Can't move back legs.

Dr. Marie replied:

Oh dear. This does not sound good.

The most common reason for the symptoms that you have described is something called aortoiliac thrombosis, or saddle thrombus.

A saddle thrombus happens when a cat gets a blood clot in the aorta which is the major artery leaving the heart. The blood clot can affect blood supply to the back legs. When this happens it is quite painful in the back legs.

Cats only get saddle thrombus if they have a problem with their heart. Cats can often hide heart disease well, but the difficulty in breathing can definitely be a sign of heart disease.

It is possible that she had a small clot originally and the body managed to clear it, but now another one has formed. Unfortunately, even though we have treatments that we usually try for saddle thrombus most cats do not survive. I usually recommend euthanasia when I have a patient with saddle thrombus.

There are other possibilities. It is possible that she has suffered some trauma to her spine. If this is the case then the sooner she sees a vet the better. They may be able to give her some anti-inflammatory medication and she could possibly recover.

There are other possibilities that are less likely than the two I mentioned.

If it is at all possible, I really would advise that Gracie sees an emergency vet right away. There are two reasons for this. First of all, if this is a spinal injury, then seeing the vet right away could be the difference between life and death. Second, if this is a saddle thrombus then she is in a lot of pain and that is not fair for her.

I really really hope that she is ok.

Dr. Marie.


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Dr. Marie replied:

I'm so sorry to hear that Gracie died. Thank you for letting me know.

Dr. Marie