Cat Health Problems: Common Ailments & Symptoms
Know the signs, understand the causes, and learn when to act. Early detection saves lives.
Most serious cat illnesses are easier to treat when caught early — so the key skill for an owner is noticing change. Any sudden shift in your cat's eating, drinking, litter box habits, weight, grooming, or energy is worth a vet call.
This page outlines common feline ailments by severity and lists the emergency signs that mean you should not wait. It is educational only and never replaces a diagnosis from a licensed veterinarian.
Important: This information is for educational purposes only. Always consult a licensed veterinarian for diagnosis and treatment. When in doubt — call your vet.
🤧 Feline Upper Respiratory Infection
The 'cat cold' — typically caused by feline herpesvirus or calicivirus. Highly contagious between cats.
Treatment: Supportive care, steam therapy, antibiotics if secondary bacterial infection develops. Keep vaccinations up to date.
View Full Details →🫘 Chronic Kidney Disease
The most common disease in senior cats. The kidneys gradually lose their filtering ability over time.
Treatment: Special low-protein diet, increased hydration, phosphate binders, regular vet monitoring. No cure — management only.
View Full Details →⚡ Hyperthyroidism
Overactive thyroid gland — extremely common in cats over 10. Causes metabolic overdrive.
Treatment: Daily oral medication (methimazole), radioactive iodine therapy, or surgery. Highly manageable with treatment.
View Full Details →🩸 Feline Diabetes
The pancreas produces insufficient insulin, preventing proper glucose regulation.
Treatment: Insulin injections, low-carb high-protein diet, blood glucose monitoring at home.
View Full Details →🦷 Dental Disease
Over 80% of cats over age 3 have some degree of dental disease. Often silent but painful.
Treatment: Professional dental cleaning under anaesthesia, tooth extraction if needed, regular home brushing.
View Full Details →🦟 Flea Infestation
One of the most common cat problems. A single flea can lay 50 eggs per day.
Treatment: Topical spot-on treatments, flea collars, environmental treatment of home with spray.
View Full Details →⚖️ Feline Obesity
Over 50% of pet cats are overweight. Leads to diabetes, arthritis, and heart disease.
Treatment: Portion-controlled diet, puzzle feeders to slow eating, increased playtime, weight management food.
View Full Details →💧 Urinary Tract Issues (FLUTD)
Feline lower urinary tract disease affects 1–3% of cats. Blockages are life-threatening emergencies.
Treatment: Immediate vet visit for blockages. Long-term: wet food diet, increased water intake, stress reduction.
View Full Details →🔵 Ringworm (Dermatophytosis)
Despite the name, it's a fungal infection, not a worm. Very contagious to humans and other pets.
Treatment: Antifungal shampoo, topical treatments, oral antifungals for severe cases. Quarantine affected cats.
View Full Details →🦴 Arthritis (Feline OA)
Affects ~90% of cats over 10. Often missed because cats hide pain so well.
Treatment: Weight management, joint supplements (glucosamine), anti-inflammatory medications, ramps and lower litter boxes.
View Full Details →🌀 Hairballs
Normal but can cause blockages. Long-haired breeds are most susceptible.
Treatment: Regular grooming, hairball-formula food or treats, cat grass or malt paste to aid digestion.
View Full Details →🚨 Feline Panleukopenia (Distemper)
Highly contagious and often fatal viral disease, especially in kittens. Preventable by vaccination.
Treatment: Emergency hospitalisation, IV fluids, supportive care. Prevention: FVRCP vaccine.
View Full Details →💨 Feline Asthma
A chronic inflammatory airway condition affecting 1–5% of cats. Can range from mild wheezing to life-threatening attacks.
Treatment: Inhaled corticosteroids (delivered via a feline spacer device), bronchodilators, environmental allergen reduction, emergency rescue inhaler.
View Full Details →🟡 Hepatic Lipidosis (Fatty Liver Disease)
A life-threatening liver condition that develops when a cat — often overweight — stops eating for more than 2–3 days.
Treatment: Aggressive nutritional support — usually via an oesophageal or stomach feeding tube — for 4–8 weeks while the liver recovers. IV fluids, anti-nausea medication, and vitamin supplementation.
View Full Details →🌾 Feline Allergies
Cats can develop allergies to fleas, food, or environmental triggers (atopy). All commonly cause itching, hair loss, and skin lesions.
Treatment: Identify and eliminate the trigger. Flea control, hypoallergenic elimination diet, antihistamines, corticosteroids, immunotherapy, and newer drugs like ciclosporin or Janus kinase inhibitors.
View Full Details →👁️ Conjunctivitis (Pink Eye)
Inflammation of the pink tissue lining the eyelid — the most common eye problem in cats. Often viral, frequently uncomfortable.
Treatment: Treat the underlying cause: antiviral or supportive care for herpesvirus, antibiotics for bacterial cases, and gentle cleaning of discharge. Your vet may prescribe medicated eye drops or ointment. Never use leftover or human eye drops without veterinary advice.
View Full Details →🔬 Feline Acne
Blackheads and pimple-like bumps on the chin and lips — a common, usually mild skin condition that occasionally becomes infected.
Treatment: Mild cases often resolve with improved chin hygiene and switching from plastic to stainless-steel or ceramic bowls. Gentle cleansing with a vet-recommended antibacterial or medicated wipe helps. More severe or infected cases may need prescribed topical treatments, antibiotics, or anti-inflammatory medication from your vet.
View Full Details →👂 Ear Mites
Tiny parasites that live in the ear canal causing intense itching and a dark, crumbly discharge. Extremely common, especially in kittens and outdoor cats, and highly contagious between pets.
Treatment: Your vet will confirm the diagnosis by examining ear discharge under a microscope, then prescribe a topical anti-parasitic ear treatment or a spot-on product (such as selamectin or moxidectin) that clears mites and often fleas at the same time. The ears are usually cleaned first to remove debris. Because mites spread easily, all cats and dogs in the household should be treated together.
View Full Details →❤️ Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM)
The most common heart disease in cats — a thickening of the heart muscle that reduces the heart's efficiency. It is often silent until advanced, making it one of the leading causes of sudden death in otherwise healthy-seeming cats.
Treatment: There is no cure, but HCM can often be managed for years. After diagnosis by echocardiogram (heart ultrasound), your vet may prescribe medication to help the heart relax, control heart rate, manage fluid build-up, or reduce the risk of dangerous blood clots. Cats that develop congestive heart failure or clots need urgent, sometimes hospital, care. Regular cardiology monitoring guides treatment over time.
View Full Details →🧬 Feline Leukemia Virus (FeLV)
A retrovirus that gradually weakens the immune system. One of the most significant infectious causes of illness and death in domestic cats — but entirely preventable.
Treatment: There is no cure. Management focuses on supportive care: prompt treatment of secondary infections, an excellent diet, parasite control, and avoiding stress. FeLV-positive cats should be kept strictly indoors — both to protect them from infections and to prevent spread to other cats. Many live comfortably for several years with attentive care and twice-yearly vet checks.
View Full Details →🛡️ Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV)
Often called 'feline AIDS', FIV slowly weakens the immune system over years. With good care, however, most infected cats live long, normal lives — and the virus cannot be passed to humans.
Treatment: There is no cure, but FIV is very manageable. The priorities are keeping the cat indoors, feeding a complete diet, treating dental and gum disease (which is especially common), and addressing any infection quickly and thoroughly. Routine wellness checks every six months catch problems early. Importantly, FIV-positive cats can often live peacefully with non-aggressive housemates, as the virus spreads mainly by deep bite wounds.
View Full Details →🔥 Feline Pancreatitis
Inflammation of the pancreas — one of the most common yet most easily missed serious illnesses in cats, because the signs are so vague.
Treatment: There is no single cure — treatment is supportive: aggressive fluid therapy to correct dehydration, anti-nausea and pain medication, and early nutritional support (often by feeding tube) to prevent the cat from developing hepatic lipidosis on top of the pancreatitis. Mild cases may recover in days; severe acute cases need intensive hospital care.
View Full Details →🪱 Intestinal Worms (Parasites)
Roundworms, tapeworms and hookworms are among the most common parasites in cats — even strictly indoor cats can be affected.
Treatment: Worms are highly treatable with deworming medication prescribed or recommended by your vet — given as tablets, spot-on treatments, or injections. The right product depends on which worm is involved (praziquantel is standard for tapeworms; pyrantel and others for roundworms and hookworms), so a faecal test or vet advice ensures the correct choice rather than guessing.
View Full Details →🦠 Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP)
A viral disease triggered by a mutated feline coronavirus. Once almost always fatal, it is now treatable in the great majority of cats thanks to a breakthrough in antiviral medicine.
Treatment: For decades FIP was considered untreatable and almost universally fatal. That has changed dramatically. Antiviral drugs — most notably GS-441524 (the active form of remdesivir) — now cure well over 80% of treated cats in published studies, typically over a roughly 12-week course of daily oral or injectable medication. Once available only through unofficial channels, legitimate veterinary access to these antivirals has expanded rapidly, and early treatment by a vet experienced with FIP gives the best chance of a full recovery.
View Full Details →🩺 Hypertension (High Blood Pressure)
Persistently high blood pressure — a 'silent' condition of older cats that often goes unnoticed until it damages the eyes, brain, heart or kidneys.
Treatment: High blood pressure in cats is very manageable once identified. The first-line medication is amlodipine, a calcium-channel blocker given as a small once-daily tablet, which lowers pressure effectively in most cats. Just as important is treating any underlying condition driving the hypertension — most often chronic kidney disease or hyperthyroidism. Cats are then monitored with repeat blood-pressure checks to fine-tune the dose. Where sudden blindness has occurred, prompt treatment occasionally restores some vision if caught very early.
View Full Details →😣 Feline Chronic Gingivostomatitis
A severe, painful inflammation of the mouth and gums in which the cat's own immune system overreacts to dental plaque — one of the most distressing oral diseases vets see.
Treatment: The single most effective treatment is surgical extraction of most or all of the teeth, which removes the plaque-covered surfaces the immune system is reacting to. Around 60–70% of cats are cured or greatly improved by full-mouth (or near-full-mouth) extractions, and most adapt remarkably well to eating without teeth — many even manage dry food. Cats that don't fully respond may need ongoing anti-inflammatory or immune-modulating medication, and newer options such as feline interferon or stem-cell therapy are being explored. Pain relief and meticulous home dental care are central throughout.
View Full Details →🎗️ Lymphoma (Feline Cancer)
The most common cancer diagnosed in cats — a cancer of the lymphocytes (white blood cells) that most often targets the intestines, but is frequently treatable and sometimes manageable for years.
Treatment: Treatment depends on the type. Low-grade (small-cell) intestinal lymphoma — the most common form — is often managed very successfully with a combination of an oral chemotherapy tablet (chlorambucil) and a steroid (prednisolone), frequently giving cats months to years of good-quality life with minimal side effects. High-grade (large-cell) lymphoma is more aggressive and treated with multi-drug injectable chemotherapy protocols; cats generally tolerate chemotherapy far better than people do, rarely losing their fur and usually keeping a good appetite. Where owners decline chemotherapy, steroids alone can provide useful palliative relief.
View Full Details →🫘 Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD)
An inherited disease in which fluid-filled cysts slowly replace healthy kidney tissue. Most common in Persians and related breeds.
Treatment: There is no cure. Management mirrors chronic kidney disease — a renal (kidney-support) diet, blood-pressure control, phosphate binders, and fluid therapy to slow progression and keep the cat comfortable. Genetic testing identifies affected cats early.
View Full Details →🚽 Megacolon & Chronic Constipation
A progressive loss of colon muscle function that leaves the colon stretched, weak and unable to pass stool, causing severe constipation.
