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                 ---MIKE---

Hi.. I"m new here, but I have a question I thought maybe someone could
have some ideas.. I have a 17 year old cat with low grade kidney disease
and hyper thyroidism... She takes med for the thyroid... She has
recently been off her food... I just had a complete workup done at my
vet... CBC normal.. Organ profile normal... Thyroid now within normal
range.. BUN one point above normal... However she has lost another pound
and only takes a few bites of her food... I"ve tried all kinds of food
including baby food meat... I"m picking up an appetite stimulant today
from my vet.... She has always been a cat that likes to eat.!!  Now she
is wasting away to nothing.  No apparant changes in environment or
otherwise.. Anyone have any ideas or suggestions???
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My reply:

Well, first see how the appetite stimulant (Periactin/cyproheptadine, or
something else?) goes.  It may work really well.  Sometimes I could give my
cat just 1/2 of the recommended dose & 20 minutes later she'd be at her food
bowl, eating.

You could also try Hills Prescription Diet a/d food - available at the
vet's.  It's made for syringe force-feeding if necessary, but sometimes my
cat would eat it off a spoon - she really liked it, as long as she had
*some* vestige of an appetite. (My other cats loved it & wanted some as a
treat whenever I gave it to the ill cat.)  Other people have mentioned some
clam juice dribbled over the cat's food as a way to entice
appetite-depressed cats to eat.

In early CRF I don't know if her appetite's depressed because her stomach is
"off".  But another possibility is giving her a kitty-sized dose (1/4 of a
tab) of OTC Pepcid ac, if that's the case. But, first ask your vet about
this, even though it's a pretty standard treatment for CRF cats.

Cathy

P.S.  I switched the post over to "plain text".  Apparently WebTV defaults
to HTML/rich text, which isn't the protocol for news groups.

Is she on tapazole? As someone else mentioned, lack of appetite and/or nausea
and vomiting can be a side effect of the tapazole. Same thing happen to my
friend's 15 year old cat. When she was taken off tapazole and given an appetite
stimulant, she ate like a horse. Now I think she is on a reduced dosage of the
thyroid med. Ask what your vet thinks about whether the thyroid medication is
causing nausea.

Hi.. I"m new here, but I have a question I thought maybe someone could
have some ideas.. I have a 17 year old cat with low grade kidney disease
and hyper thyroidism... She takes med for the thyroid... She has
recently been off her food... I just had a complete workup done at my
vet... CBC normal.. Organ profile normal... Thyroid now within normal
range.. BUN one point above normal... However she has lost another pound
and only takes a few bites of her food... I"ve tried all kinds of food
including baby food meat... I"m picking up an appetite stimulant today
from my vet.... She has always been a cat that likes to eat.!!  Now she
is wasting away to nothing.  No apparant changes in environment or
otherwise.. Anyone have any ideas or suggestions???

I strongly urge you to have your cat examined for intestinal problems such
as an obstruction or at very worst, cancer.  It could also be inflammatory
bowel disease.  The test is done under anesthesia and involves a gastric
scope.  They can also perform an x-ray for preliminary diagnosis.  Don't ask
me why, but in my experience you have to ask for these tests.

Paul

You said she "just" had a blood test done but she has lost "another
pound", which leads me to wonder how long ago the blood test was.
Things can go downhill in a fairly short space of time with the
problems you describe, especially in an older cat.  If in addition to
the appetite loss she's been lethargic or looking like she can't get
comfortable, make sure the vet is made aware because it may mean her
problems have gotten worse since the last blood test.

As you probably know, both conditions she has can cause a cat to be
nauseous, as well as the tapazole used to treat the hyperthyroidism.
As I understand it, if a cat has a bout of extended nausea and goes
off his/her food, often it is difficult to get them to start eating
again without some intervention like the appetite stimulant the vet is
giving her.

Thanks for all the info... some of it very helpful.. Yes.. she is on
Tapazole for the thyroid.. has been for almost a year .. She is
rechecked about every 3 months and has lost the pound since May, the
last time she was checked.. Her blood work was done this past Monday.. I
got her the appetite stimulant...Cyproheptadine... She has been asking
for food, but not eating a whole lot, which probably is a good thing.. I
don't want her vomiting it all up.