has anybody heard of a cat dying from a blood clot?

Question

i lost one of my cats last year , he died of a dvt, he was a healthy active 7 year old longhaired british domestic, he just came struggling throuhg the flap with no feeling in his back legs, i thought he had been hit by a car but got him to the vets and she said it was a clot, he died two days later

Answer 1

It's called SADDLE THROMBOSIS in most cases it kills 95% of cats it effects. It is in general caused by HCM or cardiomyopathy which is the enlargement of the heart.

Please have your cats checked for heart murmurs, often the first sign of things to come.

Answer 2

I think that is really heart disease. It is very common in cats. Mine died of it when he was 9 years old, although he was very brave and fought it for many months after the first attack. With humans it is the arteries above the heart that get the embolism, but cats get it below the heart which causes paralysis of the legs. There is no treatment for it. It is very sad. Some cats have the power to will themselves back; my cat began walking again 2 months after the first attack, he couldn't walk on his soles so he used to scrape all the skin off the top of his hind paws, but he really was determined to live. We got him some of those doggy shoes byt he hated them. So we made planks for him because it was hard for him to jump .. he could walk up the planks to reach other levels. He had about 2 mild relapses and then, 11 months later had a very severe one and died in my arms. It was so sad!
Apparently symptoms of it are coughing - like a dry cough, unlike the type when the cat is trying to bring up a furball. I think it may be possible to control it at that satge now; animal medicine has progressed a lot since my cat died.
I am so sorry for you and know how you must have felt. When I found my cat paralysed like that, I also thought he must have been hit by a car. The way he died was really terrible too and it was hard for me to be with him through that.
I hope you feel better soon, and that someone will find a way to cure this sad disease. xx

Answer 3

It's a well known phenomenon in cats unfortunately and very sad. Its called aortic/iliac thromboembolism amongst many other names and it means that a blood clot gets stuck in the large blood vessel just where it divides to supply blood to each back leg (also called saddle thrombus for this reason, it gets stuck at the "saddle" where the vessel divides in 2).

The end result is a very painful condition where the blood supply to the back legs is totally disrupted. The cat is paralysed, the legs are cold and the nail beds are often blue.

It can be treated but it isn't always successful and very likely to come back even if you do get a successful treatment. Euthanasia is often the kindest option, but I HAVE seen cats recover from this so it is not the only option.

Answer 4

Yes, that can definitely happen. Lost feeling in both back legs (or both back legs being cold) is a key indicator for a blood clot in cats. A major clot can block the key artery that supplies blood to both back legs. There's no easy answer for why this happens, and it's always tough to lose a pet that is otherwise young and healthy.

Answer 5

When I was ten years old I had a cat named Heidi. She was my best friend. She developed a blood clot in her spine after having her teeth cleaned. The vet that cleaned her teeth had failed to detect my cat's heart murmur and the anesthesia caused the clot. We took her to another vet, he found her murmur and the clot. She died in the animal hospital that night, despite attempts to save her.

Answer 6

I had to have a lovely big black and white male put to sleep because he lost feeling and movement in his back legs through a bloodclot at a "Y" shaped join in some veins leading to the spine. Its apparently not very common, but is not operable. I still miss him.

Answer 7

I am so sorry for your loss. No I have not heard of anything like that before. But my brother had a cat with the same symptoms. They never said what the real problem was.

Answer 8

I woke up one morning to find our beloved cat with one of her front legs just hanging limp. I thought maybe she somehow broke it from playing but when I felt it, it was cold. I rushed her to the vet and I had to put her to sleep right there. There was nothing they could do. Her temp was even below normal.

I feel for you...It was very tramatic.

Answer 9

No i've never heard of that before.Sorry about your cat...my cat got hit last year by a car speeding along our road. He was only just 1 year old....

Answer 10

Yes I've heard of it, and people can die of the same thing, it's deep vein thrombosis, the blood clot dislodges and travels to the heart or lungs. Death can occur.