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cat having problems climbing stairs
Hi, our 8 year old cat has been having difficulty climbing stairs the
last couple months. She can go downstairs okay but she acts as though it is an ordeal to climb up. She always uses one front leg and sort of hoists herself up. The vet checked her over and he found no signs of pain in her legs or shoulders. Thinking it might be arthritis, he prescribed Cosequin. I know it hasnt been long enough (two and a half weeks) for the Cosequin to do much, but on some days now she seems even worse. For the last couple days she wont even try to jump up on the bed or sofa, although she still goes up the top of the cat tree. Her technique, however, is to sort of climb up the side of the cat tree and then do small jumps to get to the top. She still climbs stairs when she wants to but seems to avoid it more--she will sit at the bottom and look up for a while before attempting it. However, she growls if I try to help her--which is not unusual because she never did like to be picked up. She had a geriatric panel (bloodwork and urinalysis) about two months ago and everything was normal. She is asthmatic but it is controlled by Flovent. I have never read anything about that having possible side effects. We plan to take her back to the vet next week but does anyone have any ideas about what this might be? I am not sure it sounds like arthritis, and if it is I cant figure which part of her, legs or back, is affected. The vet did suggest she could get around better if she lost weight, which we realize, but she is only about a half pound over her best weight and she used to weigh a pound more and didnt have trouble climbing or jumping then. (sorry about the lack of apostrophes; google groups wont let me put them in for some reason.) -yngver |
#2
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cat having problems climbing stairs
I would recommend Royal Canin's mature indoor food. It has a good
amount of glucosamine in it, and it did wonders for my 17 year old cat. He had improvement within a couple days,and it clearly showed when I ran out once. Also, have you had new bloodwork done? Kira had a geriatric panel in February that was fine. In May I took her in for an eye infection that turned out be to herpes brought on by stress. It got better and then worse, so I took her back in July. This time we did new bloodwork. She had anemia. We started treatment and did new bloodwork again two weeks later. Worse. New treatment. That was a week ago, and she has improved in the last two days. Hopefully, her next round will show that improvement. But you may have something new that has happened since your last bloodwork. Kira was weak from the anemia. Sleeping more, trouble with the stairways, can't jump up on counters, even fell off a bookshelf. if it isn't pain causing this, it may be weakness. One thing you can do is look at her gums. Are they red or pale? Kira is ghostly pale. I would highly recommend a new blood panel. Kira was fine in February, yet sick in May. It didn't take long at all for her condition to change. And the vet visit with the new bloodwork didn't turn up anything at all, just a confirmation that her weight was still too low and her eye was still messed up. It was the bloodwork that told the vet she had a more serious problem. |
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cat having problems climbing stairs
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#4
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cat having problems climbing stairs
yngver wrote: wrote: I would recommend Royal Canin's mature indoor food. It has a good amount of glucosamine in it, and it did wonders for my 17 year old cat. He had improvement within a couple days,and it clearly showed when I ran out once. Thanks. I think we have tried that in the past and she wouldn't eat it, but there are so many Royal Canin formulations it might have been a couple of other ones. We have tried switching her to Science Diet Advanced Protection for Seniors but it's also hard to her to eat it. The mature is a tad softer to help in chewing. If yo would like, send me your snail mail address privately (friesian(at)zoocrewphoto(dot)com. I will mail you a small sample, and you can see if she will eat it. The company will send samples, but takes awhile. You can also grind up glucosamine and add it to the food, but it is hard to get a good dose if they don't eat a good portion of canned food. I had chewable tablets for Maynard, but he was not consistent in eating them. Wow, I'm sorry to hear about Kira. Well, the vet didn't suggest new blood work but it's probably a good idea. He did just do another urinalysis last week and that was normal. Our cat doesn't seem particularly weak--she can trot around quickly if she wants to, or is playing with a toy, although she doesn't run flat out. But she never did much running anyway. I don't know if my vet intended to do bloodwork or not. I had a bad feeling that I was on the edge of something starting. Vets know medical issues and cats in general, but we know our particular pets the best. I just knew she wasn't right. So, I went in with a list of things to ask. When he saw I had a list, we went down my list before doing the checkup. At that time, her bloodwork showed an HCT (comparable to PCV, important for anemia) to be 27.9 which is just below the normal range of 30-45. So, she was just starting her nose-dive. Two weeks later, it was down to 11.7. So, in a way, I was right. She really was on the edge of going down. And other than weight loss and a goopy eye, I saw no other signs. She was eating at that time, and moving fine. Her eating slowed to a crawl after the initial diagnosis. And only after the diagnosis did I notice occasional bouts of breathing fast. And the night before her return trip was when she fell off the bookshelf and showed balance problems. It could be that your kitty is just starting something, where the symptoms have not completely presented themselves. You are just seeing the small things that an alert owner would notice. I'll look at her gums. She is eating, drinking, urinating, etc. normally so I'm having trouble finding any clues as to what could be wrong. Kira was eating before her diagnosis, then dropped as she got worse. Bathroom was completely normal. Maybe I will try to move up the vet appointment, although she seems better today.Thanks for the advice. I very much hope Kira continues to recover. Thanks. She continues to eat more and feel better. I won't know for sure until the next bloodwork that her numbers have really improved. I take her back tomorrow and will ask if they should do bloodwork again. He had me on a 2 week schedule previously. A website for canine anemia said every week. I hate to take it too often when she is already short on blood (it was actually thinner last week). But we can weigh her, look at her gums, and see what he thinks. I do have to go to get more prednisolone, so I'm definitely taking her. |
