Has anyone else had a broken hip?

My one year old grey and white cat, Cushty, has broken his hip. Last night around midnight I went downstairs and Cushty was in his usual spot on the sofa, so as I usually do I went to pick him up and cuddle him. When I picked him up he squealed loudly, and shocked (as Cushty is usually very loose and loves to be held) I put him down. He tried to move and immediately fell to the ground. I carefully placed him on a cushion and told my parents he was hurt. We took him to the emergency vet, he got an x ray and we were told he has a broken hip. We were given three options, get a pin, remove the socket, or confine him for six weeks and hope it heals. Personally I felt that we should have the socket removed (the most effective procedure) but as it would cost £700 and it's nearing Christmas my parents went for the free option. He is now in a cage and seems very agitated and restless, he will not stop moving about - he can only roll around or drag himself a little, but I am worried that if he keeps moving around (being only a year old he is full of energy) he can only worsen his condition and won't heal. I'm worried that, without surgery, he won't recover properly and will be either unable to walk or in a great deal of pain, and the thought of it makes me feel sick. My question is, has anybody else here had a cat with a broken hip, and if so which course of action did you take and how is your cat now? My other question is how can I get Cushty to calm down so he will heal? Thanks in advance.

I took in a foster cat earlier this year (Molly) who was found on the road with a broken hip. The vet advised 5/6 weeks in a cage as being the best option, and said that after that, if she still limped he could do surgery, but that probably confinement would heal it completely, and it did. She was very restless at first, but eventually settled down when her cage was put in an area where she could see what was going on. I did not need to calm her after the first week, during which I used some Feliway spray around the cage. I kept the cage covered for the first couple of days, when she was very frightened. It all ended happily for her as she got adopted very soon afterwards.

Good luck with him - how did it happen? Did he have a fall, do you think?

My cat Salt was hit by a car ( he's was a born to a feral mom and lived outside until his accident) and broke his hip. He's done fine and never needed any surgery. He's active and plays normally now (he didn't for a long time.)

Thanks jennyranson and LotsO'Cats - you've put my mind at rest! I was very worried that he'd struggle and suffer forever without surgery but it seems he can recover just fine. I'm not sure how he did it - he might have been hit by a car, but surely if he was hit by a car he would have some sort of visible injury or be hurt a lot worse - there's no sign of the injury at all. We do have a very nasty neighbor (who is thankfully moving out very soon) who is always horrible to our cats, I'm very worried that he might have kicked Cushty or hit him with something, as we've come out of a very long and complicated legal battle about land with him and won. I think he may have done it as revenge in a way, in which case he really is sick. It's just that the cars on our road go by very fast, and we've lost a few cats over the last ten years to it - none have ever survived a hit, and I can't understand how Cushty could have only a broken hip.

He's calmed down now, he seems quite happy in his cage - he has his favorite blanket and a little toy mouse. At first he wasn't very happy in the cage, he tore all the newspaper on the floor up. He seems to be getting better already, today he walked a little - I was sat by the open door of the cage and he stepped onto my lap, I could feel that he's not putting a lot of pressure on the affected hip but he is putting a little on it. He's not been complaining at all, just meowing for a little affection! He's a very sweet cat though, the vet said he was very well behaved when they had him.

I also had a cat with a broken Hip, where I thought I had to put her down. MY vet advised me to confine her to a small cage, where she has enough room to lay down, get up and use the litter and that's it, no other room for the cat to use for any other movement. Kept her in there for 6 weeks, she came out with a bit of a limp which dissapered as well.

[I'm not sure how he did it - he might have been hit by a car, but surely if he was hit by a car he would have some sort of visible injury or be hurt a lot worse - there's no sign of the injury at all.

Even cats who are killed on the road often have no sign of injury, and a glancing blow could easily result in a broken hip. My Molly had no external signs either. It sounds as if he is doing fine and will soon be on the road to recovery.

My mom's former Siamese had a broken hip once. He got hit by a car but thankfully was not killed. It cracked his hip. We took him to the vet and the vet put him on pain killers and kept him over night. Thankfully, he did recover but before he fully recovered, he disappeared and we never seen him again. We think he either got stolen or was hit by a car and died instantly.

That's sad about your cat, KittyGirl02 - he was probably stolen, as there is a lot of money to be made from pedigrees.

Cushty is doing very well, he has almost no signs of having a broken hip now, other than the way he sits - normal in the front, sideways in the back, it's very odd to see! He's very bored of his cage and being an outdoor cat he's longing to get out again - shame he has another month left in the cage!

My 5 year old Tuxedo female just jumped from ~ five or six feet to wooden floor. Heard loud low cat cry-and found her lying on right side. She got up immediately and limped off no weight bearing on right hind. Ran about twenty feet and deposited herself beneath dining room table attempting to lie down "normally." A trip to the vet is a must... Getting dressed now... Should I immobilize her in some mnner or simply place her in her travel carrier?

My cat Norman was recently diagnosed with 2 broken hips. Unfortunately he is a large breed cat who mostly lays around so I didn't catch it as soon as I should have.
I came home three months ago to him limping so badly. I thought it was a sprang considering he hadn't lost movement in his legs. So I caged him for 2 weeks. And he was fine.
Recently he began walking funny (the arthritis from the bone growth started to kick in)
I was offered two choices 1)remove hip bones and 2) pain meds.
In the 2 weeks I had caged him one of his joints had actually repaired itself. I didn't get so lucky with the left leg.
Now I can tell you that he is happy and loved and that is all he seems to care about. For now we are going with drugs. He gets one cc of pain meds every other day. Just enough to keep him loose. If we go with the sergury I will comment further if there is a huge difference in his behavior.
His injury is a result of him playing to rough with our female lab who enjoys pulling on legs while playing. He is the size of a medium size dog. At full stretch he is about 4 ft tall standing.so them playing had never crossed my mind as being dangerous.

I am a human doctor, not a vet. My old Siamese, Simon, who lived until he was 20, was hit by a car just outside our house when he was 12. He suffered a fractured shoulder and this was successfully pinned. Postoperatively I made a large cage out of chicken wire and nursed him in that on the back verandah for a week. Luckily we had no rain!

Being Siamese he refused to drink or eat after the injury, and I kept him going with a mouth pipette and a 20 ml syringe, injecting Normal Saline daily under his skin. He made an excellent recovery and was walking after the week was up.

The operation to pin a broken hip or shoulder depends on the X-Ray findings, but is the quickest way to treat a fracture of a weight-bearing joint in a human, and also, I should imagine, a cat.

Weight bearing joints have a ball and socket joint with a longer neck, joining the ball and socket to the femur bone (hind limb), and a very much shorter neck in the humerus (fore limb). For fractures of the femur, the pin is inserted through the neck of the femur extending to the bony mass of the ball joint and this operation gives excellent results in humans, the weight bearing starts within a day or two.

In a human, the operation of removing the hip joint would be the quickest way to relieve pain, but the result is not so good in terms of walking. However the vet will explain whether the operation would result in a catty limp.

If one takes the option of leaving in a cage for six weeks and the pain persists and the cat stays agitated, then I believe that the operation of pinning would be the quickest way to heal the cat and relieve pain. Incidentally I am not at all sure that removing the whole hip joint is the best option for a young, one year old cat, because the result is not likely to be so good and he may have a limp for the rest of his life. The vet should advise on this.

With all best wishes,
Geoffrey