Thread: Maine Coon not putting on weight

I have to agree she does look fuller in the face bless her,better a paranoid owner than one who ignores signs,we luv it when clients come in with a list of observations they have made,surprising how a little thing can point the vet in the right direction....
Good luck for tomorrow Martha hope things go very well for you....xxx

I hope her consultation went well. She looks such a sweet girl. Hoping she makes a full recovery soon x

Thanks for the comments.

She definitely doesn't like the royal cannin meat any more, we switched her to plain old felix kitten in jelly which she seems to love and she is still eating the adult biscuits. Content wise they are similar, they do have wheat in as does the kitten food, but the main difference is less fat content. She is eating lots, certainly has a big appetite, and she drinks well too.

Our vet advised that there was nothing out of the norm in the stool sample we gave them. We've also been treating with advocate and now panacur. They said we could try another course of panacur while waiting for further tests.

They did an ultrasound to check for fluids and couldn't see anything abnormal. They have now taken blood to do a full analysis, including FeLV, FIV, FIP and liver function etc. They are doing some results in the clinic while others will take 10 days and be sent off. I'm hoping we hear back on the more serious ones very soon. Naturally having another cat we are even more anxious now than before.

In terms of how she is, she is sleepy, but she always has been, she slept most of the yesterday evening and night. She did one perfectly normal poop yesterday morning, but then it soon returned to multiple yellow, pulpy smelly stools again and was the same this morning, so she clearly still is not well.

We've also now got some panzyme powder on the way to try with her for 48 hours when received to see if this helps her to absorb the nutrients in her food, as I assume this is one of the main problems she has.

Other than trying the powder when it arrives we are now just playing the waiting game again - not fun. Once the blood results are all back if they are clear the next step the vet recommended was an X-ray and further ultrasounds.

As time goes on I'm finding it more difficult to remain positive but I really hope it's something that can be easily fixed, and that it is found soon.

My feelings are that if it was something really serious that she was unlikely to recover from she wouldn't have the up times that she does it would be all downhill,now fingers crossed I am right.....! The FIP test takes a while to come back & it is one that I still don't fully understand,I did know of one that tested positive but she didn't grow & went one way,downhill very quickly,FELV shouldn't really be of a concern if the breeders cats were tested which they should be before breeding & then if they were vaccinated as well it should rule that one out,FIV don't know when we last had one with that but....! If it is something metabolic then the lower fat adult cat food could have been of good benefit to her,with that & the panzym powders it will be interesting to see what happens. How was her weight ?

I hope you are right. I've been reading up lots and the symptoms seem to me to still point to Giardia and/or some cause of malabsorption / irritation in her gut. But I would have thought that Giardia would have been treated with the panacur we gave her, still we are giving her some more now.

The vet told us to sit tight for more results and try the panacur but we are going to try a little of the powder to see if it helps after the panacur, we can't sit by and let time pass while she is still unwell.

One thing I probably haven't mentioned or omitted until recently is that the fur around her back legs is exceptionally greasy - a result of the stools she is passing no doubt, but we keep her clean and it stll doesn't seem to improve.

Her eyes also seem to be quite watery, no discharge or anything, but by the end of the day they can pool a little when she closes her eyes, so we have been cleaning them for her.

Weight wise it is so hard to tell. I figured the vet was right in that weighing her every morning and night would send us crazy, and it almost has. She will go up and down as she eats so much! After the first panacur treatment she was eating a lot more than she used to, and ended up with a round belly. She seems to eat lots then poop it all out and drop in weight, so it's hard to tell what her base weight is. At her worst she was 1.35 I think, she went up to nearly 1.8 very full! And she went down to around 1.45 on Friday / Saturday after lots of poops first thing in the morning. I haven't weighed her since to try and give it a few days to see if there really is a change.

I'm at home with her again tomorrow so will monitor her, if I could just see her going to the toilet get back to normal it would be a massive relief but it just isn't happening at the moment.

I've been looking back through photos and trying to work out what's gone on, the problem month I think seems to be through October - it's easier to see when you can view pictures a month apart in seconds, it was difficult for us to see when we were seeing her everyday though as it was so gradual and we had been worming her, she had been eating well and going to the toilet properly.

I admit I have been annoyed by the vets, especially when I suggested changing food in the first instance and they said to feed her 'whatever suited me' and there was no point experimenting with diet until the fecal sample came back. Well, the sample results were back after 10 days and we were no further forward :(

Luckily we changed her diet anyway as she started to go off of her own food, and thankfully she has been eating very well since. They said the same thing about blood, other than trying panacur again while waiting there was no other advice. We've decided to try the supplement to see if it aids her digestion.

We haven't had any breathing issues, coughing, seizures, sneezing, and discharge from eyes etc or bloody stools. The constants at the moment are lack of growth / nutrition, yellow loose stools and watery eyes. She however eats lots, drinks well, and poops several times a day.

