For the past two weeks, my old cat Nigel has been NQR. He moved into the house in late September, after being a barn kitty for the past two years (he showed up here, I don’t know his age), and started to lose weight steadily. But he was still eating fine, and so I took him to the vet and got him wormed (which had already happened when he got his vaccinations in June, but we did tapeworm this time as well).
Two weeks ago, he stopped eating anything. Off to the vet. He had a high temp (about 103), but bloodwork was not indicative of anything - slightly elevated kidney levels, but nothing else that would indicate a raging infection or where to start looking. Loaded him up on steroids and antibiotics, and he came home and started to act better and eat better. Still extremely picky about his food, though - mostly licking gravy off the canned, and wanting something one time, and dissing it the next.
Monday - crashed again. Back to the vet on Tuesday (yes, broke quarantine, but the vet does contactless drop-off). Temp was back up in the 103-04 range. He stayed overnight, got loaded up on more antibiotics and steroids. I also insisted on a histoplasmosis test, as I own another cat who had extremely similar symptoms who had it. Today, however, he is sitting all hunched up, not eating, clearly not feeling well. I am going to call the vet again in a bit and see if they want him back there for a checkup.
Question is - if the histo test comes back negative, what else should we look at? He is FIV/FeLV negative. I thought perhaps a deep-seated abscess that can’t break open due to the antibiotics, but that doesn’t explain the weight loss. I’m at a loss as to what to test for next. I’m not sure when we’ll know the histo results - hopefully within a day or two, but I thought I’d pick brains in the meantime, just in case.