Eating BUT losing weight

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Anne-Lise

Anne-Lise

Well-known member
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Jan 30, 2009
Messages
401
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Québec
I'm going to the vet with one of my pets, but I still wanna have your thoughts about it.

My Zori is now 9 years old, she's weighted 528g for as long as I can remember. I eventually stopped weighing her often cause she'd act as usual, eat as usual and poop as usual and weight the same 528g every single time for years. Last time I weighted her, she was down to 468g :wacko: Needless to say I freaked out and felt horrible. But I'm still wondering how come she could loose that much weight but still eat as usual! And she does not waste food that much, she eats hay, her poop is fine, takes her treats and apple twigs, I just don't know what's happenning!

When I hold her she does feel skinnier on her belly, but I still can't feel her bones, she's not skinny as some rescues are when they've been malnourished. She's just thinner I guess.

For background info, I got her at 4 years old, she had one litter with her previous owner, she's been alone since I got her cause she's not getting along well with the other females. She's got no ped, well half a ped let's say loll

Any idea what could cause something like that? What kind of tests should be run on her? My vet is pretty good with chins but not perfect, so I prefer to get all the information I can before.
 
And I wanna add that she's lost another 10g in the past few days. So it's not like an overall loss of weight, she's still going downhill.
 
Silent giardia can cause anorexia without loose poo, I would have that checked along with a oral exam under gas w/ x-rays.
 
What are you feeding her?

I would ask for a giardia antigen test along with microscopic evaluation as giardia can sometimes be really hard to see with just a run-of-the-mill fecal float exam.
 
You may also want to have them check her for diabetes. Diabetes can cause weight loss in spite of eating well because the body is no longer able to use the sugar.
 
Any idea what could cause something like that?
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Cuddlebug is right on about the diabetes. Also, as animals age some lose the ability to absorb nutrients in their intestines. There is no cure for this that I know of, just a nutrient dense easily digestable diet.
 
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What did it turn out to be Anna? We still haven't found the problem with Zori. She was stable for many weeks but started losing weight again, so I'm going back to the vet. She's skinny now and I feel her bones. I'm getting extremely worried, I don't want to see her going down like that forever, something has to be done.
 
I'd order some critical care that you can hand feed to her to help supplement and increase weight gain. You need to get 70-100 ml in her a day. Your vet might sell it or you can order it online. Did you take her to the vet yet to see if she's diabetic?
 
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Critical care does not increase weight, its used as a feed replacment for chins who cannot eat-if this chin is eating a full ration of food on its own, critical care feeding can and will cause teeth issues in a short time from over grown teeth. Chin could be supplemented with something like essentials for life or lifeline which contain alfalfa or just some loose alfalfa for the extra protein. Ultimately the chin needs to be diagnosed, if the OP could please post what has been done as far as testing goes on this chin it would be great.
 
ticklechin said:
Critical care does not increase weight, its used as a feed replacment for chins who cannot eat-if this chin is eating a full ration of food on its own, critical care feeding can and will cause teeth issues in a short time from over grown teeth. Chin could be supplemented with something like essentials for life or lifeline which contain alfalfa or just some loose alfalfa for the extra protein. Ultimately the chin needs to be diagnosed, if the OP could please post what has been done as far as testing goes on this chin it would be great.
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I apologize, you are correct.
 
People get that mixed up all the time, critical care sucks when it comes to staving off weight loss, I have fed 120ml a day trying to stop loss in a chin and the chin STILL lost weight!
 
Well results came in and unfortunately it's a death sentence for her: kidney failure. :tantrum: Her red blood cells and way too low and she's got a high urea. (sorry for medical terms, i'm using a translator for those :-S ) It's either due to age or genetics (or both) and it's not treatable. With dogs or cats there are special food AND drugs they can give to stabilize, but with chins.....it's just not possible. She's basically poisonning herself cause her kidney can't filter anything, so it all stays in the blood. My vet told me she was not in pain. She'd get more nauseous with time and therefore eat less and get worse. She's already down to 432g (was at 528g) so I won't let her go down for too long. I'll spend time with her and as soon as she looses more weight, euthanasia it will be. I'M glad I got to have her for 5 years, what a personality she has. I'll definitely miss her, but I'll enjoy time with her as long as I can...
 
Oh, that's so sad. :( I'm sorry for the bad news. Enjoy the time you have left together.
 
ticklechin said:
Critical care does not increase weight, its used as a feed replacment for chins who cannot eat-if this chin is eating a full ration of food on its own, critical care feeding can and will cause teeth issues in a short time from over grown teeth. Chin could be supplemented with something like essentials for life or lifeline which contain alfalfa or just some loose alfalfa for the extra protein. Ultimately the chin needs to be diagnosed, if the OP could please post what has been done as far as testing goes on this chin it would be great.
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Well when I first went to the vet, she insisted on an xray, saying she'd seen something like that before. There were spots on the xray with different densities, so she wanted to follow those cause tumors could cause something like that. I went back home and ZOri stabilized and even put on some weight. I thought we were ok, but then she lost weight again.

I went back to the vet and we xray again but the spots were almost gone, so no tumors. So we did the complete bloodwork and the kidney failure appreared.

She said it could not be silent giardia because to cause that much weight loss it would definitely appear on her poop. She agreed with diabetes though but turned out it was something else.
 
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