Treatment: Early cases respond to a high-moisture diet, added fibre, stool softeners such as lactulose, and prokinetic drugs that stimulate the colon. Impacted cats need veterinary de-obstipation (enemas and manual removal under anaesthesia). For end-stage megacolon, a surgery called subtotal colectomy removes the failed section of colon and is usually curative.
View Full Details →🫀 Feline Heartworm Disease
A potentially fatal parasitic disease spread by mosquito bites. Even indoor cats are at risk, and there is no approved treatment to kill the worms in cats — prevention is everything.
Treatment: There is NO safe drug to kill adult heartworms in cats (the arsenical used in dogs is toxic to felines). Care is supportive — corticosteroids to control lung inflammation, plus management of breathing crises. Severe cases may need oxygen or, rarely, surgical worm removal. Monthly preventives are the only real defence.
View Full Details →🦠 Toxoplasmosis
A common parasitic infection caused by Toxoplasma gondii. Most cats show no signs at all, but it matters greatly because cats are the parasite's definitive host and it can pose a risk to pregnant women.
Treatment: Cats with active clinical illness are treated with the antibiotic clindamycin, usually for several weeks. Supportive care addresses fever, appetite, and any organ-specific signs. Most healthy cats clear the parasite without ever becoming ill and develop lasting immunity.
View Full Details →🧠 Cognitive Dysfunction (Dementia)
An age-related decline in brain function, similar to Alzheimer's disease in people. It causes confusion, disrupted sleep and changed behaviour in senior cats, and is often mistaken for "just getting old".
Treatment: There is no cure, but the decline can be slowed and managed. Vets may recommend a diet rich in antioxidants, omega-3 fatty acids and medium-chain triglycerides, supplements such as SAMe, and in some cases medication. Just as important is a stable, enriched, low-stress home: predictable routines, gentle play, night lights, and easy access to resources all help a confused cat cope.
View Full Details →🤧 Feline Calicivirus
A highly contagious virus and one of the main causes of "cat flu". It typically brings sneezing, a runny nose and — distinctively — painful ulcers on the tongue and mouth.
Treatment: There is no drug that kills the virus, so treatment is supportive while the cat's immune system clears it. This means pain relief for mouth ulcers, soft and strongly-scented food to tempt a sore, stuffy cat to eat, fluids to prevent dehydration, and antibiotics only if a secondary bacterial infection sets in. Most otherwise-healthy cats recover within one to three weeks, though some become long-term carriers that shed the virus intermittently.
View Full Details →😿 Feline Herpesvirus (FHV-1)
The other major cause of "cat flu" alongside calicivirus. This virus targets the eyes and nose, causing sneezing, streaming eyes and — like cold sores in people — flare-ups that recur for life.
Treatment: As with calicivirus, no drug eliminates the virus, so care is supportive: keeping the nose and eyes gently cleaned, tempting the cat to eat with warm, aromatic food, and maintaining hydration. The amino acid L-lysine is sometimes used to reduce the severity of flare-ups. Eye involvement may need topical antiviral or lubricating drops, and secondary bacterial infections are treated with antibiotics. Severe corneal ulcers occasionally require referral to a veterinary ophthalmologist.
View Full Details →🤢 Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD)
A chronic inflammation of the gut lining that leaves cats with long-running vomiting, diarrhoea and weight loss. It is one of the commonest causes of a cat that is repeatedly "sick" with no obvious infection.
Treatment: Treatment aims to calm the inflammation and identify dietary triggers, since IBD cannot usually be cured outright. A strict trial of a novel-protein or hydrolysed (hypoallergenic) diet is often the first and most important step. Where diet alone is not enough, anti-inflammatory medication — most commonly corticosteroids such as prednisolone — is used to control the immune over-reaction, sometimes alongside vitamin B12 injections, probiotics or other immune-modulating drugs. Treatment is usually long-term and tailored to the individual cat.
View Full Details →🌊 Feline Hyperesthesia Syndrome
Sometimes called "rolling skin syndrome" — sudden episodes in which the skin along the back ripples and the cat erupts into frantic grooming, twitching or zoomies, often triggered by a light touch near the tail base.
Treatment: Because hyperesthesia is a diagnosis of exclusion, treatment first means ruling out and addressing underlying causes — skin disease, fleas, arthritis or spinal pain, and behavioural stress. Where a trigger is found it is treated directly. For genuine idiopathic cases, vets focus on reducing stress and over-arousal through environmental enrichment, predictable routines and avoiding known triggers, and may prescribe medication — such as gabapentin, anti-seizure drugs, or anti-anxiety medication — in more severe or frequent cases.
View Full Details →⚗️ Cushing's Disease (Hyperadrenocorticism)
A rare hormonal disorder in which the adrenal glands produce too much cortisol. Uncommon in cats but serious — it is most often seen alongside hard-to-control diabetes.
Treatment: Treatment depends on the cause. Where a single adrenal tumour is responsible, surgical removal can be curative. Pituitary-driven disease is harder to manage and may be treated with medication (such as trilostane) to suppress cortisol production, or in some centres with radiation therapy. Because most feline cases occur alongside diabetes, controlling the Cushing's often makes a previously unmanageable diabetes far easier to regulate. Treatment requires close veterinary monitoring with regular blood tests.
View Full Details →🩸 Feline Anemia
Not a disease in itself but a sign of one — a shortage of red blood cells or haemoglobin that leaves the body short of oxygen. It ranges from mild to immediately life-threatening.
Treatment: Because anemia is a symptom, effective treatment means finding and correcting the underlying cause — controlling fleas or parasites, treating infection or kidney disease, managing immune or cancerous conditions, or removing a toxin. Supportive care may include iron or vitamin supplementation, medications to suppress an overactive immune system, and in severe or sudden cases a blood transfusion to buy time while the cause is addressed. The outlook depends heavily on the underlying problem and how quickly it is treated.
View Full Details →🚨 Pyometra
A life-threatening infection that fills the womb with pus, seen in unspayed female cats. It is a surgical emergency — without prompt treatment it is frequently fatal.
Treatment: The definitive treatment is emergency surgery to remove the infected uterus and ovaries (ovariohysterectomy — the same operation as routine spaying, but far higher-risk on a sick cat). The cat is stabilised first with intravenous fluids and antibiotics to combat shock and infection, then taken to surgery as soon as she is fit enough. Medical management with hormone drugs is occasionally attempted in valuable breeding queens with an open pyometra, but it is slower, less reliable and carries a high risk of recurrence, so surgery remains the strongly preferred option. The outlook is good when the condition is caught and operated on early, and poor once the uterus has ruptured or the cat has become septic.
View Full Details →👁️ Glaucoma
A painful rise in the pressure inside the eye that damages the optic nerve. It can destroy vision quickly, so a sudden case is treated as an emergency.
Treatment: Treatment has two goals: lower the eye pressure quickly to relieve pain and salvage any remaining sight, and find and treat whatever is causing it. Medications — eye drops and sometimes oral drugs — are used to reduce the production of fluid within the eye and improve its drainage. Because feline glaucoma is usually secondary to another disease (such as inflammation, a lens problem or a tumour), managing that primary condition is central to controlling the pressure. When an eye is already blind and persistently painful, the kindest option is often surgical removal of the eye (enucleation), which reliably ends the pain; cats adapt remarkably well to life with one eye. Lifelong monitoring is the rule, as the other eye may later be affected.
View Full Details →🦠 Rabies
A fatal viral disease of the nervous system, spread through the bite of an infected animal. Virtually always fatal once symptoms appear — but completely preventable by vaccination.
Treatment: There is no treatment once clinical signs appear — rabies is almost always fatal. A cat showing signs is humanely euthanised and tested. Prevention through vaccination is the only effective defence.
View Full Details →👂 Aural Hematoma
A blood-filled swelling of the ear flap, caused when a blood vessel ruptures inside the ear — usually after violent head-shaking or scratching.
Treatment: Small hematomas may be drained with a needle, but they often refill. Surgical drainage with sutures to tack the skin back down gives the most reliable result. The underlying cause — often an ear infection or mites — must be treated to prevent recurrence.
View Full Details →🫀 Cholangitis
Inflammation of the bile ducts and liver — the most common feline liver disease after fatty liver. It ranges from a sudden bacterial infection to a slow, smouldering immune-driven form.
Treatment: Treatment depends on the type. Acute (bacterial) cholangitis is treated with antibiotics, fluids and anti-nausea medication. The chronic, immune-mediated form often needs corticosteroids or other immune-suppressing drugs. Most cats also receive the bile-thinning drug ursodiol and the liver-supportive antioxidant SAMe, plus aggressive nutritional support to prevent secondary fatty liver.
View Full Details →👄 Eosinophilic Granuloma Complex
A group of inflammatory skin lesions — including the swollen "fat lip" rodent ulcer, raised plaques and linear sores — driven by an allergic, over-reactive immune response.
Treatment: The lesions themselves usually respond well to anti-inflammatory medication — most often corticosteroids — but lasting control depends on finding and removing the underlying allergic trigger. Vets investigate for flea allergy, food allergy and environmental allergy, and may use strict flea control, a hypoallergenic diet trial, antibiotics for secondary infection, or longer-term immune-modulating drugs such as ciclosporin.
View Full Details →🌸 Lily Poisoning
A true emergency: every part of a true lily — petals, leaves, pollen and even the vase water — is intensely toxic to cats and can cause sudden, fatal kidney failure from the tiniest exposure.
Treatment: Lily poisoning is one of the few situations where minutes genuinely matter. There is no antidote, so treatment is a race to support the kidneys before damage becomes permanent. A vet will typically induce vomiting if ingestion was very recent, give activated charcoal, and — most importantly — start aggressive intravenous fluid therapy for 48 to 72 hours to flush the toxin through the kidneys before they shut down. Blood tests track kidney values, and in severe cases that have progressed to kidney failure, dialysis may be the only remaining option. The single most important factor in survival is speed: cats treated with IV fluids within 18 hours of exposure usually recover fully, whereas those treated later often suffer irreversible kidney failure.
View Full Details →🦵 Saddle Thrombus (Aortic Thromboembolism)
A sudden, agonising emergency in which a blood clot lodges where the main aorta splits to the back legs, abruptly cutting off the blood supply and leaving a cat unable to use one or both hind limbs.
Treatment: Feline aortic thromboembolism is a true emergency and one of the most painful conditions in cats, so the first priority is always strong pain relief — usually powerful opioids. Beyond that, treatment is supportive and aims to keep the cat comfortable and stable while the body slowly breaks down the clot: blood thinners such as clopidogrel or heparin to discourage further clotting, careful management of the almost-always-present underlying heart disease, and close monitoring for dangerous shifts in blood potassium as circulation returns to the leg. Clot-dissolving drugs and surgical clot removal exist but carry serious risks and are rarely used. The outlook is guarded — many cats are sadly euthanised on humane grounds — but a meaningful number of cats whose pain is controlled do regain limb function over days to weeks, so the decision is made case by case with the vet.
View Full Details →🐈 Cerebellar Hypoplasia
'Wobbly cat syndrome' — a non-progressive movement disorder caused by an underdeveloped cerebellum. Affected cats are wobbly but otherwise healthy and happy.
Treatment: There is no cure and none is needed — the condition is not painful and does not get worse. Management is about adapting the home: low-sided litter trays, raised non-slip food bowls, soft flooring, and ramps. Most CH cats live full, happy lives as cherished indoor pets.
View Full Details →🌀 Feline Vestibular Disease
A sudden loss of balance caused by disruption to the inner-ear balance system. It looks alarming but is often idiopathic and resolves on its own within days to weeks.
Treatment: Treatment targets the cause where one is found (for example, antibiotics for a middle-ear infection) and otherwise focuses on supportive care: anti-nausea medication, a safe padded space away from stairs and heights, and help with eating and drinking until balance returns. Most idiopathic cases improve markedly within 72 hours and recover over one to three weeks, sometimes leaving a slight residual head tilt.
