Senior cat limping...

I have a 19 year old male short hair domestic that has IBD, pancreatitis arthritis, and he does walk a little stiff but he can still jump up on tables and the bed. Today he went to the vet to have blood taken from him for a B12, folat, and renal panels done. I don't know how much blood they take but he was fine at the vet and seemed fine when he got home. He had stomach noise last night but he did not eat after 22:00 to prep him for the blood test this morning. When he got home he was not hungry and went into his kennel to sleep for a few hours. When he came out he was eating and hung out in the living room for a while and was sleeping on a chair. He got 0.45cc of Famotidine and then got ticked off and went back to his kennel and slept. I went and checked up on him and hour or so later and he seemed happy enough and was purring when I was petting him.

He decided to come out and he had a hard time standing and it was had for him to step over the threshold of the kennel and he was walking very stiffly. It seemed to get a bit better after 5 minutes of standing when eating and going out into the sun for a bit but is still stiff. He was fine an hour before and when I checked up on him he was sleeping on his right side and it is the right side that is bothering him. His kennel has a thick pad in the bottom of it but he has only had it for a few days. He was able to leave a stool a little later but when he went back into his kennel he too his time lying down on his right side again. He was getting near the end of his pain meds and maybe that and the stress of a vet visit and loosing some blood at his age help with this. I poked around his stomach area lightly and he didn't object strongly so I don't think it is a pain issue as such.

Thanks for any help.

Did the vet take blood from the left side? and how much poking did they do? It could be when the cat is lying down, the right side is the lesser of the two pains. Just a thought ...

He's a pretty old guy so they usually take blood from his neck as the veins in his legs are not as reliable but I would need to confirm this as they took him away this time to do it. He has always favoured sleeping on his right side so this is not surprising. He is better today but I can see that this leg is still stiff and it is taking him more time to adjust himself as he lays down. He is a gentle cat and usually doesn't fight when he goes to the vet or any other time for that matter so I doubt he was roughed up at the vet and the technician did say he was good as usual. Very odd, seemed to come out of nowhere so I will need to keep an eye on it and see if it becomes a real issue.