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Entry tags:
vet visit
Baldur:
10lbs 3oz (still losing weight; bones are prominent)
pulse 240 (but agitated)
blood pressure ~175 (a tad high but we're not doing anything about it now)
did not attempt to stick a thermometer in cranky cat :-)
T4 (hyperthyroid): 2.9, middle of normal; speculate that weight loss is due to hyperthyroid and there's "room" to increase dosage without lowering this too much, so do that. Check again in a month.
BUN (a kidney number): 37; top of normal is 36; don't worry about it.
Everything else in blood work was normal.
Vet has no theories on increased shedding (he never really stopped this year).
Embla:
8lbs 13oz (same as last time)
pulse 180
temperature 100.5
BUN 55 (down from 61 last time), so apparently special diet and fluids are working ok. (Kidney disease never gets better; the goal is to keep it from getting worse.) My vet didn't actually use the phrase "margin of error" to describe the difference from last time, but that's how I parsed it.
The vet is consistently using the phrase "good for {his,her} age" when talking about the cats. I didn't notice when that started, but they're all up there in years so it makes sense.
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"margin of error" implies that if you repeated the test on the same vial of blood, you would get a variation of up to 6 units. In fact, the variation for this measurement should be 1, maybe 2, units.
What you are seeing is normal physiologic fluctuation in renal function, brought about by factors such as hydration. Sadly, I am having trouble coming up with a phrase as catchy as "margin of error". Perhaps "not significantly different"? But that incorrectly implies statistical significance..... Maybe "about the same"?
Your cats are spry for 18 years of age.
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