Common Sickness in Your Cat

Your cat can get sick too. Even if cat is generally a clean creature who bathe himself everyday, he can – once in a while – contact a virus or bacteria and get infected. There are five most common sicknesses that may infect your cat. Learn more about the symptoms, what causes them, and also how to treat them or what to expect about the treatment from animal hospital here.

1. Eye Problem

Eye problem is very common for cat. What we refers as eye problems are collective eye illnesses that includes: conjunctivitis, cataracts, glaucoma, retinal diseases and other eye illnesses causes by trauma, viruses, or inflammation.

Symptoms:

• Eye goop is forming more than usual
• Watery eyes
• Teary tracks in the fur near the eyes
• Inability to open the eyes
• Red or white eyelids
• Squinting
• Pawing at the eyes

Causes:

Depending on the illness, it can be caused by viruses, trauma, or inflammation. It can also be the side effect of more serious eye illnesses, like glaucoma, cataract, or conjunctivitis.

Treatment:

Eye problems are serious matter and therefore you should call your vet to report the condition and get the treatment accordingly. If not treated, eye problem can lead to partial or complete blindness for the cat.

2. Flea Problem

Do you see your cat scratching his own skin too many times? Then it’s time to put him on your lap and check if you can find tiny creatures that looks like black dot among his hairs. That creature is what we call as flea and if you can find it in your cat’s hair, then your cat is officially infected.

Symptoms:

The symptoms of flea problem are quite obvious. They are:

• The appearance of fleas among the hair
• Frequent scratching
• Frequent licking
• Hair loss
• Hot spots
• Red skin/irritation

Causes

Fleas like to nest in your cat’s lush and warm coat. Your cat is likely to get those fleas from contact with other infected pet or if not, from unclean environment.

Treatment

1. You can try combing the fleas out with flea comb. This will get rid of the adult flea and their eggs that sticks to the kitty’s coat. Do it several times until clean and in the last combing, dip the comb in liquid detergent dish diluted in water before combing to kill the egg and baby flea.
2. If the fleas still persist, you can buy over the counter medication for your cat. Usually, fleas medicine doesn’t have lasting side effect. You can choose the medicine in the form of spot on, necklace, spray, dust or even chewing pill – usually pill and spot on are more effective than the other types.
3. If it still persists, contact your vet. Fleas can stay up to a year and may cause anemia for your little friend.

3. Urinary Problem

This is another group of diseases that affect a cat’s urinary track, causing him to have difficulty urinating. Urinary problems are more commonly referred as FLUTD (Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease). Inability to urinate can cause a lot of more severe disease since the body can’t get rid of the waste.

Symptoms

The symptoms of urinary problems are pretty straightforward:

• Difficulty urinating
• Blood in urine
• Crying when urinating
• Licking the urinary area
• Loss of appetite
• Vomiting

Causes

Urinary problems can be a symptom of other disease (bladder inflammatory, crystal accumulation in urethra, spinal cord problem), an effect from psychological problem (such as stress from change of environment), an effect from being overweight, or as the effect from dry food diet.

Treatment

Since urinary problem definitely hurts your cat, bringing him to veterinarian is the best choice. Depending on what causes the problem and severity, the vet may recommend a dietary change, give your cat antibiotic medicine, or even recommending surgery to remove the objects or crystals that block the urinary tract.

4. Vomiting

Vomiting happens a lot in cat, sometimes it happens so suddenly without any indication that he is sick or having digestive problem. So before you launch into full blown panic, assess the situation to decide the severity of the situation first.

Symptoms

• Stomach cramping
• Heaving
• Vomiting

Causes

There are many causes for a cat to vomit. The not so dangerous causes are when your cat vomits because he eats too fast, eats something inappropriate for cat, or play or move too soon after meal. When this is the cause, usually they only vomit once then go on his business like nothing happened and the vomiting is not an indication of any dangerous illness.

Treatment

However, if your cat vomits more than once and looks sick, try to withhold food and give him plenty of water. After 12 hours (24 hours maximum) give him bland food such as mashed potato or boiled chicken little by little.

If the vomiting doesn’t go away by then, or if the vomiting is accompanied by worrying symptoms (such as blood vomiting, lethargy, diarrhea, appetite loss, and dehydration) take him immediately to the veterinarian to receive more thorough prognosis.

5. Diarrhea

Diarrhea is pretty common disease, but can be dangerous or even fatal without the right first aid. Diarrhea in cat can be a symptom from digestive problems and need to be treated carefully.

Symptoms

• Loose bowel
• Liquid/runny feces
• Lethargy

Causes

As side effect from other illnesses such as cancer and liver problem, eating spoiled food, food allergy, or intestinal parasites.

Treatment

The treatment for diarrhea is the same with treatment for vomiting since both are trying to expel liquid from the body. Therefore, the best treatment for diarrhea is as follows.

1. Remove food for 12 hours or more (24 hours maximum)
2. Give plenty of water to your cat to prevent dehydration
3. Bring your cat to the vet if he doesn’t get better after a day and shows another symptoms like vomiting, fever, or bloody feces.