The vet said her heart sounded strong and that her gums / membranes etc were full of colour, her breathing also sounded spot on.

We've recently changed her diet, so I think we have decided now to finish this second course of panacur to rule out an ellusive Giardia infestation, try the powder to assist her pancreas / liver function and hopefully we will have results back.

If everything is clear and the treatment we are giving her this week doesn't work then we need to investigate other causes, I'll take note of what you've said thank you.

Originally Posted by candes

Oh, and I forgot to mention... Teddy got runny eyes from his allergies also...

Oh, ok thanks that is useful.

The vet just called. She said the blood results were normal for the general health profile they did on them. Liver function also appears fine, FeLV and FIV were negative. We are awaiting the FIP results which they had to send to Glasgow, we are hoping that doesn't take too long.

The next step after the results come back if negative is to do a more detailed ultrasound / x-ray. I'm clearly hoping FIP is negative, but with the liver results fine it's difficult to know what is going on. If she is positive for FIP then she said there isn't much that can be done :(

Does anyone know if FIP is contagious? I heard that it is a mutation of a certain Virus and that the actual deadly strain is not contagious?

*Edit* I've been reading up, it appears that there is no sure fire way to diagnose FIP, it even says so on the vets own site. If it comes back positive then all we can say for sure is that she has been exposed to the virus but it doesn't mean it has mutated to FIV and could be misleading, although that along with stunted growth and her other symptoms could point to it. Our other cat has shown no signs since having him for the past 18 months of primary infection, he is fit, big, playful and healthy. There aren't many cats in our road either as there are only around 20 houses (I've only ever seen two other cats) so I doubt that it would have came from them or our other cat, especially seeing as the infectious window can be so small. This means the disease could have been present when we got her but we will need to wait and see.

I'm hoping it will come back negative to say that she hasn't even been exposed to the virus since birth, at least then it could be a good indicator that she likely hasn't developed FIP.

We have seen her bloated, but only after eating like crazy after we changed diet and administered panacur. She promptly pooped lots out and lost the roundness!

The plan at the moment is to wait for the FIP result, continue Panacur tomorrow and then try the Enzyme powder from Thursday until the weekend. By then we should also have the blood result and can assess where we are and have another consultation.

Well, no results on the FIP test to date, I called the vets this afternoon and asked for our vet to call me after surgery but it seems she did not :(

Martha has been eating well and going to the toilet less, but after she does a normal poop shortly after she does several yellowey runny ones (she used to just do lots of runny poops throughout the day and night). There was also what looked like tiny traces of blood in her last one - a few small dark orange-red lines (which is why I contacted the vets).

She just seems to spend most of her time sleeping the past couple of weeks. Although she does have the occasional wander around, and was up early today talking to us, but she just likes to curl up and sleep (unless she smells her food! Then she is running around chirping and meowing like crazy!). Our other cat tries to play with her, but she just rolls onto her back and cries, so I have to get him away from her. Her eyes are still watery as well, I have been cleaning them with soft warm, damp cotton wool, but I think it may be irritating her a bit so I have stopped today.

We finished the second lot of Panacur today and the Panzym came through, so I have introduced 1/4 of a teaspoon mixed into half a pouch of meat at lunch and then in the evening. It should be in her system now, no signs of any improvement in terms of her perking up yet, so we will have to see what the next 48 hours hold.

Weight wise she is around 1.55kg's at her lowest, so that is 170grams in 12 days - I hope this is 'real' weight gain, but it's so hard to tell, her belly seems to be bigger and where the weight is (between her rib cage and mid section). Her shoulders and face / legs do not seem to be filling out at the moment.

One thing that struck me as odd which I just remembered, her whiskers kept breaking off, every time we saw her at the breeders they were broken off again, and they kept breaking off since we had her. We thought it was really odd, but we were told it was normal and they break off when they play etc. I've never had a cat's whiskers break off before. At the moment she has lots of short stubs and only a few long ones, but they look frail and are curling downwards, lack of nutrition somehow?

She still has greasy fur around the back of her legs and bottom, we keep grooming her though to help her out. I had a feel of her belly, it doesn't seem to hurt or bother her, I'm hoping it isn't fluid (the vet suspected this and wants to do another ultrasound after the results come back). She isn't sneezing, has no trouble breathing and isn't being sick.

Not really sure what else to do at the moment. I keep looking around at pictures and weight of what a 6 month old Maine Coon should be and it just makes me sad :( I just can't see how to make her better at the moment.

She went and hid under our bed on a cussion, it seems to be the place she likes to hide / sleep, but I make a point of getting her out and then she just snuggles up on my lap and goes to sleep.

If anyone has any more ideas of things to look out for and anything that could help it would be appreciated., it's 1st December today, and all I want for Christmas is for Martha to be better and healthy.

Thanks,