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cat having problems climbing stairs
yngver wrote: That's what I'm worried about. I'm bringing her back to the vet Wednesday. Even though she mostly seems normal, I just have a feeling something isn't quite right. Maybe nothing serious--I hope not--but I'd like for them to repeat the bloodwork just to be sure. Yes, I wasn't expecting anemia, but I figured since I had done a normal one a few months earlier, any change would be a clear sign if there was a problem. And since her exam was fine, it was only the bloodwork that caught it. And then, to see how badly it went down in 2 weeks with treatment started, I can't imagine how badly it might have gone had we not seen it at all yet. Sheis getting bloodwork again today. Results will be back tomorrow. But she is feeling and acting better already, and the vet said her blood was still thin, but not as thin as yesterday, so the numbers should be improving. He had me lower the prednisolone dosage back to the original dosage. I don't know if I go back in one or two weeks. He'll probably tell me tomorrow. Otherwise, I go back when the meds run out I do hope you get some improvement soon. And maybe something in the bloodwork will be mild, but something that can be treated and get her healthy again. It seems better to have something there that can be treated than no idea what it is or what to do. |
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cat having problems climbing stairs
"yngver" wrote in message ups.com... Hi, our 8 year old cat has been having difficulty climbing stairs the last couple months. She can go downstairs okay but she acts as though it is an ordeal to climb up. She always uses one front leg and sort of hoists herself up. The vet checked her over and he found no signs of pain in her legs or shoulders. Thinking it might be arthritis, he prescribed Cosequin. I know it hasnt been long enough (two and a half weeks) for the Cosequin to do much, but on some days now she seems even worse. For the last couple days she wont even try to jump up on the bed or sofa, although she still goes up the top of the cat tree. Her technique, however, is to sort of climb up the side of the cat tree and then do small jumps to get to the top. She still climbs stairs when she wants to but seems to avoid it more--she will sit at the bottom and look up for a while before attempting it. However, she growls if I try to help her--which is not unusual because she never did like to be picked up. She had a geriatric panel (bloodwork and urinalysis) about two months ago and everything was normal. She is asthmatic but it is controlled by Flovent. I have never read anything about that having possible side effects. We plan to take her back to the vet next week but does anyone have any ideas about what this might be? I am not sure it sounds like arthritis, and if it is I cant figure which part of her, legs or back, is affected. The vet did suggest she could get around better if she lost weight, which we realize, but she is only about a half pound over her best weight and she used to weigh a pound more and didnt have trouble climbing or jumping then. (sorry about the lack of apostrophes; google groups wont let me put them in for some reason.) -yngver My Tigger's arthritis showed up on x-ray. We treated her with Cosequin but that doesn't address the pain issues. We gave her Arnica Montana for the pain. The vet had originally prescribed prednisolone but that didn't seem to help her. We discussed getting acupuncture but Tigger got so stressed at the vet's they didn't think she'd be a very good candidate for it. A friend of mine's cat got a new lease on life after having that done though. W |
#8
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cat having problems climbing stairs
Wendy wrote: "yngver" wrote in message ups.com... Hi, our 8 year old cat has been having difficulty climbing stairs the last couple months. She can go downstairs okay but she acts as though it is an ordeal to climb up. She always uses one front leg and sort of hoists herself up. The vet checked her over and he found no signs of pain in her legs or shoulders. Thinking it might be arthritis, he prescribed Cosequin. I know it hasnt been long enough (two and a half weeks) for the Cosequin to do much, but on some days now she seems even worse. For the last couple days she wont even try to jump up on the bed or sofa, although she still goes up the top of the cat tree. Her technique, however, is to sort of climb up the side of the cat tree and then do small jumps to get to the top. She still climbs stairs when she wants to but seems to avoid it more--she will sit at the bottom and look up for a while before attempting it. However, she growls if I try to help her--which is not unusual because she never did like to be picked up. She had a geriatric panel (bloodwork and urinalysis) about two months ago and everything was normal. She is asthmatic but it is controlled by Flovent. I have never read anything about that having possible side effects. We plan to take her back to the vet next week but does anyone have any ideas about what this might be? I am not sure it sounds like arthritis, and if it is I cant figure which part of her, legs or back, is affected. The vet did suggest she could get around better if she lost weight, which we realize, but she is only about a half pound over her best weight and she used to weigh a pound more and didnt have trouble climbing or jumping then. (sorry about the lack of apostrophes; google groups wont let me put them in for some reason.) -yngver My Tigger's arthritis showed up on x-ray. We treated her with Cosequin but that doesn't address the pain issues. We gave her Arnica Montana for the pain. The vet had originally prescribed prednisolone but that didn't seem to help her. We discussed getting acupuncture but Tigger got so stressed at the vet's they didn't think she'd be a very good candidate for it. A friend of mine's cat got a new lease on life after having that done though. I guess I should ask the vet to x-ray her. He seemed to think if there was anything wrong with her joints, he would be able to tell by manipulating her legs and shoulders. I will have to look for the Arnica Montana. Maybe that will help. My sister in law did get acupuncture for her 16 year old arthritic cat, and she said it helped a lot too. I am not sure our cat (who is half that age!) actually has arthritis yet, so I'd have to be sure that's the problem first. Thanks for the advice- yngver |
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