Calling the Hive Vet

[Sarah CB]

So I have this cat who keeps getting skinnier and skinnier (her brother keeps getting fatter and fatter, but that's another story). She has lost nearly a pound since March - I think she's at about 7 lbs right now. She has always thrown up quite a lot - anywhere from twice a week to every day, depending. I had her at the vet a month ago because she was having diarrhea and was occasionally pooping in my front entryway and because I was worried about the throwing up and the weight. The vet thought maybe her thyroid was overactive so we did $400 worth of blood tests. Turns out, everything they ran was just fine. No red flags. Except the vet thought she was trying to tell me that she wanted more wet food (communicating by pooping outside the litter - nice).

 

I went to the fancy pet food store and asked the owner about food that might be easier on my cat's stomach. She suggested a fish based kibble with no grains. My cat hates it. I give my cats wet food in the morning (which they love) and then kibble throughout the day. My skinny cat barely touches the kibble and is constantly begging for food - whenever I'm preparing food in the kitchen she is in there trying to get on the counters or in the dishwasher. Clearly she's hungry. And she'll eat little pieces of chicken and beef if I give those to her. She doesn't typically throw up meat. She's driving dh crazy because she's constantly jumping on the counters. I chase her down every time and also have a spray bottle.

 

Sometimes when she throws up it's shortly after a meal. Other times, it's first thing in the morning and just looks like water or bile. There doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason to it.

 

Anyway - this cat cannot afford to lose any more weight. She's tiny. Does anyone have any suggestions? I'd love to find something she can eat comfortably and that she would like.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Was she checked for a urinary problem?  Sometimes cats get crystals which can lead to weight loss and diarrhea.  My cat was put on a special bladder health/ urinary tract diet.  Wet food is best for that.  You can get the Hill's science diet food at Petco and other stores.  I also got my cat these cranberry cat treats that helped.  You give it to them daily at first and then there is a weekly maintenance dose.  7 pounds for a full grown cat is seriously skinny. 

[ktgrok]

Give her wet food 2-3 times a day. How are her teeth?

[Critterfixer]

Possibly inflammatory bowel disease. That's a back-in diagnosis though, and would have to be confirmed with biopsy. 

[Pawz4me]

Our last cat *probably* had IBD. I say *probably* because the vet didn't do a biopsy. He did a barium x-ray. We were planning on following that with a biopsy but he said he saw enough on the x-ray to convince him that she had IBD. Anyway -- we got very lucky with food. I figured out soon after diagnosis that she tolerated and did well on Purina One sensitive systems dry food. Other than the very occasional nibble of canned food she ate nothing but the PO sensitive system food for years and years. Last year when she was 14 we had her euthanized due to intestinal lymphoma (which often occurs in cats with IBD). But overall she lived a long, relatively healthy life.

[regentrude]

Inflammatory stomach/bowel issues?

Has the vet tried a steroid shot to see if it helps?

Edited January 25, 2018 by regentrude

[ktgrok]

Our last cat *probably* had IBD. I say *probably* because the vet didn't do a biopsy. He did a barium x-ray. We were planning on following that with a biopsy but he said he saw enough on the x-ray to convince him that she had IBD. Anyway -- we got very lucky with food. I figured out soon after diagnosis that she tolerated and did well on Purina One sensitive systems dry food. Other than the very occasional nibble of canned food she ate nothing but the PO sensitive system food for years and years. Last year when she was 14 we had her euthanized due to intestinal lymphoma (which often occurs in cats with IBD). But overall she lived a long, relatively healthy life.

 

My cat with GI issues does best on that food too! That, and fancy feast pate canned. Pukes everything else, or has other issues. 

 

OP, usual reasons for weight loss in a cat are hyperthyroidism, kidney disease, cancer, GI issues, or painful teeth making eating difficult/painful. Thyroid and kidney should have showed up on the bloodwork. I'd check the teeth and gums and consider a set of X-rays. As much as it is best to do specific areas when doing an X-ray, for financial reasons vets will often do a "whole cat" X-ray to get an idea of what is going on in there. 

