paralysed kitten.....?

Question

Our three and a half week old kitten can not use his legs, they are not paralysed as such but he doesn't use them, he drags them behind him. He has visited the vet and we have been told to "wait and see", but is there anything that I can do ie massage in a particular way? or anything to try and get him using his muscles? :) He is currently being fed formular because he doesnt feed properly from his mum and is pushed aside by his stronger brothers and sister. please help!

Just so you know he is not in any pain, just a happy little kitten but sliding around the floor while his mates are beginning to walk and play fight :)

Tammy - you are amazing we have just cut holes in a hanky and are trying to get him use to being up on all fours, and by the way his name is Prince (his new owners named him already!) Thanks for your answer!!! Really appreciate it! x

Answer 1

Your devotion is touching but I want to caution you. This sounds to me as if it's going to be an uphill battle and I want to be sure you're prepared emotionally to deal with what may not turn out to be a happy ending.
I am a strong believer in giving it everything you've got and that EVERYTHING deserves a chance to survive. But it comes with a cost.
You're attached to this kitten moreso than normal already because you're handfeeding it. If he was being pushed aside and not fed properly you've already "tempted fate" once and statistically you don't get several chances with the same one to 'pull him back.' I just want you to understand that you may do everything within your power to keep him alive but you have to be humane enough to step back sometimes and admit that keeping him here is good for YOU but not so much for him. That said, here are some positives....
Jordan is six weeks old. He has one sister, Gizelle. Jordy was always very round, I just don't know how else to put it, and something about him didn't seem quite right early on. He had this big round body, head. butt and these super tiny paws. His proportions just didn't match up and everything about his sister was HUGE. As they reached three weeks old Gizelle was zipping around all over the place. Poor lil Jordy was not. He couldn't get up. His back legs protruded outward and were more like forks on a forklift than legs at all. He tried his best to drag himself around and it was heartbreaking. X-rays revealed nothing as did tests. His legs just wouldn't budge. The vet said it was probably neurological and that he had a 50/50 shot at best. Of course I took my chances.
I started hanging him in a hankerchief that very day. I cut a lil hole in it for each of his legs and for his head so that it was like a sling and we walked this way, every few hours, every day.
As I said, Jordan is six weeks old now. Though he is not the acrobat his sister is, he is up on all four of those lil paws and he gets around just fine.
This is a method commonly used (in more sophisticated fashion) to keep lame or sick horses up on all fours. It my understanding that sick or lame horses need to be kept "up" at all costs but their weight can burden them because they have relatively fragile legs.. My thought was that since Jordans lil legs were not broken but not functioning we first needed to build some strength without burdening his tender back legs with the weight from such a round lil body.
We got lucky. Apparently it worked. Before that was LiveWire. I found LiveWire and her four brothers and sisters in a box on the side of the road...in July. They were two weeks old. Everything she had seemed not to work, inside and out! She was the only one I could 'pull back' and this is what I caution you about. God knows I tried. Sometimes saving them means letting them go if that makes any sense at all.
My vet is an oldtimer and he's been a vet since before I was born (I'm 37). How LiveWire survived he has no explanation except love and dedication. She is four months and three days old. She weighs 1.3 pounds and she will likely not get much bigger. You want to talk about special? Let me tell ya...she thinks she is the cats meow and she is my whole heart. I run a rescue. My job is to try not to get attached. Sometimes it's unavoidable.
When veterinarian advise fails you because it's one of those "wait and see" cases then you are forced to rely on instinct. You're feeding this lil creature and therefore you know him better than anyone. You also have a bigger emotional stake in his future than anyone else. You're going to have to dig down deep and trust yourself to find a lot of the answers you seek right now. "Hanky him up" like I did and I would suggest a drop of karo or pancake syrup on his lil tounge at every feeding to keep his lil blood sugar up and pedialyte a couple of times a day to keep up his enzymes and help him build a super strong immune system. Ask the vet first of course, don't take MY word for it. His response will likely be that it won't hurt him but that it's pointless. This is done commonly with handfed kittens in general by us 'home schooled' rescuers.
And give him a name...a strong one. I used to be against naming when we had doubts as to whether or not they would survive but I've since come to believe we can't start out with this line of thinking. You've got to care for him as though he is "perfect" in every way and that there is no doubt that he will be fine. Cats are very sensitive and your positive reinforcement will only strengthen his resolve to walk. Without a name...he has no one to "be."
Is it possible I take this job entirely too seriously? Maybe so, but I have a connection with these animals that a lot of people do not understand. I have a resident feral cat clan of 15 and though these cats have never been socialized I can stand out there and every last one of them comes to stand at my feet...because they KNOW. They sense that for me..it's all about THEM!
You give your lil guy everything you've got and if he has a chance in hell of walking, he will do it because you believed in him..and he knows you do. He can feel it.