View Full Details →🥵 Heatstroke
A life-threatening emergency in which a cat can no longer shed heat and its core temperature climbs above 40°C (104°F). Cats hide heat stress well, so it is often spotted late.
Treatment: This is an emergency. Move the cat to shade or air conditioning, offer cool (not iced) water, and dampen the ears, paw pads and belly with cool — never ice-cold — water while you head straight to a vet. Rapid over-cooling causes shock, so cool gradually. Vets provide controlled cooling, intravenous fluids, oxygen, and monitoring for the organ and clotting damage that heatstroke can trigger hours later.
View Full Details →🦴 Hip Dysplasia
A malformation of the hip joint in which the ball and socket fit together poorly, leading to laxity, wear and eventually arthritis. Under-recognised in cats, it is most common in large, heavy breeds.
Treatment: Mild cases are managed conservatively: weight control, joint-support diets and omega-3 and glucosamine supplements, gentle low-impact exercise, warm comfortable bedding, and anti-inflammatory pain relief prescribed by a vet (never human painkillers, which are toxic to cats). Environmental changes — steps or ramps to favourite spots and a low-sided litter tray — make daily life easier. Severe, painful cases may need surgery such as femoral head and neck excision (FHO) or, rarely, total hip replacement.
View Full Details →👁️ Corneal Ulcer
An erosion or open sore on the clear front surface of the eye (the cornea). Painful and potentially sight-threatening, but usually treatable if caught early.
Treatment: Superficial ulcers are treated with topical antibiotic drops or ointment to prevent infection, often with atropine drops to relieve painful spasm, and an Elizabethan collar to stop self-trauma. Any underlying cause — such as feline herpesvirus — is treated alongside. Deep or non-healing ulcers may need a debridement procedure or surgery (a conjunctival graft) to save the eye, so prompt veterinary care is essential.
View Full Details →🚽 Constipation
Infrequent, difficult, or painful passing of hard, dry stools. Common in middle-aged and senior cats and, if ignored, can progress to serious obstruction.
Treatment: Mild cases respond to improved hydration (wet food and water fountains), added dietary fibre or a vet-recommended fibre supplement, and laxatives such as lactulose prescribed by your vet. Increasing exercise and ensuring a clean, accessible litter tray help. More severe impaction may need veterinary treatment with fluids and a professionally administered enema — never give a cat an over-the-counter human (phosphate) enema, which can be fatal.
View Full Details →🦠 Giardia
A microscopic intestinal parasite (a protozoan) that causes persistent, foul-smelling diarrhoea. Spread through contaminated water and environments, and mildly contagious to people.
Treatment: Giardia is treated with anti-parasitic medication — usually fenbendazole and/or metronidazole — over several days, sometimes in more than one course because re-infection is common. Bathing the cat to remove cysts from the fur, and thorough cleaning and disinfection of the environment, are just as important as the drugs. Supportive care with a bland, digestible diet helps the gut recover.
View Full Details →🦷 Tooth Resorption (Feline Odontoclastic Resorptive Lesions)
The most common dental disease in cats — the body slowly destroys its own teeth from the inside out. Intensely painful, yet easily missed because cats hide it so well.
Treatment: There is no way to save an affected tooth — the lesion is progressive and cannot be filled like a human cavity. The definitive treatment is extraction (or, in specific early cases, crown amputation) under general anaesthetic, always guided by dental X-rays because much of the damage lies hidden below the gumline. Pain relief and a soft diet aid recovery; most cats eat comfortably again within days and are visibly brighter once the painful teeth are gone.
View Full Details →👂 Ear Infection (Otitis)
Inflammation and infection of the ear canal, usually caused by yeast or bacteria. Less common in cats than dogs, but very uncomfortable — and often a sign of an underlying problem such as ear mites or allergies.
Treatment: Treatment starts with your vet identifying what is growing in the ear — yeast, bacteria, or both — usually by examining a swab under the microscope. The canal is then thoroughly cleaned, and medicated ear drops (often combining an antibiotic or antifungal with an anti-inflammatory) are prescribed. Crucially, the vet also looks for and treats the underlying cause: ear mites, allergies, a polyp, or a foreign body. Deep or inner-ear infections may need oral medication and longer courses.
View Full Details →👁️ Cataracts
A clouding of the lens inside the eye that scatters light and blurs vision, and if left untreated can progress to blindness. Less common in cats than dogs, and when it appears is often the sign of another underlying condition.
Treatment: A vet will first confirm it truly is a cataract (a clouded lens) rather than the harmless bluish haze of ageing (nuclear sclerosis), and then search for an underlying cause such as inflammation, diabetes or injury. The only way to restore vision is surgery — phacoemulsification, in which an ophthalmologist breaks up and removes the cloudy lens by ultrasound and usually replaces it with an artificial one, the same technique used in people. Where surgery is not possible, treatment focuses on managing any underlying disease and controlling secondary inflammation (uveitis) or glaucoma with medication.
View Full Details →🎗️ Squamous Cell Carcinoma
One of the most common skin and mouth cancers in cats — a malignant, locally aggressive tumour that most often strikes sun-exposed white skin or the tissues of the mouth. Early treatment offers the best outcome, so any non-healing sore deserves prompt attention.
Treatment: Diagnosis is confirmed by a biopsy of the abnormal tissue. For skin (cutaneous) tumours caught early — such as those on the ear tips or nose — surgical removal, sometimes with the affected ear tips amputated, can be curative. Oral squamous cell carcinoma is far harder to treat because it invades bone and is usually advanced by the time it is found; options may include surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy, often aimed at slowing the disease and keeping the cat comfortable rather than curing it. A veterinary oncologist can tailor the plan, and good pain control and nutritional support are central to care.
View Full Details →⚡ Seizures & Epilepsy
A sudden burst of abnormal electrical activity in the brain that causes involuntary shaking, collapse or strange behaviour. A single seizure is frightening but not always an emergency; repeated or prolonged seizures always need veterinary attention.
Treatment: The first job is to find out why the seizures are happening. Your vet will take a full history and run blood tests, blood-pressure checks and often imaging (MRI) or a spinal-fluid tap to look for causes such as toxins, low blood sugar, liver or kidney disease, infection or a brain tumour. When an underlying cause is found it is treated directly. When no cause can be identified — true idiopathic epilepsy, which is less common in cats than in dogs — or when seizures are frequent or severe, long-term anti-seizure medication such as phenobarbital or levetiracetam is used to reduce how often and how badly they occur. Any seizure lasting more than about five minutes, or a cluster of seizures one after another (status epilepticus), is a genuine emergency needing immediate veterinary care.
View Full Details →🎀 Mammary Tumours
Lumps in the mammary (breast) tissue that in cats are malignant in the great majority of cases. Because feline mammary cancer spreads readily, finding and removing lumps early makes an enormous difference — and early spaying dramatically lowers the risk in the first place.
Treatment: Any mammary lump in a cat should be treated as potentially cancerous until proven otherwise. Treatment usually centres on surgery, and because feline mammary tumours are so often malignant, vets typically remove the entire affected mammary chain (a radical mastectomy) rather than just the lump, which lowers the chance of the cancer returning locally. The removed tissue is sent for biopsy to confirm the type and grade, and chest X-rays and lymph-node checks are used to see whether it has spread. Chemotherapy may be recommended after surgery for larger or higher-grade tumours. Outcome depends heavily on tumour size at the time of surgery — which is exactly why prompt action on a small lump matters so much.
View Full Details →🫁 Chylothorax
A build-up of chyle — a milky, fat-rich lymphatic fluid — inside the chest cavity, where it presses on the lungs and makes breathing difficult. Because the fluid squeezes the lungs from the outside, chylothorax can quickly become a breathing emergency and always needs urgent veterinary care.
Treatment: The immediate priority is to relieve the breathing distress by draining the fluid from the chest with a needle (thoracocentesis), which often brings dramatic relief. The drained fluid is analysed to confirm it is chyle and to hunt for an underlying cause. Because chylothorax is frequently secondary to another problem — heart disease, a chest tumour such as lymphoma or thymoma, heartworm, or trauma — a major part of treatment is finding and addressing that root cause. Supportive measures include a low-fat diet to reduce the volume of chyle produced and, in some cases, a supplement called rutin. Where the leak persists despite medical management, surgery to tie off the thoracic duct (often combined with other techniques) may be needed. Many idiopathic cases, where no cause is found, are the most frustrating to resolve.
View Full Details →👃 Nasopharyngeal Polyps
Benign, fleshy growths that spring from the lining of the middle ear or the Eustachian tube and push into the back of the nose and throat, or down the ear canal. Most common in young cats, they are not cancerous but can cause persistent noisy breathing, nasal discharge and ear problems until they are removed.
Treatment: A polyp is usually diagnosed by examining the back of the throat and ear canals under anaesthetic, sometimes with X-rays or a CT scan to see how far it extends into the middle ear. Many nasopharyngeal polyps can be removed by traction-avulsion — the vet grasps the polyp and gently but firmly pulls it free from its stalk. This often resolves the signs, but polyps that arise deep in the middle ear can regrow, and in those cases a more definitive surgery called a bulla osteotomy, which opens the bony ear chamber to remove the base of the polyp, gives a much lower recurrence rate. A short course of anti-inflammatory steroids is sometimes used to reduce swelling and lower the chance of return.
View Full Details →🪨 Bladder Stones (Urolithiasis)
Hard mineral stones that form in a cat's bladder, causing straining, bloody urine and — in male cats especially — the risk of a life-threatening blockage of the urethra.
Treatment: Treatment depends on the type of stone. Struvite stones can often be dissolved over several weeks with a special therapeutic diet that changes the urine's acidity, avoiding surgery altogether. Calcium oxalate and other stones cannot be dissolved and usually must be removed — most commonly by an operation to open the bladder (cystotomy), or sometimes by less invasive techniques that flush or extract small stones. A male cat with a complete urethral blockage is an emergency: the vet must pass a catheter under sedation to relieve it and treat the resulting toxin and potassium build-up. Long-term, a prescription diet and plenty of water intake are used to stop stones re-forming.
View Full Details →💩 Diarrhoea
Loose, watery or more frequent stools — a very common sign in cats that ranges from a passing upset to a warning of infection, parasites or a more serious underlying illness.
Treatment: Mild, short-lived diarrhoea in an otherwise well adult cat is often managed with simple supportive care: ensuring constant access to water, feeding a bland, easily digested diet for a few days, and sometimes a vet-recommended probiotic or fibre supplement to help firm the stool. Persistent or severe cases need a vet to find the cause — this may involve stool tests for parasites and bacteria, deworming, blood work, and treatment aimed at the underlying problem, whether that is a parasite, an infection, a food intolerance, or a condition such as inflammatory bowel disease or hyperthyroidism. Never give human anti-diarrhoeal medicines, as several are toxic to cats.
View Full Details →👁️ Uveitis (Inflammation Inside the Eye)
Painful inflammation of the eye's inner, blood-rich layer that is often the first visible sign of a serious body-wide illness.
Treatment: Treatment has two halves: calming the inflammation in the eye with topical steroid or anti-inflammatory drops (and sometimes drops that dilate the pupil to ease pain), and hunting down the underlying disease driving it. Blood tests for FeLV, FIV, FIP, toxoplasmosis and high blood pressure are usually run. Prompt care protects vision.
View Full Details →❄️ Seborrhea (Dandruff & Flaky Skin)
Flaky, scaly or greasy fur that is usually a symptom of another underlying problem rather than a disease in its own right.
Treatment: Because seborrhea is usually secondary, the real fix is finding and treating the underlying cause — parasite control for fleas or mites, an antifungal for ringworm or Malassezia, diet changes for allergies, or managing an internal disease. Symptom relief comes from medicated anti-seborrhoeic shampoos, omega-3 fatty-acid supplements, and better hydration and grooming.
