kitty update

[cellio]

The vet just called (that was fast!) with results from Erik's blood test. His calcium level is still "a little" high (13.1, but I don't know the units). Everything else was solidly normal. The vet said that they usually worry about kidney damage when that calcium number times some other measurement (the name of which I didn't manage to write down) is greater than 60; that number in Erik's case is 4.5, for a product of 58.95, so close but not in the worry zone yet, she says. (I said something like "gee, that's awfully close", and she said it's not as close as it sounds. Or something to that effect.)

The blood test did not show anything that would explain his weight loss. She said that it could just be the diet change (he got put on the special diet two years ago, which is also when the weight loss started), or it could be the early stages of a kidney problem. She said that kidney problems don't actually show up in a blood test until they're pretty far gone (75% loss of function), so to know if there's actually a kidney problem, we need a different kind of test.

I've never tried to collect a urine sample from a cat before. This should be, um, an adventure.

There are two causes for concern: the higher-than-normal calcium level and the weight loss. It sounds like she is not particularly concerned about the weight loss yet (though we should monitor it better, so maybe I need a suitable scale for home). And some cats, she said, just have high calcium levels -- so maybe there's nothing wrong at all. But if there is, I want to catch it now rather than when it becomes obvious (and hard to treat) later.

Comments

[cellio]

the units for calcium would be millimoles per deciliter

In that case, I'm pretty sure she abbreviated in some way. :-)

But that's because I'm a geek. :)

And you're so cute when you're geeking... :-)

Re:

[sethcohen.livejournal.com]

Heh. *turns on the cuteness*

mmol/dl is the abbreviation. *stops geeking* :)