If you have a elderly catthere are some municipalities illnesses to pay particular attention to. Not all cats develop them and they certainly don’t appear all at once. But these are certainly pathologies that we notice more frequently in our senior cats. As owners, it is good to pay special attention to senior cats, in order to detect any signs of illness in the early stages of the disease.
Common diseases in older cats
Especially when the cat becomes elderly, it is good to start keeping a close eye on it to identify the onset of certain diseases typical of advanced age right from the first symptoms.
This is because, usually, we tend to ignore these symptoms until the pathology is so advanced that there is little that can be done. The old cat as before? Don’t just blame it on “old age”: maybe he has arthritic pain that prevents him from jumping.
He’s drinking more? It’s possible that it’s not just the heat, but the onset of diabetes or kidney failure. Does he pee around? Maybe he has a cystitis problem or is signaling to you in this way a state of suffering. (READ also: Why does the cat pee on the bed? The most common reasons (and how to make it stop))
But let’s go and see most common diseases in older cats.
Chronic renal failure
Certainly the most frequent disease we see in our elderly cats ischronic renal failure caused by progressive degeneration of the kidneys. Obviously there are also forms of renal failure in younger cats, just as forms of acute renal failure are possible. But it is CKD that we see in the vast majority of older cats. Pay attention, therefore, to when the cat starts to drink more, eat less, urinate more and lose weight.
Diabetes mellitus
Another frequent disease in elderly cats is diabetes mellitus. Usually in felines we have the form of insulin-resistant diabetes, with symptoms such as increased thirst, increased urine production, increased appetite, weight gain (weight loss in advanced forms with diabetic ketoacidosis) and fruity breath odor.
Hyperthyroidism
Another frequent hormonal pathology in cats ishyperthyroidism (dogs, on the other hand, usually suffer from hypothyroidism). If the older cat is more nervous, eats more, loses weight and vomits, it is possible that the thyroid is working too hard.
Dental disease
Between tartar, plaque, eosinophilic granuloma of the oral cavity, periodontitis and chronic infections, many elderly cats struggle to eat due to the pain caused in the mouth by the presence of ulcers and gingivitis. In this case the cat is hungry, it approaches the bowl to eat, but as soon as it tries it runs away meowing in pain. You may also notice thick, thick, smelly drool, mouth ulcers, and loose teeth.
Gastrointestinal diseases
An older cat’s stomach and intestines no longer have the ability to digest food like they did when they were young. This is especially true if we do not adapt their diet to their age. For this reason, in older cats we often see anorexia, vomiting and diarrhea associated with diseases such asIBD, acute and chronic pancreatitis, triaditis, cholangiohepatitisnephropathies, liver diseases, hepatic lipidosis and tumors.
Heart disease
Older cats often suffer from forms of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy with the development of murmurs, gallop rhythms and secondary thromboembolism which, depending on the location, can cause sudden paralysis of the hind legs (very painful condition), convulsions due to cerebral thrombosis or breathing difficulties due to pulmonary thrombosis.
Arthrosis
We always think of the elderly dog with the arthritis painbut cats also suffer from this degenerative disease affecting the cartilage of the joints. Older cats who move less, who no longer jump on beds and sofas as they used to or who are unable to go to the litter box because its edges are too high can all suffer from joint pain from arthrosis.
Tumors
THE tumors they can also affect younger cats, but obviously, the bigger the cat becomes, the more likely it is to develop neoplasms such as lymphomamastocytomas, intestinal carcinomas, squamous cell carcinomas, sarcomas…
Hearing and vision loss
As cats age, they begin to see each other less well. Even forms of hypertension linked to kidney damage can result in fixed mydriasis with decreased vision. But they also hear less wellperhaps due to the development of polyps, chronic ear infections or tumors.
Forms similar to senile dementia
They also develop in older cats cerebral degenerative forms similar to senile dementia. The cat behaves abnormally, meows loudly at night, cannot sleep well, urinates where it shouldn’t… These symptoms are never spiteful, but rather a signal that the cat sends us to tell us that something is wrong.
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