My cat had a blood test today

[Lougle]

Our cat is almost 13 years old. She was quite overweight in October 2020 (5.6kg). I started feeding her exactly as stated on the packet for a 4kg cat (the vet told us she needed to lose weight and was very fat). Within 14 months (Dec 2021) she was 4.5kg, which was perfect. I started feeding her a little more freely, with the aim of maintaining her weight. Then she started to look a little bit slimmer than I was expecting, so I started overfeeding her - often adding an extra meal in. Now, she has dropped to 3.7kg. She is otherwise well. But she is overgrooming herself slightly near the top of her tail.

I took her to the vet and he has taken some blood tests (£270!) for a geriatric panel, hyperthyroidism, and diabetes. He is leaning towards hyperthyroidism, but has said that when you start to treat one disease, another can be unmasked and it's possible that she has some kidney disease as well.

Does anyone have an older cat with hyperthyroidism or who lost weight rapidly?

My 14yo cat has been eating like a horse but losing a lot of weight and she’s never been a big eater. Vet has tried to take blood but she wouldn’t have a bar of it despite sedation. Taking her back next week for another try. So a bit further behind you in diagnosis but the vet has mentioned the same kind of ailments 😕

My 12 ish year old Persian has lost 500g over the last few months. But is absolutely fine in her self. Routine heart scan was fine. So I asked the cardiologist about getting bloods done. She didn't seem to concerned about it and said to monitor. I'm worried about it being kidneys. But she's not behaving like her sister did when her kidneys were failing.

we had an older girl who developed a thyroid issue. Managed well with medication. We had pts years later at 19. She never developed anything kidney related etc.

I had two cats diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. One lived almost 4 years - slowly losing weight over time. She ended up at just over 2kgs.

The other rapidly lost weight even on medication and they then found calcium (I think) in a blood test which indicated cancer. We decided to wait and see, given her age we wouldn't have put through treatment and she was pts a few months later when her breathing was laboured.

Thanks for replies. The blood tests are in. No hyperthyroidism, no diabetes. But her reticulocytes are low and her neutrophils are low, so they want to repeat the test tomorrow. He said it could be bone-marrow or immune related.

Or inflammatory.

Happened here but it was kidneys and diagnosed on initial blood test, has that been ruled out with yours?

I think it must have been because he said that everything else was normal except those two.

Well that’s good news. Hope it turns out to be something easily fixable