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Old November 9th, 2016, 04:14 PM
Rickm77 Rickm77 is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2016
Location: Pennsylvania
Posts: 4
Wobbly Weak Hind Legs - Bartonella

Our 4yr old 10lbs female domestic long hair cat was first noticed with wobbly legs and a bit lethargic on 27 Oct 2016. We took her to the Vet in Central PA and she was diagnosed with a high fever of 104.1 and a bit dehydrated. Our cat has never shown any signs of loss of appetite, nausea or vomiting.
(A few weeks prior she had an abscess on her back, down near her tail area near her spine. We squeezed puss out of the wound, used Hydrogen Peroxide and Neosporin and kept an eye on it over the next several days. To us it went away, and it was a visible cat poke in her skin once the swelling subsided.)
She was kept at the Vet hospital overnight given an IV to rehydrate her along with Enrofloxacin to knockout the fever. She was given Pepcid to keep her from being nauseous, and picked her up the next afternoon on 28 Oct. While home for the weekend we continued to monitor her, but her walk was still a bit wobbly; we attributed it to her stay at the hospital and being in a small cage for a day and that she was given Enrofloxacin Antibiotic. We were given a 2-week supply of this and continued to give it to her for the next 4 days. During that time her gait became noticeably worse and her back legs were not functioning normally. During this time her mental alertness; appetite and litter box use has been normal. (Minus carrying her to the litter box because of weak rear legs.)
We called our Vet back on 1 Nov 2016 and discussed the symptoms and were told that we could stop using the Enrofloxacin because it seems to be making her worse, the Vet said OK, she should have had enough to get rid of the infection.
On 4 Nov 2016 she was not getting any better, she seemed to be walking worse, back legs were very weak, needing help to stay upright to go to the bathroom and overall body soreness. When we took her in to the Vet office, we asked for every test possible, urinalysis, X-Ray, Fecal and the Idexx Fever of Unknown Origin Real PCR Panel (Comprehensive) – Feline. The X-Ray came back immediately normal and the urinalysis came back on 7 Nov 2016 normal, the Fecal back on 8 Nov 2016 normal. The Idexx Real PCR Panel came back on 9 Nov 2016 and was positive for Bartonella spp. Finally the answer was here, we discussed with the Vet a treatment program of 2 times a day 12 hours apart Doxycycline 5mg/kg and the Enrofloxacin 1 time a day 5mg/kg. We are on day one as of writing this, I will make more updates as things evolve and progress. We are to call the Vet back on 11 Nov 2016 to see if she will be changing the treatment regimen of Antibiotics.
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