My senior cat had a post-methimazole blood panel. What does it show?

Much more information would be required in order to make any sense or use of blood results, a summary of what has been concerning you, her signs and symptoms and response to any previous treatment i would be required at a minimum. It is unusual to have a high RBC/HCT (more than normal red blood cells )and low MCH/MCHC (usually found when recovering from anaemia). This may indicate the red blood cell production process is gone wrong and an examination of the cells under a microscope by a specialist pathologist and possible bone marrow biopsy may be required. Occasionally accidental exposure to human medications used to promote blood production can produce similar results

Thank you for sending over the copies of Gonzie's blood work! Looking at the provided results, I see that his creatinine is a tiny bit elevated. This value increases with kidney damage or dehydration. I'd certainly recommend talking to his vet about rechecking his kidney function in a month or two, as well as running a urinalysis to see how well his kidneys are working to concentration his urine. The monocyte increase is extremely mild. I don't worry when this type of white blood cell increases a tiny bit while other white blood cell lines (especially the neutrophils and lymphocytes) are normal. Stress alone can trigger this minor elevation. The RDW helps to give the proportions of the red blood cells' size and volume. Again, this minor elevation does not seem to be significant. A 50% hematocrit is slightly elevated, which means that Gonzie has some extra red blood cells. I would much rather see too many red blood cells than too few! His blood volume could also be more concentrated if he's a bit dehydrated. Platelets can be challenging to read on CBCs since they can clump together, so the machine may read a clump of several platelets as just one single cell. In these cases, it's always useful to manually examine a blood smear under the microscope to determine if adequate numbers of platelets are present. Nothing on the provided lab work makes me terribly concerned at this moment, but I do think it's worth tracking his kidney values and confirming an accurate platelet count. I hope that everything goes well for Gonzie!

Increased thirst and urination can be commom symptoms of many disease processes and you are right that the first things we check for are metabolic (kidney disease, diabetes, etc.). The answer to your question is both. A urinalysis should always be performed as part of a blood panel, otherwise you are missing crucial information. Your vet will likely order a senior kitty wellness panel from an outside lab which will include cbc, chemistry panel, thyroid testing, and urinalysis. I hope this helps and thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach!

The cost depends on your area and if your vet wants to run a full panel to check all the chemistries and organ functions or if they want to just check the thyroid levels. Call you vet and ask what the cost would be. If it is the first time, the vet will probably want a complete panel and these generally run $100-150. These are helpful because it gives a good baseline to compare future blood results against and can give indications of early kidney or liver disease, diabetes, and is a good indicator of overall health.

These are 3 different blood tests commonly performed to assess overall health. The CBC (complete blood count) assesses the red & white blood cells and platelets. A chemistry 24 evaluates overall organ function, measuring values of liver and kidney enzymes, blood glucose, electrolytes and blood proteins. There are several different thyroid tests, which measure different thyroid hormones. Always remember that any test results are interpreted in light of clinical exam findings and any clinical signs that Hobbs may be displaying at home.

While I am not sure why your vet got mad at the fact you asked for your blood work, it is never a bad idea to get a second opinion. If you trusted your veterinarian and want to have them help Mona I would call the office and let them know the reasoning behind why you asked. Otherwise, I would find a new veterinarian to discuss Mona's case. Thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

Hi there and thank you for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach to address your concern. Based on these lab results, I would suspect renal disease. BUN, Amylase, magnesium and CPK all can become altered with renal impairment. The weight loss may be due to muscle wastage due to chronic renal disease or something else may be going on. I would consider having Tigger's urine specific gravity checked and also send out an SDMA test to see if the kidney's are the main problem. At 14.5 years of age, renal disease would be high on my list of causes of these symptoms. Other problems such as cancer and inflammatory diseases may be the cause of the symptoms as well. I would recommend having your vet pursue additional testing to get more of a definitive answer on whether or not the kidneys are impaired and if not, coming up with further recommendations on diagnostics and treatment. I hope this helps guide you in the right direction. Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns and I would be more than happy to help you further.