Cat Tired/Stressed After Blood Test

[everariana]

A few hours ago I took my cat to the clinic to get his blood drawn by a vet tech as a follow up from a previous test a couple weeks ago. He’s been his normal, vibrant self all this time, but I noticed about an hour after getting his blood drawn, he became very lethargic. He was sleeping for about an hour in his cat tree, but for the past 45 min or so he’s been under my bed in the same cat crouched position with his tail wrapped around him. I can definitely tell he’s in pain, I see it in his eyes and the way how he’s SLOWLY walking just a few inches but remaining in the same crouched position as he moves and shifts his body is really concerning.

I have these treats that he goes CRAZY over, like he’ll run across my apartment on a normal day if I shake the bag. I tried putting one of those treats about half a foot in front of him right now, and he didn’t budge. I tried giving it to him in my hand, and he played with it in his mouth then spit it out. He still won’t come from under the bed and keeps retreating father under it.

I’m especially concerned because this isn’t the first time he’s had his blood drawn. This is the third time in the past 2 months or so, and he’s been to the vet 5-6 times since March. He doesn’t act stressed or lethargic afterwards, it’s business as usual once we get home. Could it have been that too much blood was drawn? Or the needle site is in pain? I honestly don’t know what to do except maybe take him to the local ER because his regular vet office is closed now.

 

[Furballsmom]

Hi
Reading through your post a couple times it seem s that he's getting gradually worse. I would take him in

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

Any news here?

 

[FeebysOwner]

I'd love to hear what happened. Was there any correlation between how he was acting and why the blood was drawn this time? I hope it proved to be nothing. Please let us know.

 

[everariana]

Hello mrsgreenjeens and FeebysOwner thank you so much for following up. The afternoon I posted this I called around and every local hospital couldn't take him for at least another 5 hours. So over that time I closely monitored him and he eventually came from under the bed and joined me on my bed. He was still very visibly stressed and cautious throughout the night, but he ate all his dinner and his breakfast the following morning. By the following afternoon he was back to his normal self, so I'm thinking that he was just stressed from the visit with the vet tech.

I talked to his vet a few days later and she said that his thyroid levels were below the normal range, which was very atypical as hypothyroidism almost never happens for young, healthy cats. The reason why he's been going to the vet so much over the past few months is due to an unknown issue with a couple of nailbeds on his back left paw. He's gotten a antibiotic shot which didn't help and did a couple rounds of antifungal medication fluconazole for several weeks which he had to stop due to vomiting. It was the vomiting that prompted a blood test in the first place, and why he needed another blood test to make sure his low kidney levels were due to dehydration from vomiting and not renal issues. Luckily his kidney levels are good. But now there's the issue with his thyroid.

So his primary vet told me to take him to a dermatologist so we can get official testing for his paw/nailbeds and get an official diagnosis to correctly narrow his treatment. I took him in today and my poor, but strong, baby got a paw x-ray, thyroid panel blood test (to figure out this weird thyroid level), ringworm test, skin cytology, blood allergy test, and toxoplasma test to see if it's OK for him to take immunosuppressant allergy medication in case the issues with his nails are allergies. Thank goodness for pet insurance LOL. His x-ray and skin cytology came back negative and now we're waiting for the other results for the next few weeks. So hopefully we'll get an answer about his original issue with his nail and the thyroid issue. It just sucks because overall there are a lot of atypical things going on that make it hard to connect everything and have an obvious diagnosis in front of us.

But altogether he's been doing fine, his energy is good and his appetite is strong! And he's definitely not shaken up like he was during his last vet tech visit. Which makes me question if something happened at that particular visit because 1. his primary vet wasn't present, just the tech and 2. he's doing fine today after a 4x more invasive vet visit at a different hospital.

 

[FeebysOwner]

Thanks for the update! I suspect you are right about something 'odd' going on with the vet tech visit. Feeby has had numerous blood draws, and all went fine - except one where she was drooling badly right afterward. She has had them since, again with no issue!

You are right, hypothyroidism is not common! But please continue to keep us posted!

 

[mrsgreenjeens]

Thanks for the update. Hope they can narrow down his issues. So glad he got back to normal.