Facial Twitching in elderly cat

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Kelly - 20 Feb 2005 16:18 GMT

Hello,

I have a 15 year old cat. A year ago her bloodwork came back with mildly
elevated urea, creatinine, and T4 levels. The doctor said she was
indicative of chronic renal failure. Since then, the urea and creatinine
have been controlled with a special diet (Medical Reduced Protein canned and
dry) (In December all values came back normal). We are not treating her
hyperthyroidism because the doc said it would aggravate her kidneys and that
the elevated T4 was probably helping the filtering in her kidneys.

In the past couple months I have noticed that sometimes when I'm petting her
and she is relaxed, her face, ears, and whiskers will twitch very noticibly.
This is not just your regular twitch, it looks really weird.

She has also begun to "miss" the bed when she jumps up. She will jump
enough so that her front feet grab on, but then she just slides back down!
I attributed this to her just being older and weaker, but I thought I should
mention it just in case because this has also just started in the past
couple months.

Any ideas as to what is causing the twitching?

Thanks,
Kelly

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Helen - 20 Feb 2005 19:24 GMT

> Hello,
>
[quoted text clipped - 15 lines]
> mention it just in case because this has also just started in the past
> couple months.

http://www.felinecrf.org/symptoms_treatments_index.htm#B

> Any ideas as to what is causing the twitching?

http://www.felinecrf.org/symptoms_treatments_index.htm#T

HTH

Helen

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Kelly - 20 Feb 2005 21:03 GMT

> http://www.felinecrf.org/symptoms_treatments_index.htm#B
>
>> Any ideas as to what is causing the twitching?
>
> http://www.felinecrf.org/symptoms_treatments_index.htm#T

Wow thank you, that website is great. So do you think we should get her on
a potassium supplement?

Kelly

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Helen - 20 Feb 2005 21:24 GMT

> > http://www.felinecrf.org/symptoms_treatments_index.htm#B
> >
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> Wow thank you, that website is great. So do you think we should get her on
> a potassium supplement?

Only if she has low potassium. After all, there may be other causes, and
giving potassium when it's not needed can be very dangerous. I'd ask the vet
to check her potassium levels and consider a supplement if her potassium is
below 4.

HTH

Helen

Reply to this Message

Kelly - 20 Feb 2005 22:42 GMT

>> Wow thank you, that website is great. So do you think we should get her
> on
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> is
> below 4.

Thanks. Her K levels were 5.0 a year ago. In December I guess the blood
panel we did wasn't as in depth, so the K levels weren't checked. Is there
a cheap test they can do just to check K levels? Blood panels aren't cheap
at my clinic, they're always over 100 dollars Canadian, so I'm just
wondering if there's something similar to a repeat T4 for about 35 bucks but
will just check sodium/potassium levels.

Reply to this Message

Helen - 20 Feb 2005 23:39 GMT

> Thanks. Her K levels were 5.0 a year ago. In December I guess the blood
> panel we did wasn't as in depth, so the K levels weren't checked. Is there
> a cheap test they can do just to check K levels? Blood panels aren't cheap
> at my clinic, they're always over 100 dollars Canadian, so I'm just
> wondering if there's something similar to a repeat T4 for about 35 bucks but
> will just check sodium/potassium levels.

I don't know of a cheap test just to check potassium, no. But I know some
vets can do mini panels for things like BUN and creatinine so maybe they
could do some kind of mini panel that included potassium, and ideally
phosphorus too - very important to monitor phosphorus in a CRF cat.

HTH

Helen

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Steph - 22 Feb 2005 19:49 GMT

We have an electrolyte machine in my clinic that just runs Sodium, Potassium
and Chloride. You can also sent a sample to their external lab for how much
and how little you want and exactly what you want. Just ask your vet.

> > Thanks. Her K levels were 5.0 a year ago. In December I guess the blood
> > panel we did wasn't as in depth, so the K levels weren't checked. Is
[quoted text clipped - 14 lines]
>
> Helen

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