Sick bengal

[trixder]

we have a female bengal f3 who is eating fine and continues to loose weight to the point where she is getting critically thin and looks to be starving to death shes been to many vets and blood test show nothing also been tested with the die for blockages & tumors which also comes up negative and negative on parasites her male partner died last year from malnutrition related to irritable bowel which he had for years it seems like she is now wasting away like him but with no diarea she used to weigh 12lbs and over the corse of 6 months she now weighs about 8 lbs or less

[mrwjd]

I'm sorry if I alarmed you.  In further research, the prevailing opinion seems to be that FSE has not been identified in the U.S. at this time, although it has been identified in about 100 cats in Britain.

Has your vet ruled out renal failure?

[mrwjd]

From what I read, you may be looking at chronic renal (kidney) failure, CRF.  The symptoms described on some of the sites are more severe than your female is now,  but you may recognize them from your boy’s illness.  I would think one of the first things your vet tested was for renal failure, though. You can look at

http://www.hdw-inc.com/healthcrf.htm

There is considerable reference to chronic wasting disease in cats, particularly in re Bengals.  Apparently this is a Feline Spongiform Encephalopathy (FSE).  I think it is well worth reading about this, as it is the topic of a great deal of research right now and may match your cat’s symptoms.  The spongiform encephalopathies include what is familiarly known as "mad cow disease."

If I have time later this evening, I'll look at this some more.  It could be important to me, as well!

[mrwjd]

I'm sorry for the loss of your male--you have taken on a complicated business, haven't you?

Our Bengal is F5, and even she requires a lot of creativity from us cat people who are unaccustomed to the differences.  She tends to be lean, but so far (5 yr?) is eating and eliminating normally.  She was spayed this week, a bit tricky as she was by now permanently in heat--something she and our male, to my frustration, never seemed able to do anything about--but accomplished safely in the end, and healing gone well.  I'm interested to see how she adapts post-surgery compared to the others.

I don't suppose you had a necropsy (autopsy) with the male; one ordinarily wouldn't.  It might have helped now, but that's water under the bridge.

I wonder if you could contact the breed association.  With both of yours succumbing to or suffering from a "wasting disease," it's possible it's a breed issue, and Bengal people might have much more experience of it than local vets.  It may also be possible to track it down on the 'net, which I did recently when a kitten was born with a breed-specific genetic trait "incompatible with life" and my vet, who can't know everything, couldn't diagnose it.  At least that gave us enough information to know where to take him for diagnosis (a veterinary neurologist) and what we had to do.

I'm thinking the diet in the wild of the ancestors must be more sparse, more meat, more organ meat, more vegetative matter from stomach and intestine than maybe we have in cat food.  But it sounds like she's sick enough to require something more than a diet change, regardless of what started it.

Good luck.