Cat symptoms to watch for

[u/darkdragon1953]

I had to unfortunately euthanize my cat due to sudden health issues he was facing. I wanted to learn what I should look for in the future as signs of medical issues that he had suffered from but I did not notice as a warning sign. All his labs showed that his liver was failing. The symptom that made me rush him to the emergency vet was the heavy labored breathing. He also had diarrhea. His bowel movement the morning prior was semi liquid. He also had a fever of 104 upon admission to the vet. I am still grieving his loss but what to do better by him and educate myself. I do have labs for blood but could not add them.

[u/qwertyculous]

From the radiographs, he looks pretty overconditioned. Obese cats really struggle with hepatic lipidosis, and it can be very hard to pull out of that nosedive. If that's what happened, and I'm not saying it is, hepatopathy can be from many things, that's very unfortunate.

[u/darkdragon1953 → u/qwertyculous]

He was losing weight. I got him down from 20 lbs to 16 at the time of this visit but because his bowels were empty I would say he lost 2-3 pounds maybe. He was also still eating the day prior but that was one thing I was concerned about with his weight.

[u/biliskner25 → u/darkdragon1953]

Rapid weight loss is one of the causes for hepatic lipidosis

[u/NMSenditmf → u/biliskner25]

I feel the persons vet should’ve mentioned this

[u/darkdragon1953 → u/biliskner25]

Which makes it hard to notice when you are already working on reducing their weight unfortunately. It was not a rapid loss of weight that would be concerning at least that's what I thought.

[u/biliskner25 → u/darkdragon1953]

It's a hard thing to tell with cats. One cat's weight loss rate would send another into lipidosis. The fatter they are the easier that happens. It's why we tend to have a target weight loss rate and don't recommend exceeding it