I just took Curtis to the vet. So that's done!
Curtis is a young male, red tabby and white, 1 year 9 months old. Neutered at 6 months, FVCRP and rabies vaccines at that time. No vaccines since. Indoors only, eats canned Friskies and some raw, de-wormed regularly. He's been back and forth to my house---his first owner got him at 2 months, around 4-5 months he came to live with me, back to her at 8-9 months, back here 3 months ago. I don't know what his life/diet/anything was like at her house. There's the background.
So he's in pain. He started limping a couple weeks ago, it looked like his front legs but was hard to pin down the exact location of the pain. Now he's walking painfully on all legs, can't take more than a couple steps before lying down again. Basically he's walking like an elderly cat who has arthritis. Well, he CAN walk and jump, because I found him on the upstairs cat tree this morning, which means he climbed the stairs, jumped over the baby gate, and jumped onto the cat tree, but he doesn't want to, because it causes obvious pain. He's eating, drinking, using the litterbox, etc. normally. He tries to play but stops because it hurts. So he seems to feel OK except for the pain; he doesn't seem to feel sick.
The vet is stumped. He felt Curtis all over, he thinks the pain is stemming from the lumbar-sacral area or the hips. The only other weird thing he found was that his lower back leg muscles are hard and round. He says he's never seen that, but it may be from overcompensating for the pain (cat walks funny, muscle tightens up, etc.). The vet is going to call some specialists and see what they recommend. So right now I'm waiting for him to call me back.
So, any ideas I can suggest to the vet? Anyone else ever dealt with a similar situation?
Curtis is a young male, red tabby and white, 1 year 9 months old. Neutered at 6 months, FVCRP and rabies vaccines at that time. No vaccines since. Indoors only, eats canned Friskies and some raw, de-wormed regularly. He's been back and forth to my house---his first owner got him at 2 months, around 4-5 months he came to live with me, back to her at 8-9 months, back here 3 months ago. I don't know what his life/diet/anything was like at her house. There's the background.
So he's in pain. He started limping a couple weeks ago, it looked like his front legs but was hard to pin down the exact location of the pain. Now he's walking painfully on all legs, can't take more than a couple steps before lying down again. Basically he's walking like an elderly cat who has arthritis. Well, he CAN walk and jump, because I found him on the upstairs cat tree this morning, which means he climbed the stairs, jumped over the baby gate, and jumped onto the cat tree, but he doesn't want to, because it causes obvious pain. He's eating, drinking, using the litterbox, etc. normally. He tries to play but stops because it hurts. So he seems to feel OK except for the pain; he doesn't seem to feel sick.
The vet is stumped. He felt Curtis all over, he thinks the pain is stemming from the lumbar-sacral area or the hips. The only other weird thing he found was that his lower back leg muscles are hard and round. He says he's never seen that, but it may be from overcompensating for the pain (cat walks funny, muscle tightens up, etc.). The vet is going to call some specialists and see what they recommend. So right now I'm waiting for him to call me back.
So, any ideas I can suggest to the vet? Anyone else ever dealt with a similar situation?