View Full Details →🐱 Whisker Fatigue (Whisker Stress)
A proposed sensory overload caused when a cat's highly sensitive whiskers repeatedly brush the sides of deep food and water bowls.
Treatment: The remedy is refreshingly simple: switch to a shallow, wide bowl or a flat plate so the whiskers never touch the sides while the cat eats or drinks. A separate wide water dish, or a fountain, helps too. Much of the fussy-seeming behaviour linked to whisker fatigue resolves within days of changing the dish.
View Full Details →🤢 Chronic Vomiting
Repeated or long-standing vomiting that is a sign, not a diagnosis — from simple hairballs and diet issues to inflammatory bowel disease, kidney disease or hyperthyroidism.
Treatment: Treatment always aims at the underlying cause, so the vet's job is to find it. That may mean blood and urine tests (to check the kidneys, thyroid and liver), a faecal test for parasites, and often ultrasound to look at the stomach and intestines. Depending on the findings, management ranges from a hypoallergenic or easily-digested diet and anti-nausea medication to specific treatment for IBD, hyperthyroidism, kidney disease or, occasionally, intestinal lymphoma.
View Full Details →🐾 Pillow Foot (Plasma Cell Pododermatitis)
An uncommon immune-driven condition in which one or more of a cat's paw pads become soft, swollen and puffy — as if inflated like little pillows or cushions.
Treatment: Many mild cases are managed with immune-modulating medication — doxycycline (an antibiotic with immune effects) is a common first choice, sometimes alongside corticosteroids or other immunosuppressants. Some cats improve, relapse and improve again, and a few resolve on their own. Painful, ulcerated or bleeding pads, or ones that do not respond to medicine, may need surgical removal of the affected tissue. Because there is a link with FIV, testing for it is usually recommended.
View Full Details →🕷️ Ticks & Tick-borne Illness
Blood-feeding parasites that latch onto the skin and can transmit disease. Less common on cats than fleas, but a real risk for outdoor and hunting cats.
Treatment: Remove attached ticks promptly with a purpose-made tick hook or fine tweezers, grasping close to the skin and pulling straight out with steady pressure — never crush, twist, or burn the tick. Use only cat-safe parasite preventives from your vet. CRITICAL: never apply dog tick or flea products containing permethrin to a cat — it is highly toxic and can cause fatal tremors and seizures.
View Full Details →😿 Feline Idiopathic Cystitis (FIC)
Painful inflammation of the bladder with no detectable infection or stones — the single most common cause of lower urinary signs in cats, and strongly stress-driven.
Treatment: Most flare-ups are self-limiting and settle within 5–7 days. The mainstays are pain relief, dramatically increasing water intake (wet food, fountains), and reducing stress. Any male cat straining but passing no urine is a medical emergency — a blockage can be fatal within 24–48 hours.
View Full Details →🐜 Flea Allergy Dermatitis
The single most common skin allergy in cats — an over-reaction to proteins in flea saliva, so that even one or two bites trigger intense, prolonged itching far out of proportion to the number of fleas present.
Treatment: The cornerstone is rigorous, year-round flea control on every pet in the home, using a vet-recommended product, plus treating the environment where flea eggs and larvae live. For the allergic reaction itself, vets may prescribe a short course of anti-inflammatory medication (such as steroids) to break the itch cycle, and antibiotics if the skin has become infected from scratching.
View Full Details →👁️ Feline Chlamydiosis (Chlamydia felis)
A bacterial infection caused by Chlamydia felis and one of the leading causes of persistent conjunctivitis in cats — especially kittens — producing sore, weepy, swollen eyes that often start in one eye and spread to the other.
Treatment: Chlamydiosis responds well to antibiotics, most often a course of oral doxycycline given for several weeks — long enough to fully clear the organism, as stopping early can allow relapse. Topical eye ointment may be used alongside. Because the bacterium spreads readily between cats, all cats in the household are usually treated at the same time.
View Full Details →📈 Acromegaly (Hypersomatotropism)
A hormonal disorder of older cats in which a benign tumour of the pituitary gland pours out excess growth hormone. It is an under-recognised cause of diabetes that resists treatment, and over time it slowly enlarges the head, paws, and internal organs.
Treatment: The most effective treatment targets the pituitary tumour directly — either radiation therapy or, at specialist centres, surgical removal of the gland (hypophysectomy), which can resolve both the acromegaly and the associated diabetes. Where advanced treatment is not possible, care focuses on managing the diabetes with high, carefully adjusted insulin doses and treating the knock-on heart and kidney disease.
View Full Details →🩹 Cat-Bite Abscess
A pocket of pus under the skin, usually from another cat's bite during a fight — one of the most common reasons outdoor cats need urgent vet care.
Treatment: The vet lances and flushes the abscess and often places a temporary drain, then prescribes antibiotics and pain relief. Most cats improve dramatically within 24–48 hours of drainage. Deep or recurrent abscesses may need further investigation, and any biting cat prompts testing for FeLV and FIV.
View Full Details →🔴 Feline Miliary Dermatitis
Not a disease in itself but a skin-reaction pattern — a scattering of tiny, crusty, millet-seed-like bumps, most often caused by flea-bite allergy.
Treatment: Treatment targets the underlying cause. Rigorous flea control is the first step, since flea-bite allergy is by far the commonest trigger. Vets may also use anti-inflammatory medication to break the itch cycle, treat any secondary infection, and investigate food or environmental allergies if fleas are ruled out.
View Full Details →🩸 Portosystemic Shunt (Liver Shunt)
An abnormal blood vessel that bypasses the liver, allowing toxins to build up in the bloodstream — most often a congenital defect seen in young cats.
Treatment: Definitive treatment is surgical closure of the abnormal vessel, which carries an excellent long-term prognosis in suitable cases. Before and instead of surgery, cats are stabilised medically with a protein-controlled diet, lactulose to reduce toxin absorption from the gut, and antibiotics to lower toxin-producing gut bacteria.
View Full Details →🐈⬛ Notoedric Mange (Feline Scabies)
A intensely itchy, highly contagious skin disease caused by the Notoedres cati mite — starting on the ears and face and spreading rapidly if untreated.
Treatment: Highly treatable with modern vet-prescribed anti-parasitic medications (such as selamectin or other macrocyclic lactones), usually given as spot-on or systemic treatments repeated over several weeks. Secondary skin infections are treated alongside, and the environment and all in-contact animals must be treated together.
View Full Details →🍄 Cryptococcosis (Fungal Infection)
The most common systemic fungal infection of cats — caught from the environment and typically starting in the nose, causing chronic sneezing and a firm swelling over the bridge of the nose.
Treatment: Treated with a prolonged course of antifungal medication (such as itraconazole or fluconazole), often continued for many months until testing confirms the infection has cleared. Larger accessible lesions are sometimes reduced surgically. Treatment requires patience and consistent monitoring but is frequently successful.
View Full Details →🫁 Feline Lungworm
A parasitic worm (Aelurostrongylus abstrusus) that lodges in the lungs, causing a persistent cough and laboured breathing — often mistaken for asthma.
Treatment: Anti-parasitic drugs (such as fenbendazole or spot-on products active against lungworm) clear the infection, sometimes alongside anti-inflammatories to calm the airways. Most otherwise-healthy cats recover fully with prompt treatment.
View Full Details →🦠 Tritrichomonas Infection
A single-celled intestinal parasite (Tritrichomonas foetus) that causes stubborn, foul-smelling, often long-lasting diarrhoea, especially in young cats from crowded environments.
Treatment: The antibiotic ronidazole is currently the only reliably effective drug, given under close veterinary supervision because of the risk of side effects. Supportive care, a highly digestible diet and treatment of any co-infections help the gut recover.
View Full Details →🍄 Sporotrichosis
A fungal infection that causes non-healing skin sores and nodules, and one of the few cat diseases that can spread readily to people — making prompt treatment and hygiene essential.
Treatment: Long courses of antifungal medication (usually itraconazole), often for months, until well after the lesions heal. Some cats need combination therapy. Handling should be done with gloves because of the risk to people.
View Full Details →🪱 Cuterebra (Warble) Infestation
A seasonal infestation in which the larva of a botfly burrows under a cat's skin, forming a lump with a breathing hole — most often on the head or neck of outdoor cats in late summer.
Treatment: The larva must be removed intact by a vet — squeezing it at home risks rupturing it and triggering a severe reaction. After removal the wound is cleaned and, if infected, treated with antibiotics. Most cats heal quickly.
View Full Details →🦵 Patellar Luxation
A kneecap that slips out of its normal groove, causing an intermittent skip or hop in a hind leg. Often mild in cats, but can point to an underlying joint problem.
Treatment: Mild cases often need only weight control, joint support and monitoring. More severe or painful luxations may require surgery to deepen the groove and realign the kneecap. Pain relief and physiotherapy help in the meantime.
View Full Details →😾 Feline Gingivostomatitis
A severe, painful inflammation of the mouth and gums in which the cat's own immune system over-reacts to plaque and dental bacteria, leaving the soft tissues raw, red and ulcerated.
Treatment: There is no instant cure. The single most effective treatment is full-mouth or near-full-mouth tooth extraction, which removes the surfaces plaque clings to and resolves or greatly improves the majority of cats. Pain relief, anti-inflammatory medication and sometimes immune-modulating drugs support the mouth before and after surgery.
View Full Details →🤧 Feline Herpesvirus (FVR)
The most common cause of feline upper respiratory infection — a highly contagious virus behind sneezing, runny eyes and 'cat flu' that, once caught, stays in the body for life.
Treatment: There is no cure for the virus itself; treatment supports the cat through flare-ups. This means keeping the eyes and nose clean, encouraging eating with warm, aromatic food, and using antiviral eye drops, the amino acid L-lysine, or antibiotics for secondary bacterial infections as directed by a vet. Fluids and hospitalisation may be needed for severe cases.
View Full Details →🧠 Feline Cognitive Dysfunction
An age-related decline in brain function — the feline equivalent of dementia — that causes disorientation, changed sleep patterns and night-time yowling in senior cats.
Treatment: There is no cure, but the condition can be managed to keep older cats comfortable. Vets may recommend diets and supplements rich in antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids, environmental enrichment, predictable routines, and in some cases medication to ease anxiety. Treating any co-existing pain or illness often improves the signs markedly.
View Full Details →☠️ Permethrin Poisoning (Dog Flea Treatment)
One of the most common and most preventable feline emergencies — a dog spot-on flea treatment applied to a cat causes violent tremors and seizures, and needs immediate veterinary care.
Treatment: This is an emergency: go to a vet immediately, do not wait to see whether signs settle. Treatment involves washing the product off with lukewarm water and a mild degreasing detergent, controlling tremors and seizures with medication, intravenous fluids, temperature control, and in severe cases an intravenous lipid infusion that helps mop the drug out of the bloodstream. Most cats recover fully with prompt treatment, but untreated cases can be fatal.
View Full Details →🧪 Antifreeze (Ethylene Glycol) Poisoning
A tiny taste of sweet-tasting antifreeze can destroy a cat's kidneys within days. It is one of the few poisonings where every hour of delay dramatically reduces the chance of survival.
Treatment: Emergency veterinary treatment is the only option, and it is time-critical. Vets use an antidote — ethanol or fomepizole — that blocks the liver enzyme converting ethylene glycol into the crystals that wreck the kidneys, alongside aggressive intravenous fluids and blood monitoring. The antidote works best within about three hours of ingestion and is of very limited value once kidney failure has set in, at which point dialysis is often the only remaining option.
View Full Details →🙀 Anal Gland Impaction
Blocked scent glands either side of the anus cause scooting, over-grooming under the tail and obvious discomfort — and if left, can develop into a painful abscess.
