Cat suddenly n pain months after femur repair surgery!!

Our cat had a very badly broken femur repaired over 4 months ago and vets were happy with how it was healing and had calloused over nicely. About a couple of weeks ago they said he was fine to be let out of his cage, as long as we keep him indoors. Yesterday we noticed him limping, and today he will hardly even stand up and doesn't want us touching his leg. He's obviously in pain but I don't know what happened. We are taking him to the vet tomorrow but just wanted to know if anyone else has had any similar experiences? I am sick with worry and really concerned that after all he's gone through (and all the $$$ of course), the leg has fallen apart again or something just as severe has happened

Does anyone have any idea what could be going on or experienced something similar with a healing bone? 

is there an infection inside the joint? Does the leg have a foul odor or lumps/bumps that were not there before?

Oftentimes with people we have to do slow range of motion exercises and build back up to walking fulltime. is it possible the cat did too much moving around too soon?

you can use ice wrapped up in a towel on the leg to try to give pain relief or a heating pad on a towel if its not too hot out. ice is usually the better treatment as it gets inflammation down in people-I imagine the same would work for kitty.

how is the eating/drinking and general mood?

Do you have a photo of this kitty? We love photos here

remember never ever give kitty over the counter meds that people take for pain. Just a public announcement-I am sure you know-just incase someone reads this with a similar issue-

call the vet and see if they will send you home some pain meds-I am sure they sent you home with them in the past-you may just need to get ontop of the pain management before trying to manipulate the leg-also muscle wasting is another concern of mine. Sometimes you have to set a 5 or 10 min max time for allowing to walk on it. making them rest for half an hour then repeat is another thing you can do but only after figure out what the pain is from.

does your kitty have access to high places? I wonder if kitty jumped down and landed funny on the leg.

a little story=2 years or rather 3 years ago my kitty fell when I wasn't home. I came home to her limping. We had built some shelving around the kitchen so she could get up. I think she got startled as the boyfriend told me he heard dishes smashing down-he thinks she fell and landed in the sink causing the dishes to clatter-once I got her to the vets later that week the knee cap was popping out-whatever she did-she stretched the ligament that holds the kneecap in.

we did a steroid shot after much consideration and pain meds-we did xrays and nothing in there broken or cracked. it took 5 to 6 weeks of healing-we also added dasquin to her wet food-so not sure if it was the dasquin that helps speed up healing or the time needed for a ligament to repair itself.

ligaments take at min 4 weeks to heal. So this could be a simple strain/sprain that will need 4 to 6 weeks to heal.

I don't know if this is what happened to your kitty-but with time she got better. I had her walking up and down the stairs on our porch to help keep her range of motion-she will do anything for treats-I can make her go anywhere as long as I have a treat in my fingers-pretty hysterical she is-

could you give us abit more information about your cat's daily habits and what/where they go or not to help figure out what could be the issue and of course ringing the vet to let them know there's something wrong.

Thank you so much for all the info. I have given him the pain/anti-inflammatory medication that he only stopped taking a couple of weeks ago. So hopefully he isn't in too much pain. He seems very depressed and doesn't really want to eat The vet told us he would be fine  if we just kept him indoors but I think he did start running around too much too soon. He very well may have jumped off maybe a table or other furniture and landed funny. (probably happened when we weren't home). We also have other cats, so he may have been playing a bit rough. I'm just terrified that it has re-fractured. Is this common? I have no idea what to expect. 

I don't think it could rebreak without some kind of object impacting it. It could be a sprain/strain which is pretty painful either way. how many hours do the pain meds work for? when was the last time he ate?

when my honeybee busted her knee-she still picked at her food but only ate treats. my boyfriend built her a shelf to sit on after she fell off the railing or window. We think she was trying to catch a bird and went flying and landed wrong. we have seen her take a flying leap off the rockwall on our yard to try to jump the critters.

I didn't want to mention that it happened outside as I know some folks don't approve of outdoor living but she was already an outdoor cat before I got her.

so now we have shelves and seats for them to sit on and since then no more knee incidents. We were told they would have to do surgery on her knee to fix the groove it sets in but after awhile it stopped popping out of place. this didn't stop her of course-she is as rambunctious as ever, she is the most springy wormy cat I have ever had.

when she wants to wake me up she licks my hands/arms or springboards off my stomach to wake me up.

I'm pretty sure they work for about 24 hours as we used to give it to him once a day. We will take him to the vet tomorrow. They will most likely take xrays again (for probably the 4th time in the last few months, so there goes even more $$$$...the amount of money we have spent so far is obscene!). He was picking at his food maybe 4-5 hours ago but hasn't touched any food since (he is normally a BIG eater). 

what is he on for pain? yeah the xrays will be done to see if anything funky is going on. What about that steroid injection that lasts for a few weeks? I wonder if that would help-it didn't do much for my honeybee but then again she didn't slow down even with pain-insisted on walking around outside and lays down every few steps-she is one stubborn kitty.

I gave him some Metacam which is for the alleviation of inflammation and pain relief so hopefully that will help, although he still seems so down. 

He seems much better today and even got up and walked around for a bit like nothing happened (only saw just the slightest limp). He even ate a little and is now resting again. I'll keep an eye on him closely throughout the day and see what happens. 

This is one of my favourite photos of my boy...hope he's back to his usual self soon

Called emergency tonight as he wasn't looking much better but they said as long as he's comfortable, we can wait and take him in tomorrow. Fingers crossed it isn't too bad. 

Has anyone had any similar experiences?

I wonder if they can switch to buprenorphine-it works well on pain and swelling.

Can your cat have prednisolone? This is a steroid but when the inflammation causes excessive swelling this has been a go to for helping pain. I have seen kitties get both these meds but not at the same time. pred is normally once a day and bupre is normally every 12 hours. If he has heart issues then they will have to select a different steroid-this one I can't remember the name but isn't as strong as pred but safer for heart kitties.

I am so sorry your baby is still hurting-glad that you will be getting him looked at, and I love his face-those eyes!

Thanks Foxxycat. I'm not familiar with any of those, I'll see what the vet says when we take him in tomorrow. For now I'll just have to keep giving him what we have. He doesn't have any heart issues and is otherwise a big, healthy 2 year old kitty. I did try the ice pack last night so I'm not sure if that made a difference or not. I am just so scared about what they're going to find! In hindsight I know we probably shouldn't have let him freely roam the house and I'm really regretting it now

I've just read some bad things about Metacam and it really worries me! I've given it to him so many times over the last few months

Anyone else have any advice/experiences with this? Is Metacam really that bad too? It seems to have helped him. 

When are you taking your cat to the vet or at least calling your vet for advice?

I have called the vet a couple of times and have an appointment booked in for tomorrow. I explained everything and they said it will be fine until tomorrow as long as he is kept in the cage. 

Good news. Took him to the vet the other day and vet said his leg seems fine and he will probably have his good and bad days as his leg continues to strengthen. He no longer is in pain and is walking fine. Although I will try to control how much exercise he gets every day and slowly increase.