Another "should I call the vet" thread

Factual Questions
1

And they always happen on weekends! (Or during snowstorms.)

My cat is curled up on a chair. If I touch him, he cries. It’s a meow, but it’s a pained meow and he obviously doesn’t want to be touched.

I was running my fingers over his paws–he cried. Down his back, very gently; he cried. Tried to pick him up–he really didn’t like that, and it seems better to leave him where he is.

When I quit messing with him he tried to turn around, and managed it, but he seemed to be in pain. But he has not retreated completely (when really sick, as when he’s been mauled in a fight, he has gone to one of his hideouts–we can find him there, but it’s hard).

He came in a couple of hours ago, walking normally. Went straight to his food dish, chowed down, and then came downstairs. First he stretched out on top of my desk, and then he started seeming kind of uncomfortable–which is understandable because he was on stacks of papers that were sliding around–so he moved to the chair. Through all that, he seemed fine. Now…

All I can think of is earlier today, he was outside in the garden, and suddenly he let out a couple of meows that sounded untypical. He doesn’t usually talk a lot. Could something have bitten him? A wasp?

I don’t know if anyone can diagnose him over the internet. The weekend vet won’t do it over the phone (IME) and it seems better to leave him where he is than to try to put him in his carrier.

2

Um… the last cat I found, laid out and crying in pain, had been poisoned and was put down shortly thereafter. It was f-ing horrible.

No vet will diagnose over the phone, but the symptoms you are describing do not connect with anything innocuous. If your cat is crying out in pain and immobilized he needs a vet stat. It will be unpleasant to take him there but are you really considering leaving him without care when he can’t turn himself around? Really?

3

Update: He got out of the chair, and fell over–which really freaked me out. He then went very slowly to his litter box and used it. But he is not crying.

Just after I wrote that, he managed to stretch. Slowly.

He is walking very slowly, but it doesn’t seem that he’s limping. Just much slower than usual.

I am not leaving him without care–I’m right here. Within the last couple of hours he has eaten and he’s just used his box. But the thing is, taking him in the cat carrier and in the car stresses him out, a lot. I don’t really want to do that to him either.

4

Look at it this way: If your child or your husband is in pain every time he moved or tries to move, or is touched, would you sit and worry and hope he gets better? Or would you call an ambulance?

.

5

Cats are really good at stoicism, if he’s showing pain, it’s time to see a vet.

The falling over and moving very slow, doubly so. Out to the car.

6

Are you certain he urinated when he went to the litter box? My first thought with a painful male cat is urinary obstruction. If he’s urinating and he’s been outside tgen my next thought would be an injury.

However, that amount of pain does not sound normal, call a vet.

7

In spite of your intentions, your mere presence does not qualify as “care.” Is there a 24/7 vet or animal hospital near you? He needs professional help, and the longer he goes without it, the worse the situation will get.

8

Uh yah, I’m pretty sure he needs a vet.

9

My cats are 14 and 11 - neither of them has ever fallen over (they’ve fallen off things, and missed jumps, but never just fallen over). That and the crying when touched and the walking slowly are all signs that your kitty is quite sick and needs to go to the vet.

10

Called vet, did not take cat in, cat okay so far.

11

My cat is 22 and falls over all the time. Hey - give him a break - it’s the same as a person who’s like 112 - fortunately, he’s short.

However, if he started meowing in pain when I pet him you better believe he would be at the emergency vet ASAP.

12

I would definately check for a stinger. The first thing that entered my mind was a splinter. You know they don’t hurt at all until you touch them then they irriate you.

It could be a small paper cut or paperlike cut.

Could it be heat?

If you’re sure he’s cool and doesn’t have any stingers or splinters, I’d haul Mr Cat to the emergency vet.

Then I’d make him catch one mouse for each dollar spent as payback

:slight_smile:

13

Okay, update.

I did call the 24 hour emergency vet, and sure enough, they wanted me to bring him in. They asked a bunch of questions, notably if he was panting–he wasn’t–and said Hmm, could be a number of things, better bring him in.

Now at this point, he didn’t want me to even touch him, let alone move him. So I thought possibly I could slide him onto the carpeted board that goes in the bottom of the cat carrier. As soon as I touched the cat carrier, he managed to get himself off the chair and hide.