Treatment: A vet or veterinary nurse can express the glands manually to relieve the blockage, which usually brings quick relief. Infected or abscessed glands need flushing, antibiotics and pain relief, and a ruptured abscess is treated as an open wound. Cats with recurrent problems may benefit from a higher-fibre diet to bulk the stool, weight management, and treatment of any underlying skin allergy or diarrhoea. Surgical removal of the glands is a last resort for severe, repeatedly infected cases.
View Full Details →🍌 Hypokalaemia (Low Blood Potassium)
A potassium deficiency that leaves a cat weak and floppy — most famously causing the drooping, ventroflexed neck posture seen in some cats with kidney disease.
Treatment: Treatment is potassium supplementation, given by mouth as a gel or powder for mild cases and intravenously, slowly and with close monitoring, for severe ones. Because hypokalaemia is almost always secondary to something else, the underlying cause must be treated too — most often chronic kidney disease, but sometimes prolonged vomiting or diarrhoea, diabetes, or an aldosterone-producing adrenal tumour. Muscle strength usually improves strikingly within a day or two of correcting the deficit.
View Full Details →💉 Feline Injection-Site Sarcoma
A rare but aggressive tumour that can develop at the site of an injection, months or even years later. Early surgery gives by far the best chance of a cure.
Treatment: Treatment is aggressive surgical removal with wide margins of healthy tissue around and beneath the tumour, ideally performed by a specialist surgeon at the first attempt — repeat surgeries after an incomplete first excision have markedly poorer outcomes. Radiotherapy before or after surgery is commonly used to reduce the chance of regrowth, and chemotherapy may be added in higher-risk cases. These tumours regrow locally far more often than they spread, so getting the first operation right is the single most important factor.
View Full Details →🫀 Taurine Deficiency
Cats cannot make enough taurine themselves. Without it in the diet, the heart muscle weakens and the retina degenerates — both largely preventable, and one of them reversible.
Treatment: The treatment is taurine supplementation together with a switch to a complete, life-stage-appropriate commercial cat food. Heart muscle function often improves dramatically over six to twelve weeks of supplementation, and many cats with dilated cardiomyopathy from taurine deficiency recover substantially — an unusually hopeful outcome for a heart condition. Retinal degeneration, by contrast, is permanent: supplementation halts further loss but cannot restore vision already gone. Cats in heart failure also need diuretics and supportive cardiac medication.
View Full Details →💊 Paracetamol (Acetaminophen) Poisoning
Cats cannot process paracetamol safely. A single ordinary human tablet can be fatal, and there is no safe dose at any weight — this is always an emergency.
Treatment: This is treated as an emergency at a veterinary practice, and there is nothing useful an owner can do at home. Vets may induce vomiting or give activated charcoal if the exposure was very recent, then give the antidote acetylcysteine, which restores the liver's depleted supply of protective glutathione. Supportive care includes intravenous fluids, oxygen, sometimes a blood transfusion for severe methaemoglobinaemia, and liver protectants such as SAMe or silybin. Outcomes depend heavily on how quickly treatment begins. Never attempt to make a cat vomit at home.
View Full Details →🧵 Linear Foreign Body (String Ingestion)
Swallowed string, thread, tinsel or ribbon can saw through the intestine as it bunches up. It is a surgical emergency — and you must never pull on a thread you can see.
Treatment: Almost all confirmed linear foreign bodies require surgery, and the sooner it happens the better the outlook. A vet will assess the cat, often with x-rays and ultrasound, and may attempt endoscopic retrieval if the material is still in the stomach and has not yet anchored. Once the intestine has plicated, surgery is needed to remove the material — sometimes through several small incisions along the gut, and occasionally with removal of a damaged section of bowel. Cats also need intravenous fluids, pain relief and, if the gut has perforated, treatment for septic peritonitis.
View Full Details →🐈 Dystocia (Difficult Birth)
Labour that stalls or fails to progress. Most queens give birth without help, but when things go wrong they go wrong quickly and veterinary intervention is needed.
Treatment: Treatment depends entirely on the cause and must be decided by a vet after examining the queen, usually with x-rays or ultrasound to count and assess the kittens. Where the problem is weak contractions in an otherwise unobstructed birth canal, medical management with calcium and oxytocin under veterinary supervision may restart labour — these drugs are dangerous if an obstruction is present, which is why they must never be given at home. Where a kitten is stuck, malpositioned or too large, or the queen is exhausted or unwell, a caesarean section is required. Prompt surgery generally gives good outcomes for both queen and kittens.
View Full Details →🐟 Thiamine (Vitamin B1) Deficiency
A dietary shortfall of vitamin B1 that produces alarming neurological signs — and which, treated promptly, can reverse almost as dramatically as it appeared.
Treatment: Treatment is thiamine supplementation, given by injection at first and then by mouth, alongside an immediate change to a complete, properly balanced cat food. The response is often striking: cats caught in the early stages can improve within hours to a couple of days, and even those with marked neurological signs frequently recover substantially. Cats that have reached the stage of persistent seizures or collapse have a poorer outlook, and some are left with residual deficits, which is why early recognition matters so much. Supportive care with fluids and assisted feeding is often needed while the cat recovers its appetite.
View Full Details →🦴 Hypercalcaemia (High Blood Calcium)
Raised blood calcium is rarely a disease in itself — it is a signal. Finding out what is driving it matters as much as bringing the level down.
Treatment: Management has two parts: lowering the calcium and treating whatever is causing it. Vets typically begin with intravenous fluid therapy, which dilutes the blood and promotes calcium excretion through the kidneys, and may add other medications for severe or symptomatic cases. The lasting solution, though, depends on the cause — chemotherapy for lymphoma, surgery for a parathyroid tumour, decontamination and specific treatment for cholecalciferol rodenticide, or dietary and medical management for idiopathic hypercalcaemia. Because the causes are so different in outlook and treatment, diagnostic testing is not an optional extra here; it is the whole point.
View Full Details →🫄 Megaoesophagus
A stretched, weakened food pipe that can no longer push food into the stomach. Cats regurgitate whole meals, and the real danger is what ends up in the lungs.
Treatment: There is usually no cure for the dilated oesophagus itself, so treatment is about working with gravity and treating the underlying cause. Feeding in an upright position — a purpose-built Bailey chair, a raised platform, or simply holding the cat vertically — and keeping the cat upright for fifteen to thirty minutes after each meal lets food slide down under its own weight. Food consistency matters and is worth experimenting with: some cats manage best on a smooth slurry, others on small meatballs that hold together. Meals should be small and frequent. If an underlying cause is found, treating it is the priority — surgery for a vascular ring anomaly in a kitten, medication for myasthenia gravis, or thyroid supplementation for hypothyroidism. Aspiration pneumonia, when it occurs, needs prompt antibiotics and often hospitalisation with oxygen support. Some cats need a feeding tube placed directly into the stomach to bypass the problem entirely.
View Full Details →❄️ Cheyletiellosis (Walking Dandruff)
A large surface mite that produces heavy scurf along the back — and if you look closely, the dandruff appears to move.
Treatment: The mite responds well to modern parasiticides, and several of the routine spot-on and oral products used for fleas — selamectin, moxidectin, fluralaner and similar — clear it, though most are used off-label for this purpose and dosing should come from your vet. Treatment is repeated over six to eight weeks to catch mites hatching from eggs, which are glued to hair shafts and are not killed by the first application. Critically, every cat, dog and rabbit in the household must be treated at the same time, whether or not they show signs, because untreated in-contact animals reinfest the group indefinitely. Bedding should be washed hot or replaced, and the environment vacuumed thoroughly, since mites can survive off the host for around ten days. Medicated shampoos help remove scale but do not replace parasiticide treatment.
View Full Details →🧂 Hyperaldosteronism (Conn's Syndrome)
An adrenal tumour floods the body with aldosterone, driving potassium down and blood pressure up. Sudden blindness or a drooping neck are often the first clue.
Treatment: Emergency stabilisation comes first: potassium supplementation, given intravenously in a severely weak cat and orally thereafter, and blood pressure control with amlodipine. Spironolactone, which blocks aldosterone's effect on the kidney, is the mainstay of medical management and often allows potassium supplementation to be reduced. For cats with a single adrenal tumour and no evidence of spread, surgical removal of the affected gland is potentially curative and is the treatment of choice where an experienced surgical team is available — it is technically demanding surgery, given the gland's proximity to major blood vessels, but outcomes in well-selected cats are genuinely good, with many living for years afterwards. Cats with bilateral adrenal enlargement, spread to other organs, or significant concurrent kidney disease are usually managed medically instead, which controls signs well but does not cure.
View Full Details →🫁 Pyothorax (Pus in the Chest)
Infected fluid accumulating in the chest cavity, compressing the lungs. It is a true emergency, but with aggressive drainage most cats survive.
Treatment: Cats presenting in respiratory distress are stabilised with oxygen and minimal handling before anything else — a cat struggling to breathe can be tipped over the edge by restraint alone. Fluid is then drained from the chest by needle, which often produces dramatic and immediate relief. Definitive treatment means placing indwelling chest drains, usually on both sides, and flushing the chest cavity with warmed sterile saline repeatedly over several days until the fluid returns clear. Broad-spectrum intravenous antibiotics start immediately and are refined once culture results identify the organisms, with the total course typically running four to six weeks. Intravenous fluids, pain relief and nutritional support are all part of the picture, since these cats are usually dehydrated and have not eaten in days. Surgery is reserved for cats that fail to respond to drainage or that have a discrete abscess, a foreign body such as a grass awn, or a lung lobe that needs removing.
View Full Details →🔇 Congenital Deafness in White Cats
The gene that produces a white coat and blue eyes can also stop the inner ear developing. Affected cats are born deaf and stay deaf — but adapt beautifully.
Treatment: Congenital deafness cannot be treated, reversed or aided — the sensory cells of the inner ear degenerate in the first weeks of life and do not regenerate, and hearing aids and implants are not a practical option in cats. What matters instead is management, and it is simple. A deaf cat should live indoors or in a securely enclosed garden, because it cannot hear traffic, dogs or an approaching person. Hand signals work extremely well and most cats learn a handful of them quickly, particularly a signal for food. Vibration gets attention reliably — a firm tap on the floor near the cat carries through the surface. Approach a sleeping deaf cat by letting it see you first, or by gently moving the surface it is lying on rather than touching it directly. Microchipping matters more than usual, since a lost deaf cat cannot hear you searching for it.
View Full Details →👁️ Progressive Retinal Atrophy (PRA)
An inherited degeneration of the retina that slowly steals sight, starting with night vision. Painless, untreatable — and remarkably well tolerated.
Treatment: There is no treatment that halts or reverses the degeneration. Antioxidant supplements are sometimes suggested but no product has been shown to change the course of the disease in cats, and owners should be wary of anything marketed as a cure. What genuinely helps is environmental management, and cats do extremely well with it: keep furniture, litter trays, food and water in fixed positions, avoid rearranging rooms, block off stairs and balconies if the cat is unsteady, and use scent and texture cues — a different mat by the litter tray, for instance — to help with navigation. Talk to the cat as you approach so it is not startled. Confirming the diagnosis still matters even though nothing can be done about it, because it rules out the causes of vision loss that are treatable and urgent, particularly hypertensive retinal detachment and taurine deficiency.
View Full Details →🦠 Coccidiosis
A single-celled intestinal parasite that causes watery, sometimes bloody diarrhoea in kittens. Adults often carry it silently.
Treatment: Sulfadimethoxine has long been the standard treatment, given over a course of one to three weeks, and works by halting the parasite's reproduction while the cat's own immune system clears the infection. Ponazuril and toltrazuril are increasingly used and have the practical advantage of a much shorter course, often a single dose repeated once. Supportive care matters as much as the drug in small kittens, where fluid losses are dangerous: subcutaneous or intravenous fluids, a highly digestible diet, and careful attention to warmth and weight. Because the infective stage survives in the environment, treatment must be paired with hygiene — litter trays scrubbed and changed daily, bedding washed hot, and faeces removed promptly. Every kitten in an affected litter is treated together, whether or not it has signs.
