3/25 Monty: surgery today and heart murmur found

Tom & Monty

Tom & Monty

Member Since 2020
Hey friends, it's been a while since I posted about Monty.

He's doing well in remission, I haven't been logging his tests but I do test every few weeks and he's consistently below 90 and mostly below 75.

Today he's having dental surgery to clean up some tartar. The vet did a general check up when we checked him in as an outpatient and discovered a grade 2 heart murmur that wasn't present last December.

For now he's advised we just check on that every 6-12 months to see if it progresses but he's not concerned about a 12 year old cat having a murmer unless it gets worse.
 
Great to hear from you, Tom! Good luck with Monty's dental today.
Glad to hear he is still in remission and I hope the heart murmur doesn't "progress"! :bighug:
 
I'm glad Monty is still enjoying life at the falls. Sending vines for the dental surgery.
Hopefully Monty's heart murmur never progresses. Butters has had a grade 2 murmur for a number of years now and gets on just fine. Hoping for the same for Monty.
 
Surgery went well, skull X rays reveal his roots are healthy and no further dental work needed.

His blood work shows elevated urea which indicates a kidney problem. Vet tells me it's on the line between healthy and concerning and recommends follow up blood work in 2-3 months.

He said if I want to be defensive about kidney issues I could reduce his protein intake. Given he's diabetic that only leaves fat as an option. I'll do my own independent research once I get the blood results myself when I collect him in a few hours.
 
My partner picked up Monty earlier and it seems that the vet who did the blood work didn't realise Monty was diabetic. The second vet suggested his blood work was consistent with a diabetic cat that hasn't eaten since midnight the previous night.
 
Tom & Monty said:
He said if I want to be defensive about kidney issues I could reduce his protein intake.
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That's only true for more advanced stages of kidney disease. If you could post his blood work results in the labs tab, we can help you there. Normally you should be looking at lower phosphorus foods. Your new best friend website: http://www.felinecrf.org/

Neko also had a heart murmur. Because she had acromegaly we had an echocardiogram done - acros are more prone to heart issues, as are Maine Coons. The cardiologist said her murmur was due to age related changes, so just a benign murmur, not uncommon.
 
Wendy&Neko said:
That's only true for more advanced stages of kidney disease. If you could post his blood work results in the labs tab, we can help you there. Normally you should be looking at lower phosphorus foods. Your new best friend website: http://www.felinecrf.org/

Neko also had a heart murmur. Because she had acromegaly we had an echocardiogram done - acros are more prone to heart issues, as are Maine Coons. The cardiologist said her murmur was due to age related changes, so just a benign murmur, not uncommon.
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Thanks - I've added his bloods to to his spreadsheet.
 
Glad to hear he's still in remission - hope the murmur doesn't progress! Good on the dental :)

Take care and have a great evening!
 
Tom & Monty said:
I've added his bloods to to his spreadsheet.
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Sorry, not seeing anything on the Labs page. We typically have to manually enter the values - and that includes updating the reference ranges to what it is at your lab. Take a look at Neko's labs page as an example.
 
Sorry I'll figure out what happenes with the labs page later.

Just now I used my insurer's free vet phone consultation. The vet said based on his bloods we should do a follow up test in a month.

She said high protein in the blood is meaningless without more information, readings that aren't in my blood report.

She also said high normal urea could also just be a result of dehydration and she'd like to get him tested again when he's not nil by mouth before surgery to get a more "real" number.

On her advice I'm taking him back for a full liver and kidney blood test in 4 weeks.
 
My two are CKD stage II. The vets keep pushing me to switch them to renal food which is high carb and I have refused. Tanya's website (the one Wendy shared has a wealth of information on CKD).

Once you get the labs (in 4 weeks), post them here and tag Marje who can look at them for you.

Linking a thread of mine where I had similar questions on CKD - that too based on tests done after their dentals :-)
https://www.felinediabetes.com/FDMB/threads/how-bad-is-the-ckd.237260/
 
I'll figure out how to log this manually later, but for now here's the results:
r6JrRMf.jpg
 
Tom & Monty said:
I'll figure out how to log this manually later, but for now here's the results:
Click to expand...
Look at the lab section in my SS. You enter the reference ranges and the test results like you would in excel. You may not have all the test parameters that are in the labs template or have different ones or in a different order. Go by your report.
 
Bandit's Mom said:
Look at the lab section in my SS. You enter the reference ranges and the test results like you would in excel. You may not have all the test parameters that are in the labs template or have different ones or in a different order. Go by your report.
Click to expand...

I've added the labs results. How do I tag people so I can ask Marje for her thoughts?
 
That is such an abbreviated set of labs that it’s really not telling you anything. It’s hard to tell if there is any CKD going on without a urine test or an SDMA. I would not make that conclusion just based on an elevated urea. High protein and elevated urea can be from a high protein diet but urea can sometimes be high due to dehydration from stress.

Platelets can be low due to clumping because if the way the blood was drawn.
 
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