So I put the carrier back. About a half hour later he came back to my office and back to the chair, slowly. He got back into the chair. At this point he was moving slowly, but he let me touch him without complaint. I went over him looking for tender spots, a stinger, a welt (not that I could feel a welt under all that fur), and found nothing. But he seemed perfectly comfortable in the chair, so I left him there. Left notes for people who get up earlier concerning his condition, and went to bed.

This morning, he was still not quite moving up to par, but he wanted out. We did not let him out. About mid-day, he did go out and jumped into the hammock with my husband. At this point he seems perfectly normal. Not as active as usual, but it’s a hot day.

Now, as to why I didn’t take him to the vet. One, he had seemed perfectly normal, curled up on the chair, until my son tried to pick him up, and at that point he didn’t want to be touched and he REALLY didn’t want to be picked up, but he seemed perfectly happy to be curled up in the chair. He did have some difficulty changing his position. If he had some internal injury, I really wouldn’t want to risk moving him and hurting him worse. Two, when he’s been really hurt–beat up from a fight, and with a fever, and really feeling bad–he has hidden. But in this case he didn’t hide, and was in his usual place, which is almost always close to one of us, and he didn’t hide until he saw me getting the cat carrier.

If he had been too sick to protest when I got the carrier down, THAT would have really tipped me off that he was in bad shape.

Also, when he fell over, he briefly did that cat thing (“I meant to do that, just let me lick this paw here, then I’ll be right along”) so, while the falling over freaked me out, the recovery gave me hope.

And he seems to be doing fine today, as I said. I guess he is officially a medical mystery now. I have no idea what happened. It was a hot day yesterday but if he had some kind of cat heat stroke, it seems odd that it would happen late at night, after it cooled down.

(The last time I had to haul him into the emergency vet was during a snowstorm so bad that my office was closed and my regular vet was closed. I got the car stuck, with a howling cat sitting in a carrier beside me. Some Russians pushed me out and joked that I had my own siren.)

14

I would have taken him in right away.

This makes absolutely no sense. It really sounds like you were grabbing at excuses not to take him in.

15

No, I’ve taken him in a lot. This cat has cost me plenty at the emergency and regular vet and I don’t mind because I love this cat. There is a point though when moving the patient when you don’t know what you’re doing is worse than leaving the patient, for instance if I found my kid lying on the ground after a fall saying “Don’t touch me, I hurt, don’t touch me,” I would absolutely call the ambulance, but I wouldn’t touch him. Obviously, cats don’t have ambulance services, but my feeling was the same–he was telling me not to touch him.

16

Bring the cat to the vet. My cat was behaving much like yours; seeming to be fine occasionally and then seeming weak and sick. Sometimes she ate and drank normally, sometimes she seemed to eat less. She still used her litter box, as far as we could tell (we had another cat too, so it could be guesswork). By the time we observed that she really was behaving oddly, her kidney function was already halved. She eventually died of kidney failure, though we did get a few more years out of her.

Bring him to the vet. It will cost money and time, but it might just save your cat’s life. Only you can decide what his value is to you, of course, but it sounds like you care about him enough to want him around. Take care of him.

17

OK, seriously, why do people bother asking us here what they should do with XYZ animal when they just ignore every goddamn thing we say? I mean, it’s incredibly obvious that the cat was in severe distress. Hy did you friggin ask if you didn’t want adviuce? Just for company?" Just to dump your problems on us?

Next time, don’t bother. We really don’t need to know about your excuses for not dealing with the problem.

18

So instead you Choose to not get him medical help BECAUSE he seems injured, leave him injured, and go to bed. You don’t get him help when you believe he is badly injured, and you don’t get him help when you think he isn’t badly injured. If you believed his internal injuries were severe enough that he couldn’t be moved, THAT would be the time to get medical attention, just as you would for a kid.

You are making no sense, and all we can surmise is that you just didn’t feel like getting him help, regardless of how injured he may have been.

19

Well, you know your cat better than we do. I do know that if either of my girls exhibited those symptoms, we’d be in the car on the way to the 24 hour vet instead of posting here.

20

This thread is REALLY pissing me off. You have wasted everyone’s time and sympathy, but you can’t be bothered taking the cat to the vet. Do you just not give a shit whether the cat lives or dies? Are you too inconvenienced to take him? Are you waiting until you’ve come up with every possible excuse? Do you think that opening this thread is somehow going to indirectly cure the cat?

I’m seriously thinking of starting a Pit thread, but you might not see it.

And if your cat dies, please don’t tell us.