4 year old cat losing balance in hind legs

My 4 year old cat seems to be loosing power in her hind legs. Once before around 4 months ago, she had loss of balance in back end for a couple of days. It disappeared as quickly as it came. I wondered if my clipping her claws had caused the issue. A week and a half ago, I clipped her nails and the issue is back...a lot worse than before now. My husband is taking her to the vet tomorrow. She is still affectionate. It's like when she goes down stairs her back end starts going side ways. When she walks on the bed, she can stumble and fall. And jumping can cause a real problem. She is an indoor cat only. Our other cat is dominate and she beats her up a lot. I'm really beginning to get concerned since the issue hasn't disappeared this time. She doesn't appear to be in pain or have head or eye issues. Seems like vertigo a little .....

Rpars24243 said:

My 4 year old cat seems to be loosing power in her hid legs. Once before around 4 months ago, she had loss of balance in back end for a couple of days. It disappeared as quickly as it came. I wondered if my clipping her claws had caused the issue. A week and a half ago, I clipped her nails and the issue is back...a lot worse than before now. My husband is taking her to the vet tomorrow. She is still affectionate. It's like when she goes down stairs her back end starts going side ways. When she walks on the bed, she can stumble and fall. And jumping can cause a real problem. She is an indoor cat only. Our other cat is dominate and she beats her up a lot. I'm really beginning to get concerned since the issue hasn't disappeared this time. She doesn't appear to be in pain or have head or eye issues. Seems like vertigo a little .....

Click to expand...

Cats CAN get vertigo, but it doesn't usually just present like a weakness in the hind legs, I don't think. 

I'm glad you're taking her in to be seen.  Sometimes low potassium will cause this, although I don't know why she would have that, but who knows .  Or if her sister beats her up frequently, possibly she's got an injury to her spinal cord or something.  Hopefully it's nothing serious   

Well, Vet feels she has a neurological disease or some sort.  We are treating her for 2 weeks as if it is a deep inner ear infection in case there is one that could not be detected.  (steroids and antibiotics 2x daily)  Try to get a pill down a girl's throat...geez.  We've been crushing them and putting in a teaspoon of milk and using a dropper to get her to take it.  She wouldn't eat wet food with them crushed in it.  Smart little girl....  I'm sure these pills are very bitter.  There is no timeline...we will have to fight this as we go along.

Just a thought, if she's an indoor cat, you are probably not using any of the flea products on her that also treat heartworms.  One of my cats had a severe reaction to Advantage Multi, which is in the avermectin family, and he had terrible neurological symptoms which are similar to the ones sensitive dogs get to that family of drugs.  Being a cat, that was not suspected at first.  The vet treated him for vertigo with meclizine (animal version of Antivert), which helped,  and eventually he recovered.  After about a month, I again put the Advantage Multi on him (until the second treatment, we didn't know that's what caused the symptoms) and within an hour he went from being fine to being exactly the way he had been at the beginning of this illness.  Since it was sudden and the only change was putting on the flea treatment again, I thoroughly washed off any remaining in his fur before it had time to sink in (it had only been on for maybe 4 hours when he started with all the neurological symptoms again) and I packed the area with corn starch to soak up any remaining oil, and by the next morning he was fine again.  This was the first CAT the vet had seen be sensitive to it, although the sensitivity is well known in herding type of dogs.  Evidently the sensitivity is rare but it does exist.  Even though they have not been overdosed with it, they have the same symptoms as a cat or dog that has been seriously overdosed.

I had a long-haired cat that had a deathly reaction to that stuff, too!  She hid and we found her under a table....she could hardly breath.  My husband bathed her, wrapped her in a towel and lay on the bed with her all day until she got better.  I was working...it was a scary day for us. 

It's a good thing your husband bathed her right away.  She might have died otherwise.  I'm always watching around here to check on any post where a cat has neurological signs to see if it is that.  It was really awful.  I felt so bad that I did that to him.  The vet had said to use Advantage Multi for a few months because he had ear mites.  I normally use Advantage plain or Advantage II.  I have a friend who uses it on her two Maine Coons and they have never had a problem with it.  Thanks for sharing that you did too, because I'm going to collect "evidence" to share with others who may have that problem.