on prednisolone. We discussed diet and she said to just keep him on high quality, highly digestible proteins...he's been on a combo of canned and raw the last couple weeks and she said that should work fine. And I'm continuing the slippery elm.
He goes in for a weight check in two weeks. Crossing my fingers that the pred gets the inflammation down enough that he can absorb his nutrients again.
This is the second cat I've had with IBD...it just stinks. He's eating a 5.5 oz can of wet plus 4-5 oz of raw per day plus whatever he scavenges from Holly and Maggie's dishes....and still losing weight.
