strange limping young cat

He walks with a limp of the front legs. The previous time, after a few days' limping, he started to literally keep his head down, shoulders way up. He made the impression that it hurt him very much to keep his head up, for he even ate while lying down on his tummy. He does not suffer from lack of appetite or constipation, but he is very lethargic for a tom of his age. He is also much less affectionate than usual. The two previous times he suffered from whatever he suffers from, it passed without treatment or medication (our vet didn't have a clue so couldn't do anything), but this does not mean that it does not have us worried!

I havnt heard much on this subject. I do think the vet should look a little harder into the situation. If you are not happy with the results, I would seek another vet. Possibly an all feline vet. Try this link and see if theres anything familiar.
http://www.vetinfo.com/cmotion.html#Lameness in more then one leg

Yes, definately see another VET - some areas do have Animal Hospitals that specialize in Cats. If not maybe your current Vet can referr you.

I would like to thank both the responders, especially Sandy for the link she gave. It was helpful, though none of it really seems to apply to our cat (he is 8 months old, most of the diseases apply to much older cats). We had him examined again today, but the vet, again, could find nothing wrong. So we are going to wait and see what happens. In about a month the cat will be nutered; the vet will at the same time make some xrays, to see if there is something wrong inside. Whatever the results, I will let all of you (out there) know.

I am not so sure if you sould have him nutered without having this issue resolved. Do try a second opinion - not every Vet knows everything. Good luck

I am sorry you didnt find anything that matched. I hope they can find out what is bothering him. Has he been an indoor cat this whole time? I need to write this down and ask the vet I work with on Wed. Let us know whats going on with him.

Yes, he has been indoors all this time. Today a friend of ours (works with a vet) said that it could be growing up pains; it seems this can happen with cats. Also, we are going to have his blood examined (the cat, not our friend as soon as he's having the symptons again. The vet in question also thought it might be a kalium shortage - still, the first option is going to be a blood test. And yes, we won't have him castrated as long as we don't know what's going on. The cat is acting nearly normal at the moment, though sleeping a lot. And thanks again for all the reactions.

I just read an article that mentioned something called "Limping Kitten Syndrome".
It says it is a potentially serious viral infection.
Ask your vet about this. And if your vet can't find what's wrong, go to another vet til you do get some answers.

I found the article Illusion mentioned above. The symptons subcribed in it don't seem to apply to our situation: our cat doesn't have fysical pain in his legs or inflammations. Arthritis, I think, is therefore out of the question (nice to have it out of the question though).
The good news is: he has totally recovered and is very active again. The only thing he does seem to be suffering from at the moment is a hairball that won't come out; we're feeding him some special stuff for that. All this doesn't mean that we are not going to have him checked. Around the middle of May we're going to the vet to have him fully examined (bloodtest, foto's, etc.).

Try Laxatone's an effective laxative and lubricant combination helps remove hair balls inside your cat's digestive tract. The smooth, easy-to-use, tasty gel coats swallowed hair and allows it to easily pass through your cat's intestinal tract. Regular use prevents the
build-up of swallowed hair Just dab it on you cat nose, mouth and they will lick it off. It comes in a tube and cost somewhere between $6-8 - you can purchase it in places like
Petco. .Good Luck to you and your little one. PS: My girlfriend who has 3 persian swears by it.

Well, not very good news I'm afraid: the limping has returned since two days (like a curse) and now he's barely walking around - and when he does, he clearly wants to avoid all pressure on his front legs. But it's different from the last time: now he makes a high, curved hollow back; the time before he seemed to push his shoulderblades really high above his back. Because all this happened in the weekend (very sudden: saturday morning he was fine, some ours later as mentioned above) we had to wait till monday before we could visit the vet - for a bloodtest and foto's. I don't want to be too negative about the vet, but she had the bloodtest done (results in about a week), but wouldn't make any foto's because 'he didn't seem to be suffering from any pain anywhere' . But that wasn't the bloody point! We suggested the foto's to be taken to rule out possibilities; she didn't really listen...
So we've decided to go to another vet, one with a lot more experience who we've consulted before. This will happen tomorrow.
About the hairball problem: we use a gellylike substance that gives the same results as mentioned. Hairballs are therefore also out of the question as the Curse.
I still hope that someone who's reading this, recognizes the problem, and am very thankfull for all the reactions so far.

