Hello!
My cat Juliette is almost 18 years old. In the last year, she has started to have some health issues crop up - including diagnosis with hyperthyroidism (March 2023) and early stages of kidney disease (Sept 2023). We've addressed the hyperthyroidism with medication, and her thyroid bloodwork is now normal. We are trying to switch to a prescription renal diet, but it definitely isn't her favorite food. One food she is in love with is the Weruva WX Phos-Focused. This food is low phosphorus for kidney disease, although it is high in protein which I've read conflicting opinions regarding kidney disease. I've been mixing the Weruva 50:50 with the prescription renal diet. She also did have an oral mass that we discovered Oct 2023. She did have surgery to remove it (it was thankfully benign!) and at that time they cleaned/checked all her teeth as well.
My issue is that although we've addressed the diseases as best we can, she continues to slowly lose weight. When she was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, she was down about 1 pound of body weight. Since then, she has lost about another 1.5 pounds in the last year, which is a significant amount for a little kitty. She seems to be eating okay - her dental surgery healed up very well. She had stopped eating any dry food prior to dental surgery because it was painful, but since then she has returned to munching on it here and there. She usually does pretty good eating her wet food breakfast, wet food dinner is hit or miss, and then she'll munch a little dry food overnight. Thus far we've tried the Hills Science Diet, Royal Canin, Blue Buffalo, and Purina prescription renal diets. The Purina is the front-runner for now, but only if I mix it with the Weruva WX. I've tried to slowly adjust the ratio of Purina to Weruva, but it seems once I went over 50% Purina she was much less interested.
I have a follow up appointment with our vet in one week to check her bloodwork, but would anyone have any experience with similar slow weight loss? I'd love some discussion ideas I can propose to our vet. I'm planning on asking if I can switch her to the Weruva WX food full time, despite it being high protein, to see if she would eat more and gain weight, but would welcome other thoughts as well.
On a side note, I recently bought the Petivity litter box monitor. It is a small platform that you place under the litterbox. It measures her weight each time she enters the litter box, and tracks how many times she has gone No. 1 or No. 2. It is even smart enough to know when I scoop the box or add fresh litter. I only have one cat, but it supposedly can also distinguish between cats if you have more than one. I know it's fairly new to the market, so just thought I would say that it's been helpful for me in monitoring her health and it seems to be fairly accurate. Happy to answer any questions on it if anyone is curious!
Thanks!
My cat Juliette is almost 18 years old. In the last year, she has started to have some health issues crop up - including diagnosis with hyperthyroidism (March 2023) and early stages of kidney disease (Sept 2023). We've addressed the hyperthyroidism with medication, and her thyroid bloodwork is now normal. We are trying to switch to a prescription renal diet, but it definitely isn't her favorite food. One food she is in love with is the Weruva WX Phos-Focused. This food is low phosphorus for kidney disease, although it is high in protein which I've read conflicting opinions regarding kidney disease. I've been mixing the Weruva 50:50 with the prescription renal diet. She also did have an oral mass that we discovered Oct 2023. She did have surgery to remove it (it was thankfully benign!) and at that time they cleaned/checked all her teeth as well.
My issue is that although we've addressed the diseases as best we can, she continues to slowly lose weight. When she was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, she was down about 1 pound of body weight. Since then, she has lost about another 1.5 pounds in the last year, which is a significant amount for a little kitty. She seems to be eating okay - her dental surgery healed up very well. She had stopped eating any dry food prior to dental surgery because it was painful, but since then she has returned to munching on it here and there. She usually does pretty good eating her wet food breakfast, wet food dinner is hit or miss, and then she'll munch a little dry food overnight. Thus far we've tried the Hills Science Diet, Royal Canin, Blue Buffalo, and Purina prescription renal diets. The Purina is the front-runner for now, but only if I mix it with the Weruva WX. I've tried to slowly adjust the ratio of Purina to Weruva, but it seems once I went over 50% Purina she was much less interested.
I have a follow up appointment with our vet in one week to check her bloodwork, but would anyone have any experience with similar slow weight loss? I'd love some discussion ideas I can propose to our vet. I'm planning on asking if I can switch her to the Weruva WX food full time, despite it being high protein, to see if she would eat more and gain weight, but would welcome other thoughts as well.
On a side note, I recently bought the Petivity litter box monitor. It is a small platform that you place under the litterbox. It measures her weight each time she enters the litter box, and tracks how many times she has gone No. 1 or No. 2. It is even smart enough to know when I scoop the box or add fresh litter. I only have one cat, but it supposedly can also distinguish between cats if you have more than one. I know it's fairly new to the market, so just thought I would say that it's been helpful for me in monitoring her health and it seems to be fairly accurate. Happy to answer any questions on it if anyone is curious!
Thanks!
! On that page, there's a section "Calculating Dry Matter Yourself" with links to online calculators....that's 
