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Cat Health |
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Kitty Weight Loss |
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When I moved to Sandpoint, one of the first people I met was a veterinarian. At some point during the awful packing event that preceded the 1,200 mile road trip to North Idaho, one of my cats stopped eating. We didn't know when Chani, the smaller and more neurotic of our two gray tabbies, stopped relishing her food, but we noticed when she started vomiting evil green slime instead of eating.
If your cat loses weight, it should be cause for concern. In a 10 pound cat, a 1 pound loss represents about 10% of her body weight, which is significant. Although a small weight loss may just be a part of a cat getting older or a finicky nature, it could be a symptom of a serious problem such as kidney failure, hyperthyroidism, feline leukemia (FeLV), feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV), or cancer.
Needless to say, after we got to Sandpoint, we hustled Chani to the vet. Her weight loss wasn't due to any kind of disease as it turned out. The vet couldn't find anything obviously wrong with her, but cautioned us that some cats stop eating due to stress. If we couldn't get her to eat, Chani's liver could fail and she'd effectively kill herself. We tried tempting her with cat food and feeding her extra B vitamins to stimulate her appetite. Another possibility was that Chani might have eaten something like packing tape (there was a lot around) that was obstructing her digestive system. After a day or so of her still not eating, we took Chani back to the vet for a "barium series." She was fed barium, which is a mildly radioactive substance that shows up well on x-rays. Her x-rays showed nothing unusual in her system. However, after the yummy barium and staying overnight at the vet clinic, Chani came home hungry. No one knows why barium cured my cat, but apparently, it's not unusual. So, the moral of the story is if your cat loses weight, take her to the veterinarian.
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