- It's Saturday, and I'm taking my son to the vet.
(record scratching)
Wait, I'm not taking my son to the pediatrician.
I'm taking my son to the vet.
Let's find out why.
- I've always wanted to be a vet since I was young,
since my parents were always really good vets.
And I have two dogs, so I really love animals.
Cats and dogs, they're both great.
And also saving lives, that's really special.
So I think that's why I want...
- [Mother] What kind of procedure are we gonna see today?
- A scope.
- [Mother] Do you know what is wrong with the patient?
He's been losing weight.
So, we need to get GI biopsies to figure out why
this patient is losing weight.
(upbeat music)
- [Mother] It's really hard to figure out
why your pet is losing weight,
when they're losing weight,
and then what test we're gonna do.
So that is what today's vlog is going to be about.
What to do when your pet is losing weight.
(upbeat music)
- Okay, so the first thing that we want you to know
about weight loss in dogs and cats is...
- I think one of the biggest things
is that it's easy to miss.
- Yeah.
- You can have a happy, healthy cat or dog that seems fine,
and next thing you know they've lost a significant part
of their body weight.
- And this happened to our own cat, Geetar.
And, I think because dogs and cats are fluffy,
and we're with them everyday,
it can be really hard to notice weight loss,
especially if it's happening slowly over time.
And for us, it was actually your mom who came in over
Thanksgiving and said, "Geetar looks a little bit thin."
And we're two board certified specialists.
And so, we brought him to the clinic
and realized he had lost about three pounds.
And so, a 13 pound cat going down to 10 pounds,
is a significant proportion of his body weight.
And I think that's a really important tip,
when you hear the number of pounds that your dog or cat
has lost, is to think about it in percentage of body weight.
- Yep, yeah I know, I agree.
A lot of people say, "Well it's just a pound."
Well it's a 10 pound cat,
one pound is 10% of your body weight, that's a lot.
- Right, and a 70 pound dog losing a pound is not that much.
Not a big deal.
A lot of that can just be changes in hydration
over the course of a day.
So definitely you wanna think about how much weight
they have lost in percentage to their total body weight.
- And also with the smaller weight loss,
it's watching trends. - Exactly.
- Lose a pound here, or half a pound here,
and then you gain a half pound, then it's not a big deal.
But if it's a consistent trend in the wrong direction,
then that needs to be addressed.
- Right.
So, how do we know if our pets are losing weight?
We need to weigh them on a regular basis.
So it's really important that...
It may mean popping your animal into the clinic.
And most animal clinics will be really,
will be fine if you bring your pet in for a weight check.
They're not going to mind at all.
So just call your clinic and say, "Hey, can I bring Penelope
"in, we just wanna check the weight."
The other thing is, if they're small,
you can weigh yourself, pick up your pet and weigh them,
and just do the math, and weigh them at home.
I think that's a really good thing to do.
- The other thing that we notice a lot,
is just noticing the backbone.
You pet you cat, you pet your dogs all the time,
you may notice that you're feeling that spine a lot easier.
That can be a big tip that they're losing,
not only just weight, but muscle loss.
And that's always a cause for concern.
Your body doesn't just wanna lose muscle for no reason.
And so, if they're starved for energy and they want more,
they'll steal it from the muscle.
- Yeah.
And so again, so when you're at the vet,
definitely just make sure you ask
how much weight have they lost,
how much weight have they gained, and keep track of it.
And be really pro-active.
And I love the owners that have a little journal,
a little log or something, even on their smart phone
that they're keeping track of it.
So again, it's easy to miss, be pro-active,
stay on top of it.
That's our first tip.
The second thing that we want you to know about weight loss
in dogs and cats, is there are a big bunch of
number of reasons that dogs and cats lose weight.
- Poor nutrition, oral disease, swallowing disorders,
oesophageal problems, stomach problems,
intestinal problems, liver disease, kidney disease,
hyperthyroidism in cats, diabetes mellitus.
And then, yes of course, cancer.
