Strokes in Cats

[TimO]

One of the guys I work with has an old moggy, she's about 15 now, so no young whippersnapper of a cat, she's getting on a bit.

She was limping for a few days, and when he took her to the vet, ultimately she had to have a toe removed, because they weren't sure what was wrong with it, and were worried that it was a tumour.

After they brought her back, initially she was fine, and bounced off the walls of the house, but calmed down eventually, and then took to sleeping on the bed.  The trouble was, that she didn't get up for a long time, and then when she did, she couldn't move her back legs, and just dragged them around.

The vet seems to think that she's probably had a stroke, I'm guessing for similar reason to humans when they've been under a general anaesthetic.  It doesn't look like the prognosis is good, but she may recover.  They are feeding her 1/4 of an aspirin a day, which for a cat is a huge dose.

Does anyone know if cats can recover from this sort of problem?

[border-rider]

The bouncing off the walls thing sounds like an adverse reaction to the anaesthetic.  Our old cat had that once - she ran at full speed into a closed door and gave herself a split nose

Recovery ? Who knows.  Old cats will have different prognoses, and 15 may be elderly, may be very elderly.  If it's a minor stoke there may be recovery.

All your friend can do is what he is doing, and take care of her.

[annie]

Polly Pusscat who lives next door has had two strokes.  Polly is a very old girl now and weighs next to nothing, if you blew her too hard she would fall over.  She has made a remarkable recovery although she is very wobbley on her back legs and her tail doesn't quite do what it should anymore.  Polly is able to get from one end of the room to the other or down the stairs if she makes a dash and hopes for the best.  I hope that your friend's pussy cat recovers enough to be able to lead a fairly normal life.

[TimO]

The bouncing off the walls thing sounds like an adverse reaction to the anaesthetic.  Our old cat had that once - she ran at full speed into a closed door and gave herself a split nose

When I said bouncing off the walls, I didn't mean it literally!  I think was just happy to be out of the vets, and was just running around, and being a cat, a bit faster and more energetically than usual.

[TimO]

Well, after some months of problems, even though she was gradually regaining use of her legs, Lottie has been dramatically loosing weight.  She has lost almost 1kg of mass, which for a 4kg cat is a lot.  The vet thinks that she may have FIV, which would explain why she has been getting lots of infections (including the problem with her foot which was right at the start).  I guess this means the outlook isn't very good.

[RogerT]

TimO

FIV is a particularily unpleasant illness and having watched 2 cats die from it in the past I can only say that IMHO prolonging the cats life any more if the diagnosis is confirmed is not a kind thing to do.  Sorry.

[TimO]

Yeah, that's what we thought, she's getting on, is clearly pretty ill, and not a kitten any more.  Whilst I think FIV is treatable, possibly she's gone beyond that point.

It's a shame, since he's had her since before his wife died, so for a long time it was just the two of them (he's recently remarried).

[TimO]

Just to close this thread up entirely, the Mog didn't have FIV in the end, and was gradually getting better, but then dramatically got worse.  I don't think the Vet ever entirely worked out what was wrong, and it might just have been a combination of things.  Since she was clearly very ill, had little quality of life, and they couldn't do anything to help her, in the end she was put down.

[slowfen]

FIV in cats is not necessarily a problem, one of my cats was diagnosed with it 14 years ago, and is still going.It becomes a problem with other infections eg feline leukaemia as they tend to have a synergistic effect

sf

[border-rider]

Sorry to here that Tim, but you did the right thing, and she was loved and made comfortable to the end.  That's all anyone can ask for.


edited for not-paying-attention

[TimO]

Well, she wasn't my cat, she belonged (or owned!) a guy I work with, although I did know her.  She was a nice cat, but it seems to be the case with cats that when they get ill, they can go downhill very fast.

[border-rider]

ah, sorry, I'd forgotten the start of this thread and didn't read back this time