Terrified of possible spine injury!! No vet until tomorrow!!

An hour ago my 3 month kitten had a stupid accident. I was blow drying my hair and he got so scared with the noise that he jumped from the bed down onto floor. It's a relatively small jump (maybe 15 inches) and he's done it before many times, but now it was different.

-he must have landed really awkward because he seemed completely scared with what had just happened, unable to find direction where to go further, just moving like a broken robot on the spot

-he was meowing like crazy

-all his hair was up, not just on the spine, but all over his body (like a hedgehog)

-then he turned his belly upwards 

-and he started having some kind of convulsions 

In that moment I honestly thought he was having a heart attack and he was going to die, so I called his name and thankfully he stopped trembling and meowing and acting really scared. (Like he was coming back from a scary nightmare.)

Then I gently picked him up and put him on the bed, only to notice in horror that he was having no support in his back legs. After a while he started moving his tail and his left back leg. The right one not yet thus far. And for a long while he kept breathing fast and shallow.

Now he is sleeping with all his legs tucked under him, and he doesn't seem to have any pain when I touch his spine, but I'm still scared to move him again. Sometimes he will breathe through his open mouth, like he is very warm.

I can see a vet tomorrow at 8 or maybe 9 the latest (meaning as soon as they open), and I spent the last hour talking to him and googling these symptoms, so if anyone has more educated guesses to what his injury is, please, please let me know. 

Sorry to hear this.  Don't know what is going on, good that you're taking him to the vets (I'd be there at 8 versus 9).

How is he doing?  Breathing through mouth is not normal, but I'm not sure how it would be connected with the fall.  And from the bed to the floor isn't that great of a distance.  Did he hit his head in any way?

I've been to the vet. He has a malformation in his thyroid that prevents the absorption of calcium in his bones. The X-Rays showed his bones to be brittle and hallow, with multiple fractures along the spine. 

There is the possibility of putting him down, but not now, and not in my opinion, and I don't want to go there yet. 

I've started a mini campaign of raising funds to begin the long and difficult process of trying to heal him.... and I can only hope for the best.

My vet also recommended I stay away from the internet during this time because it will only dampen my spirit, so to speak...so I should probably say goodbye to these forums for a while.

Even if I go, send vibes for my little boy. 

And good health to your cats! 

Mega for him!

I've tried to restrain from making this post, but if there's a chance someone will learn something from it, here it goes. 

There's a lot of praise for raw feeding on this forum. I just want to say it's really dangerous for your kittens. Because of it, my 3 months old kitten developed Nutritional Secondary Hyperparathyroidism:

The cause of this nutritional bone disease is a diet consisting primarily of organ meats, such as hearts, livers, and kidneys. Such a diet is too high in phosphorus and too low in calcium and vitamin D. (Vitamin D is necessary for calcium to be absorbed from the small intestine.)

Kittens are at particular risk because they require large amounts of calcium for growth and development. When a kitten’s sole source of nourishment is meat, he’s getting too much phosphorus and not enough calcium. This results in overactivity of the parathyroid glands.

Symptoms appear after the kitten has been on a high-meat diet for about four weeks. Affected kittens are reluctant to move, and they develop an uncoordinated gait and lameness  in the back legs. The front legs are often bowed. Their thin bones are easily fractured. These fractures, often multiple, tend to heal rapidly and may even go unrecognized. Because the meat diet supplies adequate calories, kittens often appear well-nourished and have a healthy coat despite their metabolic bone disease.

So please, enough with trying to reinvent the wheel and just follow common sense and feed your cat what the experts agreed on.

Thank you for reading.

I'm sorry to hear this.

Were you feeding your cat raw?

Who are the "experts"  The ones schooled by the big name food companies?  The ones taught nothing of nutrition except xyz brand is good?  Vets barely get trained in nutrition.  Why should they everyone is encouraged to feed commercial food.

