Arthritic cat = cranky cat.

Hello. This is my first post here.

I have two 13 y/o cats. They are brother & sister and I've had them most of their lives. My boy cat, Yaya, has always been my social and outgoing cat. He is the one who would meet us at the door, wake us for food, greet all new guests, etc. On Christmas Day, we noticed he was a lot less friendly than normal and much less agile & athletic. After a few days of watching him stumble around the house, I took him to the vet. He had two visits in as many days. The main diagnosis was arthritis of his back and hips. He also has some kidney issues but the vet said that his main discomfort seemed to be from the arthritis.

After bringing him back from the vet, his sister Olivia was unhappy to see him. I've experienced this before; normally it is her going to the vet and him hissing at her for smelling different for a few days. However, he lets it go after a day or so. Well, here it is almost ten days later and his sister is still hissing at him on occasion. They are normally very close cats (that's them in my profiel pic) so I don't know what to do about getting them to be friendly again. They are able to eat side-by-side, they just don't cuddle or socialize anymore.

Adding to this, I have to give Yaya meds now. They seem to be helping his agility, but now he won't come near me or my fiance apparently out of fear that we are going to grab and pill him. He spends all of his time now under the bed in the spare room. I'm worried that his isolation will turn into depression.

Does anyone have any suggestions about how to get my sweet, friendly (loud and obnoxious) cat back into the family circle? I miss him very much, even having him pester me for constant attention.

Thanks!

Totally agree. I have arthritis and it can make me very cranky too.

Huh, I wrote a long reply and now I don't know where it went. So I'll try again. Yaya's diagnosis was made from X-rays. The cartilage between his vertebrae was very thin in most of his lumbar region (is it called lumbar on cats?) I left a message for my vet today asking about the injections. The vet had mentioned them during the appointment but I was squeamish about it. However, if I can do them less frequently than the pills, I will give it a try. I should point out that before he was pilled but after we noticed his discomfort, Yaya was still friendly & affectionate, he was just quieter & had low energy. He didn't start ignoring me & running from us until I had to pill him. Last night, after I fell asleep, my fiance got Yaya to come to the bed with us and he slept there for awhile (my fiance has been great with this whole thing). I was sleeping like a stone so I didn't know he was there but at least Yaya will spend some time with us. Maybe that was why I slept so deep?

I forgot, his suppliment is DGP. I tried to sprinkle it on tuna & tried hiding it in Pill Pockets to no avail. He just ignored the food. I even liquified it in tuna juice & used a syringe to give him to him. That just got us both covered in tuna juice.