Answer 2

I found this.

"My Scooter was parazlized when I found him...only one front paw moved. I was also told it was HOPELESS after X-rays. Have you tried to stimulate him or her to move those legs by stimulating maybe by scratching under the chin? I worked with Scooter for three months looking for the spot to stimulate him to see if ANY neurons would stimulate muscle movement to those legs. With him I found it was the area under his chin that caused him to scratch like a dog does when you scratch it's belly. Although the movement was very slight in the beginning, I took that and ran with it. After three months and many long hours of massaging his legs to keep the blood circulating I got wonderful results. He got up on all four paws, although weak, he walked a few steps and then collapsed. It took another month before I got him up for longer periods. He had a relapse just once where his legs for some reason didn't want to work. I worked even harder for the next few days to massage and stimulate him. I am proud and happy to say that Scooter (although one of his back legs at the hip is a little crooked) he now RUNS, JUMPS and PLAYS like a normal mischevious kitten. He is now fifteen months old and has had no relapses and he no longer feels inferior to the others. He's my baby. He didn't grow to much because of the spinal injury, but that's okay because he thinks he's ten feet tall and that's all that matters. There are some wonderful contraptions out there for cats with paralized rear legs. Don't give up on him! If they are expensive and you need help search for donations, every penny counts and so does his quality of life and happiness. Cats overcome a lot when then are loved. This I know from experience."

Answer 3

Can he move them at all? I had two puppies, mom was a stray we adopted, that were unable to walk at birth. When we went to the vet we found out that one was mentally and physically disabled and would never be able to do anything for herself, and eventually her heart would push against her chest and she would die, we had to put her down.
The other puppy, was only physically handicapped and we decided to try with him. I worked very hard with him moving his legs (puppy arobics) and trying to get him to move a little more every day. When he was a bit older we had him x-rayed and found he had a fused spine causing him to be unable to move his neck, an enlarged head, low muscle tone, deformed limbs and his back leg joints were deformed causing his legs to cross. He had a lot of problems, but with a lot of work he was able to walk and then run. He was a great dog and he lived for 5 years. We recently had to put him down for various reasons.
I suggest trying your best to get the kitten to move, even if he never uses his back legs he may still live an active happy life. I wish you luck...if you want to see a picture of my puppy email me, he was very cute in a special kind of way=)

Answer 4

did you vet do an x-ray to make sure the bones were not broken at birth? if so then wait an keep feeding it, he/she will see the other kittens using their back legs an will pick it up, i hope your kitten will be alright

Answer 5

Im happy you're trying to take good care of this animal. maybe you could google "animal wheel chairs". who knows, google has a lot of strange things on it. dont get mad, but this cat is in pain. if you can't find the wheel chair, don't you want to be nice to it? Let it free in heaven than suffer in the world.

Answer 6

he is the runt of the litter. take all the other kittens away until he has fed for a while, then let them back in. it could just be nature. the law of the jungle would just snuff him out since he is the weakest. i had a cat who was the runt of the litter once. she was prone to health problems her whole life, lots of blood coming from places it shouldnt be... if he is in pain, it might be wise to ... well, you know

Answer 7

This happened to our cat when he was diagnosed with Luekema, it could be another thing but I wouldn't get extremely attached to this cat. Something serious could be wrong, but since it is very young you never know.

Answer 8

He could have a neurological problem that is causing him not to be able to walk properly. It could be caused by a number of things. You can ask your vet to test for parasites and viral infections.

Answer 9

Maybe he's just slow at developing. Just wait and see if he starts using them, and if he doesn't, then see the vet again.

Answer 10

try gently standing him up on all fours and suport him like that until he gets the feel for standing and hopefully hell gradually start to use his legs

Answer 11

maybe his leg bones hanent developed yep or his mom or bro or sis got on them and broken them