Cat Illness Diagnosis at Home - Detect Diseases Early

You can perform a basic cat illness diagnosis at home. See below what is normal and what to watch out for.

• Basic Health Check
• Appetite
• Fur and Grooming
• Litter box
• Touching your Cat

Basic Health Check

Check regularly your cat’s eyes, ears and mouth. Any discharge or bad smell, black debris in the ears, scratch wounds behind the ears or around the eyes needs attention.

If you are allowed to by your cat, open up her mouth and examine the teeth: is there any inflamed gum line, loose tooth or bad smell?

These are dental problems that need to be sorted out by your vet. Severe gum disease requires medical treatment and often your vet needs to perform ultrasonic teeth cleaning and polishing to remove plaque and tartar.

You can prevent serious tooth and gum problems with regular cat teeth brushing and cleaning or if the feline companion is very reluctant, with feeding special dental kibbling that contain plaque dissolving enzymes and micro abrasives.

Do you think she sleeps longer than she used to? Does she look lethargic and dull? Check her temperature with a thermometer. Ear thermometers are easier to use than conventional devices that are used rectally. The normal range is between 38 and 39.5*C.

Increase in body temperature due to an infection can make them sleepy and lethargic. Emergency conditions, like shock, raised inner eye pressure in case of a glaucoma, failure of an inner organ and painful conditions go with lethargy.

Check your cat’s bottom : is it clean and healthy pink in colour?

Cat illness diagnosis demands good observation skills, so if you see a rather red and inflamed anus, your cat licking excessively this area you know there might be a problem with full or blocked and infected anal glands, or problems with passing faeces (e.g. constipation or diarrhea).

Appetite of a Cat

Excessive eating or the lack of appetite is a very important indicator for cat illness diagnosis at home: you are usually the first who will notice any differences!

There are a number of serious conditions and diseases that show the symptom of abnormal appetite:

• tooth problems
• diabetes
• chronic kidney disease
• thyroid problems
• growths and cancer

... just to mention a few.

Taking signs of increased or decreased appetite seriously can help to prolong and improve your feline companion’s quality of life considerably.

Vomiting is another symptom that occurs in a wide range of diseases and health problems.

Generally, in an adult feline, if it does not stop within 24 hours it needs to be checked out by a vet as your cat will need medical investigation and treatment. Young kitten should be examined and treated sooner!

Fur and Grooming, Skin

Shiny, smooth and well-groomed hair coat is a sign of wellbeing in a cat. It means she is able to groom herself regularly and feels comfortable.

Skin dandruff, flakes and scales, itchiness and scratching or overgrooming and excessive licking of certain areas should alert you.

Usually these are symptoms of parasitic diseases, allergies, hormonal imbalances and more.

Let your vet examine these more thoroughly so that your cat gets the required treatment.

It is possible to detect flea dirt or even adult fleas with the naked eye. In such a case you need to set up and follow an effective de-flea regimen and use flea treatment for all of your pets and the environment they are living in.

Have a closer look onto the claws and paws: are all claws growing straight?

Sometimes you might find claws growing into paw pads. These need to be clipped in regular intervals to avoid painful wounds from in-growing nails and abscesses.

Does your Cat use a Litter Box?

How about regular visits to the litter box?

Symptoms of cat illness are diagnosed easily: you will spot diarrhea and loose stools immediately.

Is your cat using the box frequently, but does not produce anything?
Is she still able to pass urine and faeces? Or is she passing too much water?

Bladder infections are common and urinary blockage needs to be treated immediately to avoid fatal outcome.

Have an "Untouchable" Cat?

Touching and stroking your cat may be problematic when painful conditions such as arthritis is present.

Felines may show a change in behaviour, turn aggressive towards the hand that wants to touch them. Your cat associates the actually well-meant gesture with a pain eliciting event and wants to avoid this altogether.

Best is to let this examine by your vet to tell you, what diagnosed cat illness is causing this kind of behavior.

Cats try to hide pain more than any other pet and to provide adequate treatment and to maintain a normal quality of life and wellbeing you need to take signs like these seriously. Pain treatment or pain management is important and becoming more and more sophisticated. Cats can be treated, they need not to be left in pain.