Cat question--need advice

[qtwns]

I hope someone can give me some advice. My cat will be 17 in March and is going down hill fast. She has no muscle mass to speak of. We give her "steps" so she can get to her favorite places. She barely eats but drinks A LOT of water. The vet says this is typical is cats as they near the end and there is no reason to suspect any other problems. She is just an old lady. She is having trouble eating her dry cat food. I am going to go buy her some canned so that she at least won't be hungry. I had also thought about buying some chicken stage 1 baby food. My theory is that I can spoon feed her some to ensure she is getting at least something and that it will be easier for her to digest. Any thoughts?

Otherwise she is a healthy cat, although I know she is getting very near the end. She is not in any pain that I can detect and is still happy and loving and giving the dog what-for! I just want to make her as comfortable and happy as possible. It is the least I can do for all she has given me these last 17 years.

 

[Linda in sunny SC]

Excessive drinking and weakness in the back legs can be symptoms of feline diabetes. Did your vet test your cat's blood glucose level? Feline diabetes is treatable with diet change and/or insulin injections.

 

[kacaju]

I agrre with what the op siad. I have a question for you.

What is your *plan* with her. You have mentioned that you know she is old and is getting to the end of her life.
Do you want, as the op suggested to go ahead and try to treat her if she has something treatable? Or are you just trying to keep her comfy until the end of her life?

I will disagree with you on one thing. She is not healthy, from what you have said, not eating well, drinking a lot, no muscle mass she is a very sick cat. Soory to be so harsh, but I am dealing with this same issue with my Mom and brother. They also have a very *sick* healthy cat.

Yes you can go ahead and feed her baby food, warm it up a bit, it helps them to eat it. But please, think about her, yes she may *seem* OK but it really sounds like she is slowly starving to death.

 

[qtwns]

As far as our plan is, we will do all we can to keep her comfortable. What the vet says will determine what action we take. A costly treatment is not financially feasible right now. That said, she is a family member and we will do all we can within our means.

 

[Sleepy]

I hope someone can give me some advice. My cat will be 17 in March and is going down hill fast. She has no muscle mass to speak of. We give her "steps" so she can get to her favorite places. She barely eats but drinks A LOT of water. The vet says this is typical is cats as they near the end and there is no reason to suspect any other problems. She is just an old lady. She is having trouble eating her dry cat food. I am going to go buy her some canned so that she at least won't be hungry. I had also thought about buying some chicken stage 1 baby food. My theory is that I can spoon feed her some to ensure she is getting at least something and that it will be easier for her to digest. Any thoughts?

Otherwise she is a healthy cat, although I know she is getting very near the end. She is not in any pain that I can detect and is still happy and loving and giving the dog what-for! I just want to make her as comfortable and happy as possible. It is the least I can do for all she has given me these last 17 years.

What did the complete lab work show? If a cat is drinking water excessively and has no muscle mass and refuses to eat, I have a difficult time believing all the lab results came back within normal range. As others have said, there could be kindey and liver function problems. I realize the cat is old, but just like people, when we get old, our organs begin to shut down and it is a downward spiral from there as one effects the other. How long has the loss of muscle mass vs loss of appetite been going on? Do you think one is a result of the other or just old age that has finally caught up with it?

Please understand that your vet is not going to tell you that you need to put the cat to sleep. Their way of telling you it is time is by telling you there is nothing more you can do other than keep the cat comfortable. Your cat will eventually start hiding to isolate itself. This is natural response. Your cat may even purr when you pet it, but that does not mean it is not in pain.
Keep an eye on the amount of urine it releases vs the amount of water it drinks. Watch out for jaundice.

The baby food meats is definitely a good alternative. We always fed our cats baby food in the end, but that really doesn't even last long either. When they stop eating, they usually don't regain appetite unless you pump them with steroids.

I am sorry that you are going through this.

 

[Guy Incognito]

not sure if it'll help, but maybe try feeding her kitten food..... one of our old cats was dropping weight/etc; but when a new kitten was brought into the house, the old cat would eat the kitten food and started to pack on some extra lbs..... (lived to be 20 years old.... during one of the last trips to the vet, they were examining her eyes and got all excited.... apparently the color was breaking down due to age..... they called in all the interns/etc to see it, since they said they had only read about that in books and never seen it in reality).

 

[Rpsemont]

Our cat is 18.
A number of years ago, the vet had me cut back on her food because she was overweight.
Last year, she really stared to get thin.
I took her to to the vet who did blood work and said the blood work did indicate that her kidney's might not be working right, that did happen with older cats, and gave me special dry and moist food for her. SHe hated the food - and ate less.
I went back to her favorite (less expensive) dry food. DH started feeding her moist food 2-3 times a day, instead of the 1 time a day I have been doing for all her life. So she was getting more moist food than she had ever had.
She's gaining weight and looking better.
I figure if she's in her twilight years and wants to eat soft food, so be it.

