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Question for cat people


Catherine
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We have a big male cat who spends a lot of time outside.  At least 3 different times over the years, he has disappeared for a day or two and come home with a lame right front paw.  I can palpate a tender area just distal to the last joint, and he put little to no weight on it since he returned home a little over 24 hours ago. 

 

Last time this happened he was persistently lame for at least 3 weeks, so I took him to the vet.  Of course she could find no area of tenderness at all, even though he was still limping at times.  

 

Any guesses what this might be?  He has had abscesses several times before and I know the signs-lethargy, lack of appetite, then after about 24 hours the abscess drains and he recovers.  This is not like that-he is eating, drinking, even trying to get out again (in fact the stinker snuck out this morning and we fortunately caught him and brought him back), but he is just very lame in the one front leg.  

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I'm not a vet and I don't have outdoor cats, but it could be that he injured that paw in the past (sprain or break) and now any reinjury is worse because it's a weak joint/bone? It could be that things that wouldn't bother a paw that never had an injury, bother this paw that has been weakened in the past.

 

But I'm not a vet, so I'm just making a guess from out of the blue.

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I'm not a vet and I don't have outdoor cats, but it could be that he injured that paw in the past (sprain or break) and now any reinjury is worse because it's a weak joint/bone? It could be that things that wouldn't bother a paw that never had an injury, bother this paw that has been weakened in the past.

 

But I'm not a vet, so I'm just making a guess from out of the blue.

:iagree: That would be my first thought if it's always the same paw. He's doing something to get himself hurt in the same way over and over. 

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I was wondering if he hadn't been, maybe he was attempting to get to some queen in heat, and that the traveling to her caused him to keep re-injuring that paw. But that's because I should always read twice (watch me say this over and over again and never learn my lesson) and I thought you said he disappeared three-ish times a year, not three times "over the years".

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