Why is my older cat losing weight
Why Your Older Cat May Be Losing Weight
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my name is dr. Hedley and I wanted to
talk to you today about something that I
see routinely in my veterinary practice
we see a lot of the older cats that are
chronically losing weight and the client
always comes in and the individuals say
you know they're just getting old
they're losing weight well my experience
has been just getting old that make you
lose weight so you need to look for
reasons why these pets are starting to
lose condition and typically it fits
into general categories but three of the
really major disease processes we see
are hyperthyroidism chronic renal
disease and and diabetes mellitus those
diseases routinely will cause weight
loss and and and poor condition in older
cats the one condition that is extremely
treatable in that group is
hyperthyroidism and we see a lot of cats
with it I mean a lot of them you know
the average age is around 13 and these
cats feel fine they do great they're
eating fantastic they're drinking a lot
of water they're very active very vocal
and the client assumes of course that
you assume your cat's fine he's acting
fine but they just continue to lose
weight and lose weight and lose weight
those cats are red flags once you see
that even though the cat acts perfectly
fine have them check to have their
thyroid function checked it's easy to do
it's inexpensive to do and the treatment
is super rewarding you can do
radioactive iodine you can do a
thyroidectomy or even maintenance with a
drug called methimazole that we compound
and have here those are all options but
always remember you don't lose weight
just because you get older so make sure
and take your cat in have them evaluated
have the disease identified and then
make sure and proceed with the
appropriate treatment Thanks