 

[bballmom56]

I agree with checking to see if it is diabetic. We had a cat like that. Once we started treating the diabetes, he started gaining weight (and stopped drinking and peeing so much).

I currently have a 14 yo cat going through this now (weight loss). I have had him to the vet, they did lab work and didn't find anything wrong. We did have his teeth cleaned and he had a couple of issues there which we fixed. He still doesn't eat well - or eats in spurts. I asked someone in the pet food store about foods to help them gain weight and they did suggest the kitten food as it is higher in nutrients, particularly protein, I think. I'm going to try that.

 

[hopemax]

My parents cat will be 18 in a couple months, and over the 18 months, she had noticeable changes in her diet. When my parents took her to the vet, last spring, he was concerned that she had lost weight. I had read somewhere, that older cats lose their sense of smell. She barely tolerated dry food before, when she couldn't even smell it... They switched her completely to wet food, and she started eating a lot more. However, when I talked to my parents this weekend, they mentioned that she's started to not eat some wet food. She prefers the fish, instead of beef/chicken. She will also scarf up cat treats.

 

[bballmom56]

She will also scarf up cat treats.

That's true! My skinny cat LOVES Greenies. Unfortunately, they advertise on the package that Greenies have only 2 calories per piece. Great . Won't gain any weight on those!

 

[Planogirl]

Our cat drank a LOT of water when he was older but he'd had problems with urinary blockages and from what I understand males do tend to drink a lot of water after they've had that problem. They also don't get as much water when they only eat dry food so switching to canned might help that.

How are her teeth? Those getting bad might be affecting her eating. Again, switching to canned food might help her there too. We gave our old guy Fancy Feast for sometime before we lost him. He loved it!

 

[qtwns]

I got some Science Diet kitten food this afternoon. She scarfed it up. I had to take it away and feed it to her so she wouldn't eat too fast. Poor baby. I appreciate everyone's support!

 

[lizbaby007]

When my cat was about 16 1/2 she started losing weight and drinking A LOT of water. I took her to the vet and they did a full panel. They said it was either her kidneys or her thyroid. Well it turned out to be renal failure (her kidneys) and they said the only treatment they had was a special diet and even then they were only gonna give her 3-6 months.

Well I was devastated but put her on the diet immediately. It is a very expensive prescription diet called k/d. I can only get it at the vets office...but boy is it worth it. Here we are over 2 years later!!! She turns 19 in May and people always say Im lying...she just looks too good to be 19! She is very active and still manages to climb and jump up on everything. She eats a lot but is still a bit on the thin side but I consider it a small miracle that she is even still with me, especially considering they only gave her a few months!

I would definitely talk to the vet again and really go over the lab work. Don't just give up on your baby! If it really is just old age then enjoy this time with your cat and love it as much as possible but be ready to do what you have to do to make sure he/she is comfortable and not in any pain. Thats all you can do really. I hope everything works out for you

 

[snarlingcoyote]

Well, at the end of my parents' last cat's life (He died at the "young" age of 18. Their last cat was 28 when she passed and her daughter had been 24 when she died.) my mom would boil boneless chicken breasts on the stove until the chicken breasts dissolved and feed the cat the breasts and the broth, which he heartily enjoyed, and it probably kept him alive a year or so.

I might well invest in an itsy teensy crockpot when my elderly cat (she's 18 but has no visible health problems - has a touch of arthritis and won't eat anything other than Fancy Feast Savory Salmon, but other wise in perfect health.) gets to that stage. (Except I'll probably be slow cooking salmon or tuna steaks, not chicken.)

 

[Poohbug]

The Vet will have a Science Diet canned food that is super-loaded with nutrients. (might be the one mentioned earlier) I was given a can when my kitty was at the end. They only have to eat a TBSP or so to get all they need for a feeding.

It is so hard to know what to do at this stage. After three stays at the Vet, I finally had to put her down. She was never a large cat and probably only weighed four lbs at the end. Basically the Vet told me she wasn't getting better and wasn't going to get better. It's really hard to say good-bye to a pet you have had for so long.

It sounds like you are taking good care of your cat and it is a good sign that she is eating. Good luck.

 

[auntie]

From what you describe it sounds to me the cat is diabetic. We experienced this with our cat. It is very treatable. You should have some blood work done.

 

[SandrA9810]

I know a dog is slightly different, but the last 4 months or so of my doggy's life, she didn't want to eat dry food at all. And the senior version of her food was her favorite canned food. It also seemed to have a stronger smell than all the others, and probably was a little easier on her.

As she looses her strength it's probably hard for her to chew up the dry food. But don't prolong her life if she's in too much pain.