View Full Details →🧶 Pica (Eating Non-Food Items)
The persistent eating of wool, plastic, cables or litter. Part behaviour, part medicine — and a genuine risk of intestinal obstruction.
Treatment: Management runs on two tracks at once, because the causes usually do. Medically, a vet will look for the conditions that drive appetite for odd substances — anaemia, hyperthyroidism, diabetes, intestinal disease, parasites and dietary deficiency — and treat what is found. Behaviourally, the approach is to remove opportunity while adding stimulation: put target items away rigorously, since a determined wool-eater will find a single sock, and use bitter-tasting deterrent sprays on cables and furniture. Increase daily interactive play, add puzzle feeders so that foraging takes real effort, and split food into several small meals if hunger appears to be a trigger. Adding safe plant material — a pot of cat grass — gives a legitimate outlet for cats fixated on chewing greenery. For severe, compulsive cases in which the cat is at real risk, veterinary behaviourists sometimes prescribe medication such as clomipramine or fluoxetine alongside the behavioural plan.
View Full Details →🚨 Urethral Obstruction (Blocked Cat)
A life-threatening emergency in which the urethra becomes blocked, usually in male cats, so no urine can pass. Every hour counts.
Treatment: Immediate veterinary care. The cat is stabilised, sedated, and a urinary catheter is passed to relieve the blockage. Intravenous fluids correct dehydration and dangerous potassium levels. Most cats stay hospitalised for two to three days.
View Full Details →🦋 Hypothyroidism
An underactive thyroid producing too little thyroid hormone. Rare in cats and usually the result of treatment for the far more common hyperthyroidism.
Treatment: Daily oral thyroid hormone replacement (levothyroxine), with periodic blood tests to fine-tune the dose. Where hypothyroidism follows over-treatment of hyperthyroidism, adjusting the original therapy often resolves it.
View Full Details →🩸 Feline Infectious Anaemia (Haemoplasmosis)
A bacterial infection of the red blood cells that destroys them, causing anaemia. Spread mainly by fleas and by cat bites.
Treatment: A course of antibiotics (usually doxycycline) to reduce the bacterial load, sometimes with corticosteroids to slow red-cell destruction. Severely anaemic cats may need a blood transfusion. Cats can remain carriers even after recovery.
View Full Details →🔬 Demodicosis (Demodex Mange)
A skin disease caused by microscopic Demodex mites living in the hair follicles. Uncommon in cats and often a clue to an underlying illness.
Treatment: Lime-sulphur dips, or modern isoxazoline parasiticides prescribed off-label, clear most cases. Because feline demodicosis can signal a hidden problem, the vet will also look for underlying disease such as FeLV, FIV, diabetes or hyperthyroidism.
View Full Details →🧅 Onion & Garlic Toxicity
All members of the allium family — onion, garlic, leek, chive and shallot — damage feline red blood cells and can cause dangerous anaemia.
Treatment: There is no antidote. If ingestion is recent the vet may induce vomiting and give activated charcoal. Care is then supportive — intravenous fluids, oxygen, and in severe anaemia a blood transfusion. Early treatment greatly improves the outcome.
View Full Details →👁️ Entropion (Inward-Rolling Eyelid)
An eyelid that rolls inward so the lashes and fur rub against the surface of the eye, causing constant irritation and, eventually, corneal damage.
Treatment: Mild irritation is managed with lubricating drops and antibiotic ointment while the cause is investigated, but a lid that genuinely rolls inward will keep rubbing until the anatomy is corrected. The definitive treatment is a short surgical procedure — most commonly a Hotz-Celsus technique, in which a crescent of skin is removed just below the lid margin so that closing the wound rolls the lid back out to its normal position. Any secondary corneal ulcer is treated alongside. When entropion is secondary to painful squinting (spastic entropion) rather than lid conformation, treating the underlying eye pain may resolve it without surgery.
View Full Details →🤧 Chronic Rhinitis ("Chronic Snuffles")
Long-term inflammation of the nasal passages that leaves a cat permanently congested, sneezing and snuffly — usually the legacy of an earlier severe cat-flu infection.
Treatment: Chronic rhinitis is managed rather than cured. Courses of antibiotics such as doxycycline treat the secondary bacterial infections that flare on top of the damaged tissue, and are often needed intermittently for life. Steam therapy — sitting the cat in a steamy bathroom for ten minutes twice daily — loosens secretions and is one of the most useful things an owner can do. Saline nasal drops, appetite stimulants, and warming food to release its aroma all help. Some cats benefit from anti-inflammatory doses of steroids, and a minority need advanced imaging and rhinoscopy to rule out polyps, foreign bodies or fungal infection.
View Full Details →💗 Dilated Cardiomyopathy (DCM)
A weakening and stretching of the heart muscle that leaves the pump too flabby to push blood forward — historically a taurine-deficiency disease, and now rare but serious.
Treatment: Treatment begins with stabilisation — oxygen, diuretics such as furosemide to clear fluid from the lungs, and drainage of chest fluid if breathing is compromised. Pimobendan is used to improve the strength of contraction, along with an ACE inhibitor. Every cat with DCM should have a blood taurine level measured, because taurine-responsive cases improve dramatically on supplementation, often with measurable recovery of heart function within four to six weeks and a genuinely good long-term outlook. Clot prevention with clopidogrel is usually added, since a dilated, poorly-emptying heart is a strong risk factor for aortic thromboembolism.
View Full Details →🗣️ Laryngeal Paralysis
Failure of the cartilages of the voice box to open properly on inhalation, producing a hoarse or absent voice and, in bad cases, dangerous airway obstruction.
Treatment: Emergency cases need sedation, oxygen and cooling — panicking makes the airway swell and worsens the obstruction, so calm sedation is genuinely therapeutic. Mild cases in cats can be managed conservatively with weight control, harnesses rather than collars, avoidance of heat and exertion, and treatment of any underlying disease. The surgical option is a unilateral arytenoid lateralisation, or "tie-back", which permanently holds one side of the larynx open. It relieves the obstruction reliably but leaves the airway less protected, so aspiration pneumonia becomes a lifelong risk that owners must understand before consenting.
View Full Details →🩹 Pemphigus Foliaceus
The most common autoimmune skin disease of cats, in which the immune system attacks the glue holding skin cells together, producing crusts and pustules on the face, ears and paw pads.
Treatment: Diagnosis requires a skin biopsy, and treatment is immunosuppression. Corticosteroids — usually prednisolone or triamcinolone — are the first line, given at high doses to gain control and then tapered slowly to the lowest dose that keeps the disease quiet. Cats that cannot be controlled on steroids alone, or that develop side effects such as diabetes, are given a second agent such as ciclosporin or chlorambucil. Secondary bacterial infection of the crusted skin is treated with antibiotics, and gentle bathing softens and lifts crusts. Most cats need lifelong medication, though a proportion can eventually be weaned off entirely.
View Full Details →🔬 Mast Cell Tumour
A tumour arising from mast cells, the immune cells that store histamine. In cats it usually appears as a small firm skin lump, but it can also affect the spleen and intestine.
Treatment: Skin mast cell tumours in cats are usually treated by surgical removal, and the outlook after complete excision is good — considerably better than for the equivalent tumour in dogs. Splenic mast cell disease is treated by removing the spleen, which sounds drastic but is remarkably well tolerated and often gives long survival times even when the disease has spread to other organs. Intestinal mast cell tumours are the most aggressive form and carry the poorest prognosis. Supportive medication almost always includes antihistamines and a stomach protectant such as omeprazole, because histamine released by the tumour cells causes gastric ulceration.
View Full Details →🦴 Osteochondrodysplasia (Scottish Fold Disease)
An inherited cartilage and bone disorder inseparable from the folded ear of the Scottish Fold — the same gene that folds the ear deforms cartilage throughout the skeleton.
Treatment: There is no cure and no way to reverse the abnormal bone growth. Management is pain relief for life: NSAIDs licensed for cats such as meloxicam or robenacoxib, the anti-nerve-growth-factor injection frotenamab or its equivalents where available, gabapentin for neuropathic pain, and joint supplements. Weight control is critical, as is a home adapted with steps, low-sided litter trays and soft bedding. Radiation therapy of the worst-affected joints has been used palliatively in some cases. Surgical fusion or removal of severely affected tail vertebrae is occasionally performed. Affected cats should never be bred from.
View Full Details →🍫 Chocolate Toxicity
Theobromine and caffeine in chocolate are stimulants cats cannot clear efficiently, causing tremors, racing heart rhythms and seizures at surprisingly small doses.
Treatment: There is no antidote. If ingestion was recent, a vet may induce vomiting and give repeated doses of activated charcoal, which is particularly valuable because theobromine is reabsorbed from the gut and recirculated. Treatment is then supportive and can be prolonged: intravenous fluids to promote excretion, beta-blockers or lidocaine to control dangerous heart rhythms, diazepam or methocarbamol for tremors, and anticonvulsants for seizures. A urinary catheter is often placed, because theobromine is reabsorbed across the bladder wall and draining the bladder regularly shortens the course of the poisoning.
View Full Details →👁️ Corneal Sequestrum
A brown or black plaque of dead tissue embedded in the clear surface of the eye. It is almost unique to cats, and it is one of the few eye problems where the appearance alone is close to diagnostic.
Treatment: Small, quiet sequestra are sometimes managed medically and monitored, since a proportion will loosen and slough out on their own over weeks to months — though the process is uncomfortable and leaves a defect that must then heal. Most vets recommend surgical removal, a lamellar keratectomy, in which the dead tissue is dissected out under an operating microscope. Deeper lesions may need the defect covered with a graft — a conjunctival flap, a corneal graft or a biological implant — to restore strength to the eye wall. Underlying causes are treated at the same time, which usually means managing feline herpesvirus, correcting entropion, or addressing a poor tear film. Pain relief matters throughout, and cats are usually sent home in a buff collar to prevent rubbing.
View Full Details →🍄 Histoplasmosis
A fungal infection caught by inhaling spores from soil enriched with bird or bat droppings. In cats it rarely stays in the lungs — by the time it is diagnosed it has usually spread through the body.
Treatment: Antifungal therapy is the mainstay, and it is a long commitment rather than a course. Itraconazole is the usual first choice in cats, given daily for a minimum of four to six months and frequently longer — treatment continues for at least a month past the resolution of all clinical signs, and stopping early is a common cause of relapse. Fluconazole is used where the eyes or nervous system are involved, since it penetrates those sites better; amphotericin B is reserved for severely ill cats needing rapid control. Liver values are monitored throughout, because azole antifungals can be hepatotoxic and cats sometimes go off their food on them. Supportive care carries many patients through the first weeks: oxygen for those struggling to breathe, appetite stimulants, assisted feeding, and occasionally transfusion for severe anaemia.
View Full Details →🤧 Bordetella Infection
A bacterial respiratory infection that spreads rapidly wherever cats are housed together. Mild in most adults, genuinely dangerous in young kittens, where it can descend into pneumonia.
Treatment: Most otherwise healthy adult cats recover with supportive care alone: warmth, encouragement to eat strongly aromatic food, steam from a bathroom to loosen nasal congestion, and gentle cleaning of discharge from the nose and eyes. Where treatment is indicated, doxycycline is the usual first-line antibiotic and is generally given for one to three weeks — it should be followed by water or food to prevent oesophageal irritation, which is a real risk with tablet forms in cats. Kittens or adults showing signs of lower airway disease need more: hospitalisation, intravenous fluids, oxygen and nebulisation may all be required, since bronchopneumonia in a young kitten can progress within hours. Antibiotics should be chosen on the basis of culture where an outbreak is being managed in a shelter or breeding colony.