[Tanaqui]

Cats are obligate carnivores. A grain-free wet food and skip the kibble is my first suggestion, along with plenty of water throughout the day. But if it doesn't improve immediately, I'd truck back to the vet - or to a different vet entirely.

[trulycrabby]

A friend's cat had similar symptoms and it turned out to be stenosis of the pyloric sphincter.

[Shellydon]

Grain free wet food is the best thing for cats, so I'd just feed her that exclusively and skip the dry. 

[school17777]

My sil’s dog was like that for years. Turned out he had swallowed one her kid’s binkies years ago and it was stuck in his intestines. They spent $1ks on testing for years. Finally, an emergency vet saw the binky in an X-ray. Not sure how the regular vet missed it years before when he did X-rays.

 

I wonder if your cat could have some kind of blockage?

[Pawz4me]

I agree with those who say grain free wet food is best for cats in general, but -- OP, be aware that that is NOT necessarily true of cats who have IBD.

 

I'm no expert, but I did learn from researching when our kitty had it that what any IBD cat can tolerate is very specific to that cat. You can NOT categorically and accurately say any one food/way of eating is best for all cats with IBD. Grain free wet food could be the worst possible thing. If it's IBD you want to approach feeding with a completely open mind for best chance of success. Ignore all the zealots who insist cats must have grain free wet food (not saying anyone recommending it on here is a zealot, but they certainly exist). I fell into that trap for too long and it sure didn't help our cat! And on message boards over the years I've met quite a few people who came close to killing their IBD cats because they insisted it had to eat grain free. Of course there were also some cats for whom grain free wet kibble was just the right thing. But . . . keep an open mind. What matters is how your cat does on a food, not what the food police--many/most of whom will have had no experience with a cat with a severe intestinal disease--think it should do well on.

 

ETA: And I think Regentrude is on to something when she asks about a steroid injection. Occasionally our cat's IBD would flare (probably due to stress, as I never changed her food) and she'd need a steroid injection to get it under control. Even if it's not IBD sometimes when a cat's stomach gets upset a steroid will be needed to calm it down. Dexamethasone injections kept our cat going for over a year after she was first diagnosed with intestinal lymphoma.

Edited January 25, 2018 by Pawz4me

[Sarah CB]

Wow. Thanks for all of the help and advice. I had no idea that it was ok to have her eat more wet food. Cleo will be thrilled. I'm going to do some experimentation with food and see how she does. If I can get her eating more and gaining some weight that would be great. If not, we'll head back to the vet. We will be back there in March for her yearly check-up and vaccines anyway, so I'll definitely mention IBD. That wasn't something the vet brought up when we were last in. 

 

Now my biggest problem will be my fat cat and my dog both losing their minds when Cleo gets extra wet food. Though, maybe they should all just have more wet food?

 

Oh - and her teeth and gums are great. Very healthy. She's eight years old this year and has always been on the slim side and, honestly, has always thrown up a lot. It's only in the last year that she's actually lost weight. 

[Pawz4me]

In general wet food is better for most cats than kibble. Even the cheaper canned foods tend to have more protein and less carbs than most kibble. Barring a specific health issue where a pet might do better on a particular kibble, there's no reason at all to feed kibble to a cat (or dog) rather than wet food.

 

ETA: Don't confuse "grain free" with "carb free." Many grain free foods are high carb.

Edited January 25, 2018 by Pawz4me

[Tanaqui]

I had no idea that it was ok to have her eat more wet food.

 

It is generally better for cats to have wet food, for a couple of reasons. First of all, it typically has a smaller amount of non-meat filler. Secondly, it of course has more liquid - and since cats are really, really bad at recognizing their thirst and remembering to drink water, this keeps them better hydrated. And in this specific case, since she seems to tolerate wet food and plain meat better than dry food, it's a bit of a no brainer. But again, if you don't see rapid improvement, truck her back to the vet.

