Blocked Anal Glands

[cat woman]

Over the Christmas week leading up to the New Year, we noticed that our female cat " Millie " wasn't her usual self, her eyes gave us a clue they were dull and the third eye was visable, she was also cleaning her rear end alot and then started dragging her bum along the floor, she had been recently been given worming tablets along with my other 2 cats so I know it couldn't be that. I took her to the vets 30th December I told the vet her symptoms, after examination she found that her "Anal Glands " were blocked and she had to manually unblock them which I must say wasn't a very nice experience for her, and it did upset me. She was given a pain killer injection, but I was still concerned about her eyes, the vet reassured me that they were o.k. We kept a close watch over her but her eyes didn't get any better infact she started sneezing, we took her back to the vets again last Friday 6th Jan and to our horror she was diagnosed with mild cat flu, it was a different vet who examined her and said that she was run down with having blocked Anal Glands, it has angered and upset me why the first vet didn't pick this up and she suffered another week of unnessasary discomfort, she is now on a 10 day course of Antibiotics, has anyone else had this happen to them with their pets or were we just unlucky. By the way she and my other cats are up to date on their Inoculations. Thanks in advance for any replies. xxx :-)

[Eels]

I'm sorry to hear that you've had an bad experience. I hope Millie is feeling better.

Having their anal glands emptied is not a pleasant experience for any animal, but when blocked they are extremely uncomfortable (which is why she was dragging her bottom). The only option is to empty them - Millie is bound to have felt better once they were cleared.

Cat 'flu is an unpleasant disease which can cause sneezing and snuffling. In healthy adult cats it is often mild, although in elderly or very young animals it can be more serious. Symptoms are typically sneezing and discharge from the eyes and nose, with or without a fever. If these symptoms were not present when the first vet examined her, they can't really be blamed for not diagnosing it. Many cats have blocked anal glands for no apparent reason, so they weren't necessarily directly linked to the 'flu.

Incidentally, although the right course of action is to give her antibiotics, please remember that some cat 'flu infections are viral, and so won't always respond. However, bacterial secondary infection is a possibility so keep up with the tablets!

[Kimmiebear]

It is unusual to see a cat get sick after the anal gland express. However it would make sense if there was stress on the immune system because of the infection. If they were badly infected it might have been adventageous of your vet to put your kitty on antibios just in case, but it is not standard procedure that I am aware of. The unfortunate thing is that your cat had to be hurting for the week. I would recommend you ask your vet or nurse about running a blood panel after you are finished with the antibiotics to make sure that there isn't something underlying that is causing these problems. If her eyes were strange looking at the time of your appointment then it is a little bit of a different story. A recheck appointment may have been in order for 3 days after the express. That is what we do at the clinic i work at. If you want you should be able to request the vet you see at your clinic so that you don't have to see the first one again. Keep in mind though that the vet doesn't know your cat as well as you do, and everybody makes mistakes. Hope this helps
Kim