View Full Details →😖 Feline Orofacial Pain Syndrome
A neuropathic pain disorder of the face and mouth, seen most often in Burmese cats. Episodes of exaggerated licking, chewing and pawing at the mouth can escalate to self-inflicted injury.
Treatment: The first step is always to find and treat any dental or oral disease, because the syndrome is very frequently set off by a painful mouth — a full oral examination under anaesthetic with dental radiographs is the appropriate starting point, and resolving tooth resorption or periodontal disease alone settles a proportion of cases. Where signs persist, this is treated as neuropathic pain rather than inflammation, which means conventional anti-inflammatories are usually disappointing. Gabapentin is widely used and often effective; other options include amitriptyline, phenobarbital and, in refractory cases, drugs such as carbamazepine, all under close veterinary supervision. Cats in a severe episode may need sedation and a buster collar to prevent them from injuring their own tongue. Reducing stress in the household matters more than it sounds, since episodes cluster around change and anxiety.
View Full Details →☠️ Rodenticide Poisoning
Rat and mouse poison is not one substance but several, each with a different mechanism, a different antidote and a different timescale. Identifying which one matters more than almost anything else.
Treatment: Everything depends on which class of poison was eaten, which is why the packaging is the single most valuable thing you can bring to the clinic. For anticoagulant baits, vitamin K1 is a genuine antidote and is given for three to four weeks, with a clotting test a couple of days after the last dose to confirm it is safe to stop; cats bleeding actively may need plasma or a whole blood transfusion first. Bromethalin has no antidote — treatment is decontamination if the cat is presented early, repeated activated charcoal, and intensive management of brain swelling with mannitol and anticonvulsants, and outcomes are poor once neurological signs are established. Cholecalciferol toxicity is treated by lowering calcium with intravenous fluids, diuretics, steroids and drugs such as bisphosphonates, often over several days of hospitalisation. In every case, a cat presented within a couple of hours of eating bait can be decontaminated before absorption, which changes the prognosis entirely.
View Full Details →💊 Ibuprofen & Human NSAID Toxicity
Cats lack the liver machinery to process human anti-inflammatories, and a single tablet given with good intentions can cause stomach ulceration and kidney failure.
Treatment: If the tablet was given within the last hour or two, decontamination at the clinic comes first, followed by activated charcoal — often repeated, since ibuprofen recirculates through the gut. After that, the priority is protecting the two organs at risk. Aggressive intravenous fluid therapy for at least 48 to 72 hours maintains blood flow to the kidneys and is the single most important intervention. Stomach protection is given in parallel: a proton pump inhibitor such as omeprazole, sucralfate to coat existing ulceration, and misoprostol, which specifically counteracts the mechanism by which these drugs damage the stomach lining. Anti-sickness medication, pain relief from a class that is safe in cats, and blood transfusion for significant gastrointestinal haemorrhage may all be needed. Kidney values are rechecked over the following days, because injury can declare itself late.
View Full Details →🪟 High-Rise Syndrome
The pattern of injuries cats suffer from falling out of windows and off balconies — preventable trauma that spikes in warm weather.
Treatment: Any fall from height is a veterinary emergency, even if the cat seems fine. Vets check for chest trauma, a split palate, broken limbs and internal bleeding. Treatment ranges from oxygen and pain relief to surgery for fractures.
View Full Details →☀️ Solar Dermatitis (Sunburn)
Sun damage to thinly-furred, pale skin — typically the ear tips and nose. Repeated damage can progress to skin cancer, so it is worth taking seriously.
Treatment: Keep the cat out of direct sun and use a vet-approved, pet-safe sun protection on vulnerable areas. Persistent or ulcerated lesions need veterinary assessment, as chronic solar damage can progress to squamous cell carcinoma requiring surgery.
View Full Details →💧 Dehydration
A shortfall of body water and electrolytes, common in cats because their desert-adapted thirst drive is weak. It is often a symptom of another problem as much as a condition in itself.
Treatment: Mild cases often improve by encouraging fluid intake — offering wet food, adding water or unsalted broth to meals, and providing fresh water in wide bowls or a fountain. Moderate to severe dehydration is a veterinary matter: cats may need fluids under the skin or intravenously, plus investigation of the underlying cause such as kidney disease, diabetes, vomiting or heatstroke.
View Full Details →🪮 Psychogenic Alopecia (Stress Over-Grooming)
A pattern of hair loss caused not by disease of the skin itself but by over-grooming — a cat licking, chewing or plucking its own fur, usually in response to stress, anxiety or boredom.
Treatment: The first and most important step is a vet visit to rule out physical causes of itching — fleas, mites, ringworm, allergies and pain can all drive over-grooming and look identical. Only once medical causes are excluded is it treated as stress-related. Management centres on reducing anxiety: identifying and easing the trigger, enriching the environment, adding vertical space, safe hideaways, predictable routines and plenty of interactive play. Pheromone diffusers can help, and in stubborn cases a vet may prescribe anti-anxiety medication alongside behavioural work.
View Full Details →🐈 Stud Tail (Supracaudal Gland Hyperplasia)
An oily, greasy patch of skin near the base of the tail caused by overactive scent glands, sometimes leading to matting, blackheads, hair loss and occasional infection.
Treatment: Mild cases are managed with good hygiene: regular gentle cleaning of the area with a vet-recommended antiseborrhoeic or medicated shampoo or wipes to remove the greasy build-up, along with clipping matted fur so the skin can breathe. Keeping the area clean and dry usually keeps it under control. If the skin becomes red, sore or infected, a vet may prescribe antibacterial washes or antibiotics. In entire (unneutered) males, neutering often reduces the gland activity that drives the problem.
View Full Details →🐾 Overgrown & Ingrown Claws
Claws that grow too long and, if left unchecked, curl round and press or grow into the soft pad, causing pain, limping and sometimes infection — most common in older and less active cats.
Treatment: Uncomplicated overgrown claws are resolved simply by trimming them back to a safe length with proper cat clippers, taking care to avoid the pink "quick". If a claw has already curled into the pad, a vet or nurse should trim and free it, clean the wound, and check for infection — a course of antibiotics and pain relief may be needed if the pad is punctured. Very thick, brittle senior claws are sometimes best trimmed under veterinary supervision. Ongoing management is about establishing a regular trimming routine so the problem does not recur.
View Full Details →👁️ Blepharitis (Inflamed Eyelids)
Inflammation of the eyelids themselves — red, swollen, crusty or itchy lid margins — often caused by infection, allergy or irritation, and sometimes a sign of a wider skin or eye problem.
Treatment: Treatment is aimed at the underlying cause, so an accurate diagnosis matters. General care includes gently warm-compressing and cleaning the lids to remove crusts, and stopping the cat rubbing (a soft collar may be needed). A vet may prescribe topical or oral antibiotics for bacterial infection, anti-inflammatory or steroid eye ointment to settle swelling, or antifungal treatment if ringworm is involved. Where allergy is the trigger, identifying and removing the allergen and managing the reaction is key. Any associated conjunctivitis or eye-surface problem is treated at the same time.
View Full Details →👁️ Dry Eye (Keratoconjunctivitis Sicca)
A shortage of the watery part of the tear film that leaves the surface of the eye dry, sore and prone to infection, thick mucus discharge and, over time, damage to the cornea.
Treatment: The mainstay of treatment is lifelong tear-replacement and, where appropriate, medication that stimulates natural tear production, such as topical ciclosporin or tacrolimus prescribed by a vet. Artificial-tear drops or gels keep the surface lubricated between doses, and antibiotic drops clear any secondary infection. Gently wiping away the mucus keeps the eye comfortable. Because most cases need treatment for life, regular rechecks let the vet measure tear production and adjust the drops. Underlying causes, such as feline herpesvirus, are treated alongside.
View Full Details →🔥 Oesophagitis (Inflamed Food Pipe)
Inflammation of the lining of the oesophagus — the muscular tube that carries food from the throat to the stomach — which makes swallowing painful and can, in bad cases, scar and narrow the pipe.
Treatment: Treatment centres on protecting and resting the inflamed lining while it heals. Vets commonly prescribe acid-suppressing medication to reduce further irritation, a coating agent (such as sucralfate) that forms a protective layer over sore spots, and a drug to improve the way the stomach empties so acid is less likely to wash back up. Feeding small, frequent meals of soft, low-fat food, and sometimes holding the cat upright after eating, gives the pipe a chance to recover. Severe cases may need a temporary feeding tube that bypasses the oesophagus. Any narrowing (a stricture) that develops may require a specialist procedure to gently stretch the pipe.
View Full Details →💩 Colitis (Inflammation of the Colon)
Inflammation of the large intestine that causes typical "large-bowel diarrhoea" — frequent, urgent, small stools often streaked with fresh red blood or slimy mucus.
Treatment: Treatment depends on the cause but often starts with a short spell of a highly digestible or novel-protein diet and added fibre to bulk and settle the stool. A vet may prescribe treatment for parasites even before results come back, since these are a common trigger, and may add anti-inflammatory medication or specific therapy where an underlying disease such as inflammatory bowel disease is found. Probiotics can help restore a healthy balance of gut bacteria. Ensuring the cat stays hydrated matters, and identifying and removing any dietary or stress trigger is key to stopping it coming back.
View Full Details →🤢 Acute Gastritis (Sudden Stomach Upset)
Sudden inflammation of the stomach lining, usually from eating something that disagreed, causing a short bout of vomiting in a cat that is otherwise fairly bright.
Treatment: Mild, uncomplicated cases are often managed by resting the stomach: withholding food for a short vet-advised period (never withholding water), then reintroducing small, frequent meals of a bland, low-fat food before returning to the normal diet over a day or two. A vet may prescribe anti-nausea medication or a stomach protectant to settle things and keep the cat comfortable. The most important thing is watching for signs that this is more than a simple upset — because persistent vomiting has many serious causes — and making sure the cat does not become dehydrated.
View Full Details →🔵 Lipoma (Benign Fatty Lump)
A soft, slow-growing lump of benign fatty tissue under the skin — harmless in itself, but only ever safely told apart from more serious lumps by a vet.
Treatment: A true lipoma is benign and often simply monitored rather than treated, but the crucial first step is having a vet confirm what it actually is — usually with a quick, minimally invasive fine-needle aspirate that samples a few cells for the microscope, because several dangerous lumps can feel identical from the outside. If a lipoma is confirmed and stays small and out of the way, many are just measured and watched. One that grows large, sits somewhere that interferes with movement, or begins to bother the cat can be removed surgically. Any lump that changes, grows quickly or is not confidently identified should be re-checked or removed and tested.
View Full Details →🐾 Paronychia (Nail-Bed Infection)
Infection and inflammation of the skin around a claw and its nail bed, leaving one or more toes swollen, sore and sometimes discharging.
Treatment: Treatment depends on the cause and how many claws are involved. A single infected nail bed — often from a broken claw, a bite or a trapped foreign body — is usually cleaned and treated with antibiotics and pain relief, sometimes after the vet trims or removes a damaged claw. Warm bathing of the toe may be advised to keep it clean. When several claws are affected at once, the vet will look for an underlying reason such as a fungal or bacterial skin infection, an immune-mediated condition, or, in older cats, sometimes a sign of illness elsewhere in the body, and will treat that as well as the toes. A stubborn or recurrent case may need samples taken to guide the right medication.
View Full Details →👁️ Hyphema (Blood in the Eye)
Bleeding into the front chamber of the eye, seen as a red or blood-tinged pool in front of the iris — always a sign that something serious needs investigating.