 

(Before you ask, yes, it is possible to feed a cat on an all-meat diet. This is, of course, what people did before commercial cat foods, and the way cats eat in the wild! However, cats do have some specific dietary needs and I do not advise you to go *that* route without doing an awful lot of research first.)

 

Edited January 25, 2018 by Tanaqui

[Shellydon]

I would try several different foods and see what she tolerates.  Mine currently really like fancy feast chicken in the greenish cans.  They prefer it over the more expensive brands.  Not totally grain free, but they do well on it.

[Kanin]

My cat did this, and as soon as I switched to grain-free, she stopped. If she hates the dry food, I'd just give her grain-free wet food only. Maybe you could feed her in a private room with the door closed if the other pets tend to eat her food.

 

There are certain brands of grain-free that my cat hates, and will just NOT EAT. She'd rather starve than eat food she doesn't like! Cats are very stubborn, and they also hate change - so a food that's a different shape or smell freaks them out.

 

[lailasmum]

I've got a picky cat who will throw up or not eat if the food is not to her liking. I've learnt what types of textures of wet food she likes and stick with that, for her it's shredded meat in gravy or stock. She refuses pate textures or reconsituted chunk types and hates fish. There are also some of the shredded type that will make her throw up and I've narrowed it down to the starches that are added to thicken the gravy/stock. She does better if the flavours of food are constantly changing. If I feed her the same thing in a row more than twice then she'll generally refuse to eat it again for a few weeks. If you can find a simple complete cat food that's shredded chicken or shredded chicken and other things in a stock they seem to down well for all the cats we've had. Just make sure to buy a complete wet food not a supplementary/complementary one.

 

 

[Spy Car]

Disclaimer: I am not a cat expert and have never owned a cat.

 

That said, I have seen the virtues of a balanced raw diet when feeding a dog. As Tanaqui mentioned above, Cats are obligate carnivores.

 

I'm surprised that more cats don't reject (or have health issues as a result of eating) a cereal-heavy kibble diet, frankly.

 

There may be a hidden health issue here, but my first instinct reading the OP, is: Smart cat!

 

The fact she will happily eat meat and chicken (and not suffer from the vomiting associated with eating carbohydrate-based kibbles, redoubles the thought that if it were me, I'd explore feeding only foods appropriate to an obligate carnivore.

 

That would be a balanced complement of meat, organs, and bone. I am aware that cats, particularly, need the amino acid taurine (as unlike dogs they can't synthesize their own). I know beef heart is a good source of taurine.

 

Either way, I'd remove the carbohydrates from the diet entirely and see what happens. Kibble is a very unnatural thing to feed an obligate carnivore.

 

Bill

 

 

 

 

[Laurie]

I'm assuming the vet checked for diabetes? 

 

I have a cat with IBD.  He was throwing up and losing weight, and the vet took x-rays, did an ultrasound and needle biopsy, and other tests including a food allergy blood test.   He was supposed to eat prescription canned food, but he didn't want to eat it and kept getting skinnier.  The vet thought it was just the disease process, so I thought he was dying and I quit trying to make him eat the prescription food and looked for something simple without grains that he might like.    He liked the new food and has been happily eating it for several years now!   (The brand is Wild Calling, but unfortunately the company is in bankruptcy now and I can't find it anywhere!)   I've started giving him a new canned food and he's still eating and not throwing up.    He also takes a daily low dose of prednisolone liquid that I get from a compounding pharmacy. 

 

At one point, I took him to a vet specialist but she wanted to open him up with a big surgical diagnostic procedure.  I didn't want to do it.  (I think that was back in 2011.)    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ktgrok]

I'm assuming the vet checked for diabetes? 

 

 

 

That's a good point! Many times they do a glucose, but it's not always accurate in cats. A serum fructosamine (sort of alike an A1C in humans) would be a good thing to check. If they just did the labowork they can call and try to get the extra test run.