- So the third thing that you should know about weight loss,
and we're gonna talk about one specific one 'cause I think
this can be really confusing for dog and cat owners,
is gastrointestinal disease, or intestinal disease.
- And I see a lot of cases that come to me for weight loss.
And they've already been to a general practitioner,
and they've had an exam, and blood work, and urine testing.
And they've ruled out all the,
honestly easier things that you could look into.
Diabetes shows up relatively easily on blood tests.
Hyperthyroidism shows up relatively easily.
But then you're left with,
all my blood work's completely normal,
and yet my cat has lost three pound, what's wrong?
And that is almost always underlying intestinal disease.
If your intestines aren't absorbing your nutrients,
even if you're eating well, you're still gonna lose weight.
And a common misconception is, well it can't be GI disease
because there's no vomiting or diarrhea
and my cat's or dog's eating fine.
That is not true.
Weight loss can be the only symptom of intestinal disease,
and it can be difficult to figure out.
- Yeah, so I think that's really important
and worth repeating.
That weight loss can be the only symptom
that you are seeing at home, and your dog or cat
can still have something wrong with their intestines.
And to recap, your veterinarian or your internist,
is gonna do blood, blood work.
So a full CBC, chemistry panel, urinalysis...
- Thyroid. - Thyroid testing.
We talked about in the last segment,
different diseases that can cause it.
And then we're gonna do some chest x-rays and ultrasound.
Looking for the different cancers which we're gonna talk
a little bit more about in the next segment.
But then, for intestinal disease, if that's all normal,
they come to you, and what's gonna be the next step?
- One other test that you can do,
especially if you're still not 100% certain,
is a maldigestion profile.
It's a simple blood test that can look and see
if you're absorbing certain vitamins well,
if you're producing a certain enzyme from the pancreas
that you need.
If these tests are positive, meaning they're abnormal,
they're strongly indicative that you need to head
in that direction, whether it's pancreas or intestine.
If they're normal though, it doesn't rule it out at all.
It still could easily be intestinal problems,
and the next step would be GI biopsy.
- [Mother] Right.
And so there's two main ways that we can do GI biopsies
in dogs and cats.
And that's either gonna be endoscopy,
which is how we started this video, right?
So we were going to work today, on a Saturday,
to do GI biopsies or endoscopy on one of my patients,
and you were giving me a hand with that this Saturday.
Or going to surgery for full thickness biopsy.
So we're not gonna go through the pluses and minuses
of those, but that's gonna be a great discussion
for you to have.
It can change a little case by case, dogs or cats.
Cats with lymphoma are gonna be different
than the dog that we were working up today.
But talk to your veterinarian, talk to your oncologist,
talk to your internist, about whether or not
they recommend endoscopy which is what we showed you today.
Where we...
How do we do endoscopy real quick.
- [Dr. Heuter] (laughs) Pass the scope down through
the mouth,
you evaluate the stomach and the small intestine visually,
but then you also take biopsies of both the stomach
and the small intestine if it's an upper GI.
- Upper GI.
And then if you need biopsies of the rest,
of different organs, or lower intestines,
or other deeper parts of the intestines,
we're gonna recommend that you have full surgical explore.
But again, then we're gonna get our biopsies.
And then we're gonna be looking for things like
inflammatory bowel disease, or gastrointestinal lymphoma.
That's what those biopsies are gonna help us figure out.
So number four, we're gonna talk about cancer.
But remember, a lot of animals that are losing weight
are not coming to see me.
You're going to your veterinarian,
or you're being referred to an internist like Dr. Heuter.
So Dr. Heuter, can I call you Kerry?
- No.
- Okay, I tried.
(Dr. Heuter laughs)
- Dr. Heuter, when are you thinking cancer
when a patient comes in for weight loss?
- Most of the time people come to me,
they've already had the normal blood work.
So at that point I am concerned about cancer
or intestinal disease.
Those are always my two big concerns.
And so, that's where I do recommend
an x-ray and an ultrasound.
And I'm looking for couple things.
One is just a large mass, large mass in the chest,
or maybe large mass in the belly
that's just eating up a lot of energy.