All I heard was "you'll know when it's time..." I was like, she's my dog, she's everything to me, how am i going to know when to put her to sleep? And one morning when I woke up and found her, I just knew. It ended up being a week or so later before I could take her to the vet for the final time. She would try to act happy and perky and do everything as normally as possible, but the minute she would go lay in a corner, i could just tell she was in pain. It was harder watching her those final days than it was to go to the vet. Of course the hardest part now is reminding myself that she's not on the other side of the door when I open the door.

It'll be tough from now on, but you can't change what's happening.

 

[marciemi]

Wow - not the OP here but amazed at how many people are going through the same (or similar) things!. Our cat will be 21 in April and is doing the same thing - not eating a lot, losing weight (she is also now around 4 pounds!) and drinking a ton of water. She's always eaten canned food and refused adamantly the "high calorie" stuff the vet gave us to try. We put food down at least 3 times a day, but she eats some (but certainly not anywhere near all of it) each time.

On the minus side, she seems to just be completely absent minded. I think more she forgets to eat (really - if she follows me around and I put her by her bowl, she'll suddenly realize there's food!) and seems to have forgotten where her litter box is and wants to just "go" anywhere . Taking the cover off has seemed to help some (guess it was too hidden before - even though it's been there for years). At night we've started putting her in the basement because it's just too hard to watch her (and yes, she has a couple sofas, food, litter, water, etc. down there) and at least there isn't carpet there to keep cleaning.

On the plus side, she doesn't have the mobility problems at all. She can (and still does) leap from the chair to the counter, counter to the table, etc. Will take off after a bird or squirrel if I open the door with her watching (she's an indoor cat) and just seems about as agile as she ever was (people can't normally believe she's 20). However, this means there's no easy way to just block off the family room (her favorite spot to "go") since even though I put two mattresses there the other day to try (it has a wide doorway), she didn't have any trouble jumping up and over them.

We did go through an entire workup a couple months back and the vet found nothing significantly out of normal range. Like if normal was 4-6, hers might be 7, but they said they usually would treat 20 or above (or similar numbers). The vet said that he felt any medications would be more likely at this point to just cause something else to happen rather than to actually solve anything.

So we know like many of you that the end is probably coming in not too long but are trying to enjoy her for what time she has left.

 

[marciemi]

Oh, and just wanted to add that our cat had a sister from the same litter that we had to put down at 18. Similar to others - we "knew". She had a stroke in August and was very limited after that - couldn't climb stairs or jump up on a couch. However, she could still eat fine and lay in the sun and purr and seemed happy for the most part. The next April she went downhill very, very quickly - within a day or two and could obviously no longer see or hear and as someone else mentioned was burrowing everywhere (ended up ripping out the whole dryer vent trying to get back in there) and would not eat anything. When we brought her in, there was no doubt in our mind that she was completely miserable and had no idea what was going on, and since she hadn't eaten in a couple days, wouldn't last long on her own.

I think having had the stroke gave us (and especially the kids) a chance to prepare ourselves. And she was so miserable at the end that although everyone was sad about it, it was also just a huge relief to not have to see her in obvious pain.

I will say though that others have said that a vet won't tell you to put them down, but we kind of had the opposite experience. After her stroke in August, we felt that the vet kept kind of telling us that "it would be fine/understandable" if we wanted to. Since she seemed to be living a fairly normal life (other than the climbing/stairs) we didn't see the reason, but almost felt pressured to do so. So it obviously depends on the vet.

Good luck to the OP and everyone!

 

[EMom]

My kitty will be 19 soon and she's used up a lot of lives. She's had little muscle mass in her back legs for years due to arthritis. It jusst keeps decreasing. Her appetite was never strong and it's gotten less with every year. As the years pass, the stinkier the food, the better she likes it. Fishy things appeal to her. I put my cats on canned food years ago, at the vet's suggestion, and ours is a feline specialist. It is better for their teeth and is more moist and they need moisture as they age, since their kidneys lose function. On top of that, I water it down to make it more moist. I find that microwaving it makes it more palatable. Cats like warm food, like "kill."

The best thing we've done for her is to give her an appetite stimulant (Cyproheptadine) every morning. She takes 1/4 tablet and without it, I hate to imagine how little she'd eat. She eats several tiny meals a day. If she completely loses her appetite, I feed her turkey baby food or baked/boiled turkey meat...no seasonings.

She had a stroke a few months ago, but recovered and within days, you'd never know she'd been ill. She is slow and only jumps on the couch most days but at nearly 100 in cat years, she is entitled. The main thing you mentioned that jumps out at me is your cat's increased thirst as that can be a sign of diabetes. But it can also signal poor kidney function. I'd check on that.

Good luck....We love them so, especially after so many years.