Not sure what just happened with my cat

My kitten KK who has a fully amputate tail was just playing with her mouse and all of a sudden she stopped, began limping like she had her leg caught on something. She became frustrated let out a meow, sat down, for less that a minute and now is fine, playing again. She just had a check up last week with no problems. She did have a very bad tail injury when I found her as a stray and the whole thing to the base of the spine had to be removed. Any ideas what just happened? She's never done this before.

Just keep an eye on her over the next 24-48 hours for any swelling or limping, but I wouldn't worry too much. Sounds like she's twisted something, bumped or landed awkwardly while playing. I guess we all can do that! Hopefully she'll be ok, esp as she's playing again. And I think you're grand for taking a stray in, sounds like she's found a lovely home with you, very caring :-)

Do cats ever get muscle cramps? 

I too think she may have landed wrong or twisted her leg.  She will probably be more prone to that especially as a kitten because she doesn't have a tail for balancing.

Could have twisted her leg wrong or she may have something like patellar luxation.  It isn't common in cats so most vets don't check for it when they do exams.  My Munchie boy had to have both his patellas operated on and have them fixed.  He did something similar to what your cat did.  What happens is the knee pops out of place which makes them limp and hold it up then it will pop back in place and they go on like nothing happened.

I will watch out for issues with the knees. She is still acting normally. It was just strange how it happened.

Did she get vaccinated at her check-up? Maybe she is still sore.

cprcheetah said:

 
Could have twisted her leg wrong or she may have something like patellar luxation.  It isn't common in cats so most vets don't check for it when they do exams.  My Munchie boy had to have both his patellas operated on and have them fixed.  He did something similar to what your cat did.  What happens is the knee pops out of place which makes them limp and hold it up then it will pop back in place and they go on like nothing happened.

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I thought of this, too. My sister's little dog has it, and that's pretty much her exact reaction when her patella pops out of place. Thanks to her vet's guidance, my sister has become an expert at popping it back into place, but even without help her dog usually "walks it off" after a few minutes (that's what happened the first few times, until she realized this was some sort of chronic issue and brought her to the vet).

She did just get her vaccines a couple days ago

My male Bengal also dislocated his knee cap.  He fell backward off his almost 8' high cat tree.  He landed on his feet, but with too much weight on his rear leg apparently (and wrong direction).  The vet said he would need surgery, but we just waited and he amazingly got better on his own.  He didn't cry or appear to have pain with the dislocation, but his hind leg would hang and couldn't put any weight on it when it was out of joint.