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Scary diagnosis - anyone heard of this back/bone problem?

1K views 7 replies 2 participants last post by  Heidi n Q 
#1 ·
Hi, this is my first post but I'm more than a bit worried about my 3 year old male Siamese Lenny.....brief history - fine then two weeks ago(ish) went walkabout, returned, fine, bit thinner, then 10 days ago came in almost unable to walk, barely able to climb, had to spoon feed him water..
Vet not sure, low white blood count, slightly anaemic, antibiotic/anti-inflammatory/painkiller cocktail, rapidly improved, then after 3 days went downhill.
Vet again (different vet) said most likely infection given swollen glands & his relatively young age..... antibiotics, more though.
Three days, improved then downhill again (he never got totallly better, just walking slightly wobbly rather than unable at all)
Vet again...... better ref anaemia, but this time she traced a slight tender/tremor spot in his back. Kept him in, x ray & says:
Discoid Spondylitis. Apparently dogs get it, rare in cats; three possibilities - injury/fall or something, allowing infection in; bad luck he's just developed it at a young age; or underlying tumour.
Most likely cos he's young, she hopes, is the first. She's keeping him in mega-dosing with antibiotics.
Sorry this is such a long first post, but I wonder if anyone's even heard of it, and if they have, what they know about it/causes/prognosis etc.
Many thanks for listening :(
 
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#2 ·
Welcome, and I'm sorry Lenny isn't doing well. :patback

I was never given a diagnosis with a proper name, but we had a cat with spinal issues. Just before he passed away, our vet was able to finally pin-point the diagnosis as a spinal cancer. Treatment was basically treating the symptoms we saw.
Reilly had always been what we called a "klutz-y" cat. We thought it was just *him* and didn't worry about it. When he was about 4yrs old, I noticed some other problems and it just clicked into "the bigger picture" and I took him in for an exam. Like I said, Rei was klutz-y, he began to have a slight problem with focusing his eyes occasionally, he was getting *more* klutzy and his back feet were showing a slight hesitation when he picked them up, before he could move them forward and set them down.
This progress was slow and insidious at first, starting out with him being "klutz-y", to becoming more uncoordinated, to the back foot hesitation, to wobbling with his back legs, to his spine not being able to remain straight as he walked and would sort of 'collapse' to the side and he'd sit down suddenly, to being able to make only 10 steps before falling over into a sit, to only a few steps before sitting, to unable to stand/walk at all unless we held and pulled his tail up to help support his hips. Linoleum went from difficult to impossible for him to cross and unless we helped him move, he got around by digging his front claws into the carpet and pulling himself along.
He became unable to use the litterbox because he couldn't control his feet in the shifting litter so I gave him a tray with a towel and when he became unable to step into that I gave him a towel on a plastic office-chair/carpet protector mat. Eventually he lost control of his bowels and when that loss of ability finally left him constipated with no way to move his waste out, we had to help him over The Bridge.
One thing I want to stress, about the differences between your cat and our Reilly, is that Rei appeared to exhibit symptoms from almost the first day we 'met' him at around 10mo of age and his symptoms slowly advanced, until the last 1-2yrs, when they seemed to really pick up speed. Your cat's symptoms sound like you have a better chance of helping him than we did with our Rei.
Wishing you and Lenny the best of luck,
Heidi
 
#3 ·
Still learning my way round this forum, forgot to delete...

Hi, thanks for the reply; I have to admit to never having been a 'cat person' (in fact brutal truth is I was pretty much anti....) until July last year when we adopted Lenny from some friends who were moving country & couldn't take him.... totally smitten from day 1, and we now coincidentally have his sister from another friend who couldn't keep her any more! Anyway I digress... I read your Reilly's symptoms somewhat worriedly because in many ways the weak back legs, unable to stand, unable to use litter tray properly, using front paws to pull himself up, have all happened at one time or another in the past terrible 10 days but I have to hold on to the hope that since it seems to have come on pretty suddenly, maybe the vet's right in thinking the most likely cause is some sudden infection following a trauma/fall/whatever when he was 'walkabout'. Anyway, I think(hope) they're doing their best for him, all the staff there think he's really laid back & gorgeous - as I do!
Thanks for the reply again, as I started to say at the top, I was never a cat person before but am glad to find other cat people out there!!!
 
#4 ·
Yes, Reilly's gradual symptom decline spanned about 4yrs after I really *noticed* them, but I do believe they had been there all his life and I had just chalked-it-up to something that was unique-ly *him*. It was him, but it was due to a medical problem, not just-a-quirk he had.
I think your Lenny, because this came on suddenly and *did* respond tremendously to immediate treatment, can be something you and your vet can help him overcome. Congrats on having his sister, too.

Isn't it funny how quickly they can worm their way into our hearts? My Husband also thought he wasn't a "cat person". Yet he is the one who has brought home more than 50% of our cats... :wink
h
 
#5 ·
Hi; update from today's call to the vet, he's better than yesterday, eating better, moving better. They still want him to stay in another day or possibly more. This was the first vet (of the two at the practice who've seen Lenny) They still don't know for sure, but are feeling hopeful, that it is an infection.
What I forgot to mention, of course, is that we're in Spain & although I do speak some Spanish, matters medical are none too easy but I do my best! The other vet speaks quite good English & though we mainly speak in Spanish, when she has to explain something like 'lymph nodes' or 'discoid spondylitis' she tells me she'll say it in English! (I think the fact the rest of the time tends to be in Spanish makes that a compliment... :?) It's she who will probably have to explain what (if they ever know) caused it & what needs doing if anything more complicated becomes necessary.
So.. phone again tomorrow, update again. It's sad not to have seen him but it's about an hour away so providing he's ok I'm leaving them to it.
 
#7 ·
Update #2..... picked him up yesterday evening! Great news... he's on another 2weeks+ of heavy dose antibiotics, x-ray is pretty clear the vertebra affected & vet as sure as she is prepared to be that it's just a mega infection in the bone. Anyway he was still drunken wobbly & remains so today, when we got home this evening he seemed maybe a bit worse, again struggling to climb up to where his food is but my oh said maybe it was just he was stiff from lying down all day (his sister was out, the lucky thing! - he's desperate to get out the front door....)So let's hope the antibiotics start to really make a difference, though the vet did say bone infections are far harder to shift than others hence the long period of antibiotics.
Thank you so much for having replied Heidi
Fiona
 
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