Cat losing weight.

Dr. Marie replied:

Hmmm...this is a strange situation. With those thyroid numbers your cat should have a reduced appetite and be gaining weight.

It sounds like your vet is doing all of the same things that I would be doing. There likely is some kind of medical issue, but sometimes it can be hard to pin down. I do have a few thoughts for you though.

You could ask your vet about the possibility of inflammatory bowel disease. While some cats with this condition have diarrhea, others will simply just lose weight and then they are hungry because they are not absorbing their food properly. It would be great to have your vet check Margie's cobalamin and folate levels. Often with inflammatory bowel disease these levels will be out of whack and we can supplement them and cats do well.

Sometimes if I am suspecting inflammatory bowel disease I will put a cat on prednisolone. This helps to decrease inflammation and helps cats to gain weight again.

However the only way to get a for sure diagnosis of IBD is to do intestinal biopsies.

Another idea - Sometimes when we have strange thyroid levels like this it can mean that there is a tumor in the thyroid gland. You could talk to the vet about biopsying her thyroid to see if this is possible.

And then, any time I have a cat who is losing weight and we can't figure out why, I get a little bit worried about cancer. There are some cancers that can be hard to diagnose. I think the xrays were to look for obvious cancers. Sometimes an ultrasound can tell us more...but there is no guarantee.

I hope this helps and I hope we get some answers soon!

Dr. Marie.

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