So even though you're eating well,
it's chewing through energy.
It's speeding up your metabolism
and you keep dropping weight.
Or option two is, it's just such a space occupying mass
that it's either affecting the way you swallow
up in your chest, so you don't want to eat as much.
Or it's pushing on your stomach, so even though you do eat,
you seem to get full really fast
and then you don't wanna continue to eat.
So those two are the two big reasons.
And lastly, I'm looking for some other support
of intestinal disease.
Oh look, there's an intestinal mass.
Or, oh look, there's a bunch of lymph nodes
near the intestine, that would fit more with GI lymphoma.
- Right.
And then, within the GI lymphomas,
we have high grade lymphomas and low grade lymphomas.
And the high grade lymphomas are the ones
that are developing more quickly,
and then the lower grade lymphomas are the ones
that are more of a slowly developing chronic disease.
And so, that will also depend on that the animal lose
a lot of weight more quickly, vomiting, diarrhea.
But again, as we learned in the last segment,
sometimes weight loss is the only symptom
and then sometimes we'll see vomiting, diarrhea,
decreased appetite, or just changes in appetite as well.
So our fifth tip is, so you may be waiting for test results
to come back about what the diagnosis is for weight loss.
And many animals that are losing weight are not eating well.
And guys, I have a couple of videos on this,
if you are tempting them with other foods
and your pet is not eating their regular food,
they are inappetent.
They have a poor appetite.
And I want you to go home at that visit
with appetite stimulant.
I have two whole videos that we're gonna
put the links below, about things that you can do,
some of them are medications and some of them are just...
We did this video together, about tips that you can do
to help get your pet eating when they don't wanna eat.
But there are some great medications, so we have entyce
which is an appetite stimulant for dog.
Mirataz which is a topical ear medication for cats.
We have nausea medications like Cerenia.
Getting nutrients into the body is so important
for the immune system and so many different things.
So, I just wanted to make sure that you are getting
those medication for your pet, even before we understand
what the cause of the weight loss and the poor appetite is.
- That's great, as long as we understand
that's not the treatment.
That's something to help us, give us the time we need
to find the right diagnosis
and get the real treatment started.
- Right, it's supportive care in the interim.
So I think it's just really temporary.
And then, an important thing to bring up,
you should not go home on steroids.
It's a great appetite stimulant, it's great,
it works powerfully.
But steroids are bad because they will mess up the diagnosis
for lymphoma.
So, we will not recommend steroids if we think possibly,
that lymphoma is one of the possible causes
for weight loss inappetent.
- Which it's almost always on the list.
- All right Dr. Heuter, since that's what apparently
I have to call him, we made it to our last tip.
Often pets that are losing weight,
are eating normally, right?
- Yeah. In fact there are some diseases that actually
they'll be having increased appetite.
- Right.
- Like hyperthyroidism, diabetes,
even certain types of intestinal diseases,
they will have a veracious appetite
but still be losing a ton of weight.
- Right.
So I think that often surprises people
to find out that their pet is sick because appetite
is one of the ways that we often measure how well,
how happy our pets are, and their quality of life.
So again, just going back to the beginning
that weight loss is important to be pro-active with,
to monitor.
Just a really, one of those important things.
Going back to, I'm very pro-active with lumps and bumps,
very pro-active with our pets overall healthcare,
and I think monitoring weight is a really important thing
to keep an eye on.
All right, that's it.
Top things you need to know about weight loss.
Thank you guys so much for watching.
Thank you Dr. Heuter, for joining me, on a Saturday no less.
- That's true.
- Do I have to pay an emergency fee?
- Yes you do.
- Yes I do.
All right, so you know what I always ask you to do.
Please comment, do you like when Dr. Heuter joins me?
Even though he's a little bit sassy.
Please comment, please subscribe.
Tell me what videos you like.
If you'd like to see more medicine topics
with Dr. Heuter joining me, please let me know.
Thank you so much for watching,
and we will see you at the next video.
Have a great one.
(upbeat music)