Go back and look at what was first fed to animals owned by people.  We gave them dinner scraps.  Then look at what happens when companies first started making pet food-they did not know much and there have been many issues-deficiencies and to much this or that.  After so many years it is more "normal" but there are still recalls for contaminated food(look at the huge recall where many cats died) or foo missing key vitamins.  Nothing in life is perfect. 

Seriously raw is great IF and that is IF you do your research.  Sounds like your kitten was not properly fed a BALANCED diet.   You can not just hand your cat raw bone/skinless chicken or ground beef and expect to see the same results as the people who balance it.  It is not that hard to do right but also not hard to do wrong as you have found out.

No dry food will ever come close to what the cat is able to gain from a raw or even freshly cooked diet. 

I also think your vet meant do not google the disease not stay off the net completely.  Looking into disease will always lead you to many this happened to me or a friend and be the worst part.  Most people do not go on to say how well things went.  They go on for support
 

TheTigerDen said:

I've tried to restrain from making this post, but if there's a chance someone will learn something from it, here it goes. 

There's a lot of praise for raw feeding on this forum. I just want to say it's really dangerous for your kittens. Because of it, my 3 months old kitten developed Nutritional Secondary Hyperparathyroidism:

The cause of this nutritional bone disease is a diet consisting primarily of organ meats, such as hearts, livers, and kidneys. Such a diet is too high in phosphorus and too low in calcium and vitamin D. (Vitamin D is necessary for calcium to be absorbed from the small intestine.)

Kittens are at particular risk because they require large amounts of calcium for growth and development. When a kitten’s sole source of nourishment is meat, he’s getting too much phosphorus and not enough calcium. This results in overactivity of the parathyroid glands.

Symptoms appear after the kitten has been on a high-meat diet for about four weeks. Affected kittens are reluctant to move, and they develop an uncoordinated gait and lameness  in the back legs. The front legs are often bowed. Their thin bones are easily fractured. These fractures, often multiple, tend to heal rapidly and may even go unrecognized. Because the meat diet supplies adequate calories, kittens often appear well-nourished and have a healthy coat despite their metabolic bone disease.

So please, enough with trying to reinvent the wheel and just follow common sense and feed your cat what the experts agreed on.

Thank you for reading.

Click to expand...

I'm sorry for your bad experience with raw feeding. I do agree that it is especially critical to know what you are doing when feeding a homemade diet to a rapidly growing kitten. In your case whoever was feeding your kitten clearly didn't make an effort to learn how to do it properly. Here at TCS we emphasis the need to feed a nutritionally balanced diet and we offer advice for how to do that. As the first sentence in your quote says your kittens illness is most likely the result of feeding a diet lacking in calcium. Anyone feeding such a diet would be severely admonished here.

Those who have been feeding a raw, homemade diet for years know the real common sense is in knowing how ridiculous it is suggest that only pet food companies are capable of creating a nutritionally balanced pet food. It is something no one should do without learning how to but it is something nearly any one is capable of doing. 

And, of course, there are commercially produced raw foods that are guaranteed to be as nutritionally complete as any commercial processed foods.

Thank you for posting about your experience. I am adding it to my "Raw Feeding Gone Wrong" collection. 

I'm very sorry about your poor kitten. 

I am SO SORRY about your poor little guy?  It's Dexter, right?  And I appreciate you posting this to remind everyone that they MUST, absolutely MUST feed a balanced raw diet if they are going to feed raw. 

Is there any hope for your little guy? 

Now I'm off to have someone analyze what I am feeding my furkids!

Just to be accurate, the OP started a thread in the nutrition forum over a week ago: http://www.thecatsite.com/t/259623/2-months-old-eating-only-meat

I'm so sorry your kitten is suffering. :heart2: What is the prognosis? :cross:

mrsgreenjeens said:

I am SO SORRY about your poor little guy?  It's Dexter, right?  And I appreciate you posting this to remind everyone that they MUST, absolutely MUST feed a balanced raw diet if they are going to feed raw. 

Is there any hope for your little guy? 

Now I'm off to have someone analyze what I am feeding my furkids!

Click to expand...

Sally, the OP wasn't feeding her kitty any calcium beyond goat milk.