[heyhowie]

I am in a terrible situation and can’t determine what’s happening with my cat. He’s 16 years old and has dropped from 11 to 7 pounds in 5 months.

He’s always had health issues, but amazingly pulls through. Here’s a summary, as it can be quite lengthy.

He’s had nasal breathing issues all his life, since I got him at age 1. He was always stuffed up and would throw up mucus every so often. The stress of breathing so hard, has caused him to develop a Hiatal Hernia. However, the stomach acid does clear out the nasal passages. The Vet thinks the nasal blockage is due to scare tissue from an earlier time as a kitten. We began giving him Pheniramine Maleate, Neo Synepherine nasal drops, Tagamet, and maybe Flagyl. Nothing really seemed to make a difference.

His recent blood work has come back Negative for FIV, Diabetes, Thyroid, etc. He’s had X-rays, a Barium Enema, a Bronchoscopy, an Ultra Sound of his abdomen, and a “Moving X-ray” while swallowing Barium enriched food. The last one did diagnose the Hiatal Hernia since they could see the stomach move up into the chest. The only other diagnosis was an “Enlarged” Esophagus. He was given a special blood test to see if a known, but rare, disease that may be the cause was present….but it came back negative.
The internal medicine specialist doctor said that it was so stretched out, that we’d need to do upright feedings to ensure the food was flowing to the stomach. Perhaps this would be why so much weight was recently lost…nothing is getting down.

However, my cat still uses the litter box regularly…confirming that food is passing. Additionally, I have rarely noticed any vomit and he does not have diarrhea. He drinks plenty of water and has no problem eating his doctor recommended boiled or baked chicken and canned tuna. We also soak his dry food in water to soften it up to make it go down more easily. He eats just as much as the other 2 cats, but doesn’t gain any weight.

His only other symptom is that recently (4 months) started to go outside the litter box, even upstairs near his food area. We are thinking of adding another litter box, since we have only one large box for 3 cats. I guess we’ve been pretty lucky up to this point and at age 16, he might not feel like going up and down the stairs so much.

The vet said that they’ll have to do exploratory surgery to “look” for things that might be going on; one thought is intestinal cancer. I just cannot make any logical sense out of not finding anything with all of these tests and continuing to see such significant weight loss. We do have fleas, thanks to the dog. Could there be a worm, parasite, something else? I’m running out of ideas and have the doctors stumped too.