I am sorry to hear you are having such a rough time. I sure hope the new vet has some possiblities for you. Please let us know what this other vet has to say.

We've gone to the other vet today. But let me first tell you that the other vet called us to say that she had been searching for an answer and came up with a suggestion that could fit the symptoms from our cat: a very rare condition called Myasthenia Gravis, some sort of auto-immune deficiency related to the muscles. I'm still not totally sure what this means for the future...
The vet we went to visit today, however, said about our cat after a thorough examination that he may have one or more strained muscles on his back near his front legs. He found a painfull spot in that area. He gave us a twofold prognosis: one is that it's purely strained muscles that haven't got enough time to heal properly, the other that it's possibly a very serious born in deficiency like bad developed vertebrae (or something like M. Gravis). For the short term (10 day evaluation period) he has given us Prednisone, so that the muscles of the cat can heal. After this period of 10 days we're going back for a further checkup. That's it for now, I'm hoping it's 'only' strained muscles...

I am very happy you have at least gotten some sort of answer. I am sorry though that he has to go through this much pain. Please keep us updated on his progress and prognosis.

There's good news this time; after our consultation with the second vet and his diagnosis of a possible strained backmuscle, which was treated by small doses of prednison over a period of 2 weeks, the cat seems completely healthy again. We had a checkup on the cat yesterday with the vet and he was very glad and so are we (understatement), because the cat doesn't walk strange anymore (for 2 weeks now, going on 3, knock on wood). It's a very nice, healthy and playful cat again. So, for the time being, all is well. The conclusion to the riddle of the strange limping cat being a strained muscle that didn't cure properly because the cat kept on harming the muscle while playing around...
Let's hope that this is the end of the story and the beginning of more wonderful with Mus (=name of the cat, sparrow in Dutch).

I am glad to hear he is feeling better. I guess some things are pretty rare. I am going to hope for the 2 of you that it is gone for good. Keep us updated on his recovery!!

There's been some new developments lately, so here's the update.
Because we still wanted our limping youngster to be able to venture outdoors, we wanted him castrated. Our vet suggested we first let him have examined by a specialist (surgeon) to see if it can be totally ruled out that the cat does have some neurological disorder. So we went to that specialist - who couldn't find something wrong in that department. He also couldn't find anything strange with the bones of the cat: he had never before seen anything like it, the limping and suggested that the cat must have a ruptured muscle, to be more specific the central muscle that holds the front legs to the ribcage. He too didn't have a clue about what could have caused it (possibly a fall?). His diagnosis is: see what happens. It may cure in due time. If it doesn't cure we will have to consider an operation whereby the muscle will be attached with iron threads to the ribcage, forming scartissue that will fasten the muscle better than is does now. The goods being: such an operation is not very dangerous and is very likely to give good results.
This is where we are now: waiting to see what happens (though we had the cat castrated with succes and no problems at all). In about a week we will let him go outside.

Wow, what an ordeal! Glad to hear your strange limping cat is on the road to recovery. Hopefully things will heal up on their own and he won't have to have the operation.

Good luck
Dawn

Sure hope that your cat is doing good. Any updates???

Sorry to get in on this so late but it sounds like your cat might have Calicivirus, which is a URI. Symptoms will appear and disappear. Does he sneeze or sound congested in any way but the Vet can't hear anything when you take him in? Are there any lesions on his tongue or in his mouth? These are some of the symptoms. Look up Calicivirus on your search engine and compare symptoms.

Pete