Hi all,
I'm not sure if this is the right forum for my question since I'm new to the site, but I saw that it has the most traffic, so I figured I couldn't be wrong by asking for opinion here.
The story is as follows...Last Saturday (5/18/05) I took my 13 yr old male neutered cat, Tim, to his vet for the annual exam and vaccinations. The vet performed the vaccine shots, but also informed me that Tim had lost 3 pounds (15lbs-->12.5 lbs) since his visit the prior year. She asked me if she could do blood work on him to rule out any disease, such as diabetes or thyroid problems, and I told her to go ahead. The tests came back negative for all of the items that she checked.
Then, about 2 days after the visit to the vet, Tim started to limp on his front right leg. It seemed that he was putting his front right leg down very gingerly. My family and I didn't think much of it at the time since he's an outdoor cat (has been all of his life), and he may have hurt himself running around. Then the following day Tim had stopped using his front right leg altogether--he limps around on 3 legs.
We called up our vet and she said to bring him in. Upon her examination, she could not find any common symtoms of limping, such as cuts/thorns/injuries to the leg. There is no swelling, the cat allows us to touch the leg without trying to bite us, and there are no visible cuts. An interesting thing to note is that Tim was walking on all 4 legs while at the vet, albeit not stepping on his front right leg the same way as his front left leg. The vet prescribed some antibiotics on the assumption that if he had been in a fight and sustained an injury that caused an infection, and told us to monitor him.
This past Friday the symptoms were not going away, and Tim was still not stepping on his front right leg. We decided to take him to a different vet, and ended up going to an emergency room veterinary hospital in the area. The attending vet could not find any visible signs of injury (cuts, swelling, heat, etc). Tim, again, was using all 4 legs at the vet's office, but we all noticed that he is flat-footed on his right leg. In other words, when he puts his paw down, his "wrist" seems to not be holding up.
The vet at the emergency room suggested that this may be neurological damage, and proposed that we see an orthopedic surgeon. We are going to make an appt for this coming Friday to see him, but I would like to get the communities feedback on what could be the problem.
My family and I are seriously suspecting that this is related to his initial vet visit when he received his vaccinations and blood work. He has been an outdoor cat all of his life, and has never had such symtomps. It seems to be too much of a coincidence that a few days after the vaccines he starts to show such symtoms. However, the emergency room vet insisted that it's almost impossible to injure his nerves when administering the vaccine shots.
So, what should we do? The vets are charging ridiculous amounts of $ for each visit. I don't mind paying, but we're not getting any answers from them. What should we do? Can these symtomps really be from the vaccine shots? This has already been going on for a week, and he doesn't seem to be improving.
Any suggestions/help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Vitaly
I'm not sure if this is the right forum for my question since I'm new to the site, but I saw that it has the most traffic, so I figured I couldn't be wrong by asking for opinion here.
The story is as follows...Last Saturday (5/18/05) I took my 13 yr old male neutered cat, Tim, to his vet for the annual exam and vaccinations. The vet performed the vaccine shots, but also informed me that Tim had lost 3 pounds (15lbs-->12.5 lbs) since his visit the prior year. She asked me if she could do blood work on him to rule out any disease, such as diabetes or thyroid problems, and I told her to go ahead. The tests came back negative for all of the items that she checked.
Then, about 2 days after the visit to the vet, Tim started to limp on his front right leg. It seemed that he was putting his front right leg down very gingerly. My family and I didn't think much of it at the time since he's an outdoor cat (has been all of his life), and he may have hurt himself running around. Then the following day Tim had stopped using his front right leg altogether--he limps around on 3 legs.
We called up our vet and she said to bring him in. Upon her examination, she could not find any common symtoms of limping, such as cuts/thorns/injuries to the leg. There is no swelling, the cat allows us to touch the leg without trying to bite us, and there are no visible cuts. An interesting thing to note is that Tim was walking on all 4 legs while at the vet, albeit not stepping on his front right leg the same way as his front left leg. The vet prescribed some antibiotics on the assumption that if he had been in a fight and sustained an injury that caused an infection, and told us to monitor him.
This past Friday the symptoms were not going away, and Tim was still not stepping on his front right leg. We decided to take him to a different vet, and ended up going to an emergency room veterinary hospital in the area. The attending vet could not find any visible signs of injury (cuts, swelling, heat, etc). Tim, again, was using all 4 legs at the vet's office, but we all noticed that he is flat-footed on his right leg. In other words, when he puts his paw down, his "wrist" seems to not be holding up.
The vet at the emergency room suggested that this may be neurological damage, and proposed that we see an orthopedic surgeon. We are going to make an appt for this coming Friday to see him, but I would like to get the communities feedback on what could be the problem.
My family and I are seriously suspecting that this is related to his initial vet visit when he received his vaccinations and blood work. He has been an outdoor cat all of his life, and has never had such symtomps. It seems to be too much of a coincidence that a few days after the vaccines he starts to show such symtoms. However, the emergency room vet insisted that it's almost impossible to injure his nerves when administering the vaccine shots.
So, what should we do? The vets are charging ridiculous amounts of $ for each visit. I don't mind paying, but we're not getting any answers from them. What should we do? Can these symtomps really be from the vaccine shots? This has already been going on for a week, and he doesn't seem to be improving.
Any suggestions/help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Vitaly
