For those of you who’ve ben asking for information; one of my cats – Buster – has been bloated up with fluid inside his tummy cavity for several weeks now. He looks a bit like he’s swallowed an ostrich egg, but he’s soft and squishy like a water balloon.

Occasionally, lain on his back when tickling his tummy, he makes sloshing noises. It’s quite tragic, really, but sometimes I just have to laugh. He doesn’t seem to mind, and enjoys the extra tickling.

It’s rather a mystery to the vets, but the state of play is that he has a slightly overactive thyroid (due to benign cysts growing in the glands, being controlled by Felimazole) and a “galloping heartrate” which is probably indicative of a heart valve defect.

The heart rate issue is being treated with some pills – I forget the name, will add them as a comment later – and further he’s on a diuretic to try and flush out some of the fluid.

His kidneys seem sound – normal creatine levels, although urea is a tad high – and he had an ultrasound chest scan today which showed no obvious sign of cancer in/around the liver, which was another possibility.

So the vets and I have elected to keep him on the thyroid / heart / diuretic combo for another 3 weeks, see if the fluid drops off a bit, and do a heart x-ray in a couple of weeks in an attempt to confirm the faulty valve diagnosis.

Beyond that, there’s not much we can do short of opening him up (unwise for an older cat) for a general rummage about – probably negatively impacting his comfort for minimal benefit, so let’s not consider that unless matters become clearer.

We could keep running more tests, but the whole syndrome is most likely a systemic issue arising from a combo of thyroid and heart issues, with knock-on effects on kidneys and fluid levels, and that would not be trivial to sort even in a cat which was much younger than his 14 years.

So: we keep him happy, make him comfy, make him keep taking the pills.

Ideally we could fit a drain valve and just tap it off him once in a while, but apparently that’s not feasible, alas.