I need to clarify that there was no notation about hemolysis in the report, not that there was a notation that said hemolysis was not present. I'm not sure if that is significant.
- Jenks is a ground cat, so I can guarantee he hasn't fallen from any height.
- He and his brother occasional box or wrestle. I can't observe everything, but from what I've seen, I feel pretty safe drawing a conclusion that it's never been rough enough to cause any sort of injury.
- At the start of July 2017, he did have that issue of the mysterious limp tail. But it recovered quickly and has remained normal ever since with no signs that it, or anything near is is troubling him.
- My thoughts echo yours re: intramuscular injections.
- Weight loss was on the year was more or less 29 to 26 pounts, so about 11%. I can't find any notes in my notebook or spreadsheet to see if I have any at-home weights for him between those two annual vet visits to say how fast or slow it happened. I'll keep looking.
- Agreed re: immune cells. The ones that are elevated are only by a margin of 10-20%.
- I agree that the weirdest part of all of this is that he's having the best blood sugar readings of his life on the lowest dose in four years. I would expect that to not be the case if there was something systemically wrong.
- The more I hear about the cardio blood tests, the more I think it may just be more worthwhile to do an echo. But I say this not knowing the costs of any of those options. Yours is the second recommendation for Dr. Church. They're nearby, and Jenks has already been there for his last major dental, so that's always a plus if we need them.
- As for the vet not mentioning it, all I can think of is that he may not be very familiar with it. He did mention that he hardly ever orders a comprehensive IDEXX panel for cats. It may be something he just hasn't seen, thus my attempt to rapidly come up to speed on the topic.
Normally, if there is hemolysis, it will state it on the report and the degree of hemolysis. I appreciate you going through the list.
If you are near Dr. Church, he’s worth every penny. I believe his charge for Tobey was $600 but that included travel time to Tucson. I think the actual echo was $400 if I remember correctly.
Jenks doesn’t have any Maine Coone or other large breed cat in him does he? He’s short haired but still....26 lbs is pretty big for a normal non-large breed cat. Even with the potential of acro. If he has any Maine Coone or other large breed cat in him, my concern for HCM would be increased as it is very prevalent in those breeds, especially Maine Coones.
Interesting what you found on CK and not eating. I never say never but I’ve also seen a lot of labs with inappetent cats; again, I don’t see those kinds of elevations in CK but you never, ever, ever know. It’s still worth doing a little extra investigation. What i more often see in a cat that is not eating is elevations in liver enzymes due to potential of feline hepatic lipidosis.
While I hate to overreact, I also don’t like to put my head in the sand when I’m looking at someone else’s cat’s labs. If we’d done that with Doodles, Karen would have likely lost him much sooner than she did because he wouldn’t have been getting treatment that he needed and that gave him over an extra year of great QOL. And, if you decide on the blood test or the echo and everything is normal, then you have a great baseline. This is important on a cat that is early CKD because you will eventually, likely, start subq fluids and you’ll know his heart is in good enough shape to handle it.
It drives me crazy when vets run abbreviated panels (did I already get on this soap box?). For instance, with a CKD cat, they’ll run an abbreviated panel that doesn’t include phosphorus, calcium, or potassium. Those are such critical values for a CKD cat. While some values can be looked at independently, I am happy that my vet and I are on the same page that looking at a complete superchem and cbc gives you the big picture. What she does, even for my little Liv who is just 1-1/2, is run a senior panel and that includes the whole shebang for less than splitting it up and doing add ons. To kinda quote Forrest Gump...labs are like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna find.
