Sunday, March 1, 2009

Our dizzy kitty

Long story short: our kitten has vertigo.

He was at the vet following his declaw surgery and presented with symptoms of idiopathic feline vestibular syndrome. Idiopathic, meaning it has not definite cause as they ruled out other things that could cause it like inner ear infection. He had rapid side to side eye movement, tremors, a right head tilt and could not stand due to dizziness. After three days of treatment at the vet he was eating and drinking on his own and able to stand long enough to use his litter box. His tremors and eye movement subsided after less than a day there, and he was left with what is essentially kitty vertigo - dizzy kitty. He can walk and run a little, but he lists to the right and sometimes falls over. He can't jump up on things and certainly not down from things without falling - hard. It's kinda funny if you didn't feel so darn bad for him. So we try to play with him gently and help him climb up to his favorite spot on the back of the couch (which he can usually do on his own now; he just can't get back down).

The vet wants to see him in two weeks for a follow up. What I've read online about it gives him a good prognosis. He could be back to 100% in 7-30 days. There's a chance he could be left with slight symptoms and a very slight chance of symptoms recurring. But for now we hope for the best and are learning to live with a disabled kitten. Who would have thought.

1 comment:

The Sawyer Family said...

You are a funny girl and you officially have the coolest blog name-- I'm jealous. Mine is lame, I know, but I was in a rush, and we do kind of live in the hood. Love your kitty. He's very cute.