Treatment: Hyphema is a sign rather than a disease, so treatment is aimed at both the eye and the underlying cause. The vet will measure eye pressure, examine the retina where possible and look for a reason — high blood pressure, a clotting problem, trauma, inflammation or a tumour. Anti-inflammatory eye drops, medication to control eye pressure and treatment of the underlying disease (for example blood-pressure control) are typical. Rest and an Elizabethan collar to prevent rubbing help the blood reabsorb, which can take days to weeks.
View Full Details →👁️ Lens Luxation
Displacement of the eye’s lens from its normal position when the tiny fibres holding it in place break down, threatening pressure build-up and vision loss.
Treatment: Management depends on which way the lens has moved and whether eye pressure has risen. A lens that falls forward into the front chamber is an emergency because it can block fluid drainage and trigger painful glaucoma; surgical removal of the lens is often needed. A lens that slips backwards may sometimes be managed medically with drops to control pressure and monitoring. In every case the vet will treat any secondary glaucoma or inflammation and check the other eye, as the problem is frequently bilateral over time.
View Full Details →🫁 Diaphragmatic Hernia
A tear in the diaphragm — the muscular sheet between chest and abdomen — that lets abdominal organs slip into the chest and crowd the lungs, usually after trauma.
Treatment: A cat in respiratory distress must first be stabilised — kept calm, given oxygen and treated for shock — before anything else, as stress alone can be fatal. Diagnosis is usually confirmed with chest X-rays or ultrasound. The definitive treatment is surgery to return the displaced organs to the abdomen and repair the tear in the diaphragm, carried out once the cat is stable enough for anaesthesia. The timing is a careful judgement: too soon is dangerous, but a long-standing hernia can become harder to fix.
View Full Details →🦠 Feline Leprosy (Mycobacterial Skin Disease)
A slow-growing bacterial skin infection caused by certain mycobacteria, producing firm nodules or non-healing ulcers, typically on the head, limbs or trunk.
Treatment: Diagnosis rests on biopsy, special stains that reveal the bacteria, and ideally culture or PCR to identify the exact organism, which guides treatment. Management usually combines surgical removal of localised nodules where possible with a prolonged course of specific antibiotics, often two drugs together and given for several weeks to months. Because the organisms grow slowly, patience and completing the full course are essential, and follow-up checks confirm the lesions have truly resolved.
View Full Details →🦠 Bartonellosis (Cat Scratch Disease)
A bacterial infection with Bartonella henselae, spread between cats mainly by fleas. Most infected cats show no signs at all, but the same bacteria cause 'cat scratch disease' in people who are scratched or bitten.
Treatment: Healthy cats with no signs usually need no treatment, as most clear or carry the bacteria harmlessly. When disease is present, or when treatment is advised for a household with a vulnerable person, a vet may prescribe a course of antibiotics. Rigorous flea control is the single most important step, since fleas move the bacteria between cats.
View Full Details →🐝 Bee & Wasp Stings
A sudden painful swelling where a curious cat has been stung, most often on the face or paw. Most stings cause only local irritation, but stings inside the mouth or throat, or a rare allergic reaction, can become an emergency.
Treatment: For a simple sting, keep your cat calm and apply a cool compress to ease pain and swelling; a bee's barbed sting can be scraped out sideways with a fingernail or card rather than squeezed. Do not give human painkillers or medicines unless your vet directs you, as many are toxic to cats. Any sting inside the mouth or throat, any breathing difficulty, or fast-spreading swelling needs emergency veterinary care, where a vet may give antihistamines, steroids or adrenaline.
View Full Details →❄️ Frostbite
A cold-weather injury to the skin and tissues of the extremities — most often the ear tips, tail and paws — when a cat is exposed to freezing temperatures for too long. Mild cases recover; severe frostbite can kill the affected tissue.
Treatment: Move your cat somewhere warm at once and rewarm the affected areas gently with warm — never hot — water or your own body heat. Do not rub, massage or apply direct heat such as a hairdryer or heat pad, which can cause further damage, and do not thaw an area if there is any chance it will refreeze. Wrap your cat warmly and get to a vet, who will manage pain, protect the tissue and treat any dead skin or secondary infection.
View Full Details →🐍 Snake Bite
A bite from a venomous snake such as an adder, rattlesnake or copperhead is a genuine emergency. Even non-venomous bites can become infected, but venomous bites can cause rapid swelling, collapse and death without prompt treatment.
Treatment: Treat every suspected venomous bite as an emergency. Keep your cat as calm and still as possible to slow the spread of venom, carry rather than let it walk, and get to a vet immediately — do not wait to see if it worsens. Do not cut the wound, try to suck out venom, apply a tourniquet or use ice, and never give any human medicine. At the clinic, treatment may include antivenom, intravenous fluids, pain relief and close monitoring.
View Full Details →🍼 Eclampsia (Milk Fever)
A sudden, life-threatening drop in blood calcium in a nursing queen, usually one to four weeks after giving birth, when the demands of producing milk drain calcium faster than her body can replace it.
Treatment: This is a genuine emergency — get to a vet immediately. Treatment is carefully controlled intravenous calcium given while the heart is monitored, along with fluids and measures to bring down the raised temperature. Once stabilised, the queen is usually kept on oral calcium and vitamin D supplements, and the kittens are often weaned early or partly hand-reared to take the calcium drain off her. Never give calcium by mouth to a fitting or unconscious cat, and never medicate at home without veterinary direction.
View Full Details →🐾 Tail-Pull Injury
A stretching or tearing of the nerves at the base of the tail, usually after the tail is caught, trodden on or pulled — commonly in road accidents — which can damage the nerves that control the tail, bladder and bowel.
Treatment: See a vet promptly. They will assess how much nerve function remains — particularly whether the cat can still urinate and defecate normally, which is the key to the outlook — often with X-rays to check for dislocation of the tail bones. Bladder function is managed with manual emptying or a catheter and medication while the nerves are given time to recover. A dead or badly damaged tail that the cat cannot feel is usually amputated to prevent injury and infection. Many cats regain bladder control over days to weeks; some do not, and need ongoing management.
View Full Details →🦵 Cruciate Ligament Rupture
A tear of the cranial cruciate ligament inside the knee (stifle), which normally holds the joint stable. Less common in cats than dogs, it causes a sudden hind-leg lameness and, over time, arthritis.
Treatment: A vet diagnoses it by feeling for abnormal movement in the joint (the 'drawer' sign) and with X-rays. Many cats, being light and agile, do well with conservative treatment: strict rest, weight control, pain relief and anti-inflammatories, and a gradual return to activity over several weeks. Larger, heavier or very active cats, or those that do not improve, may need surgery to stabilise the knee. Because arthritis tends to follow, long-term joint support and keeping the cat slim are important whichever route is taken.
View Full Details →🪱 Tapeworms
Flat, segmented intestinal parasites that cats most often catch by swallowing an infected flea while grooming, or by eating prey such as mice. The classic sign is tiny rice-like segments around the tail or in the bedding.
Treatment: Tapeworms are easily and reliably cleared with a suitable deworming product, but the type matters: an effective tapeworm wormer contains praziquantel, and many general wormers or over-the-counter products do not treat tapeworm at all. Your vet can supply the right tablet or spot-on and confirm the dose by weight. Because the commonest tapeworm is passed on by fleas, treating the tapeworm without also tackling the fleas usually leads to reinfection, so the two are dealt with together.
View Full Details →🪱 Roundworms
Long, spaghetti-like intestinal worms, extremely common in kittens, which can be passed on through the mother's milk. Heavy burdens sap growth and condition and, occasionally, pose a risk to people.
Treatment: Roundworms respond well to routine deworming, and most broad-spectrum wormers from your vet treat them effectively. Kittens need worming on a regular schedule from a few weeks of age, repeated at intervals because the treatment kills the worms present but not those still developing or migrating through the body. Your vet will advise the right product and timing by age and weight, and a follow-up dose is usually part of the plan rather than a single treatment.
View Full Details →👁️ Horner's Syndrome
A cluster of eye and facial signs on one side of the face, caused by disruption to the sympathetic nerves supplying the eye. It is a sign of an underlying problem rather than a disease in itself.
Treatment: Directed at the underlying cause — for example treating an ear infection or an injury. The eye signs themselves often improve or resolve over weeks to months once the cause is addressed, and many idiopathic cases recover on their own without specific treatment.
View Full Details →🐾 Fading Kitten Syndrome
A term for the rapid decline and failure to thrive of a newborn kitten in the first weeks of life. It is not a single disease but a life-threatening emergency with many possible underlying causes.
Treatment: This is an emergency requiring immediate veterinary care. Treatment focuses on gently warming the kitten, correcting low blood sugar and dehydration with vet-directed feeding or fluids, and identifying and treating any underlying infection, parasite or birth defect. Because a fading kitten declines within hours, prompt supportive care gives the best chance of survival.
View Full Details →⚠️ Diabetic Ketoacidosis (DKA)
A severe, life-threatening complication of diabetes in which the body, unable to use glucose, breaks down fat so fast that acidic ketones flood the bloodstream. It is a medical emergency.
Treatment: DKA requires emergency hospitalisation, usually in intensive care. Treatment involves intravenous fluids to correct dehydration, careful electrolyte replacement (especially potassium and phosphate), short-acting insulin to bring glucose down gradually, and treating any illness that triggered the crisis. Cats often need several days of round-the-clock monitoring before they stabilise.
View Full Details →🐈 Cryptorchidism (Retained Testicle)
A condition in which one or both testicles fail to descend into the scrotum, remaining in the abdomen or groin. It is a common developmental abnormality in male cats and needs surgical attention.
Treatment: The recommended treatment is surgical removal of the retained testicle (or testicles), along with the normally descended one if present. A retained testicle sits at higher risk of developing cancer and of twisting (torsion) later in life, so removal is advised rather than leaving it in place. The surgery is more involved than a routine neuter because the retained testicle must be located, sometimes within the abdomen.
View Full Details →🪱 Hookworms
Small blood-feeding intestinal worms that hook onto the lining of the gut. Light infections may go unnoticed, but heavier burdens can cause anaemia, weight loss and dark, tarry stools, especially in kittens.
Treatment: Hookworms are cleared with prescription deworming medication, often given as a repeated course to catch worms that were still developing at the first dose. Your vet will usually recommend a follow-up faecal test to confirm the parasites are gone. Kittens or cats that have become anaemic from heavy infestations may need supportive care, iron-rich nutrition and, in severe cases, fluids or a blood transfusion while they recover.
View Full Details →🦠 Salmonellosis
A bacterial infection of the gut caused by Salmonella, often picked up from raw meat or from hunting wild birds. It can cause fever, vomiting and diarrhoea, and infected cats can shed the bacteria to people.
Treatment: Many otherwise healthy cats with mild salmonellosis recover with supportive care: fluids to correct dehydration, a bland easily digested diet and rest while the gut settles. Your vet may run faecal cultures to confirm the diagnosis. Antibiotics are reserved for cats that are seriously ill, have bacteria spreading into the bloodstream, or are very young, old or immunocompromised, because using them in mild cases can prolong bacterial shedding and encourage resistance.
View Full Details →😮💨 Brachycephalic Airway Syndrome
A set of breathing difficulties seen in flat-faced breeds such as Persians and Exotic Shorthairs, where the shortened skull crowds the nose and airway and makes moving air harder.
Treatment: Management depends on severity. Mild cases are handled by keeping the cat cool, calm, lean and out of stressful or hot situations. More severely affected cats may need surgery to widen narrowed nostrils or shorten an overlong soft palate so air can move more freely. Any cat in respiratory distress is an emergency and needs oxygen and stabilisation at a vet. Keeping weight down is one of the most effective things an owner can do, as excess fat further crowds the airway.
View Full Details →⚠️ Lead Poisoning
Toxicity caused by a cat ingesting lead, most often from old paint, contaminated dust, or certain household and hobby items, affecting the gut and nervous system.
Treatment: Treatment is urgent and directed by a vet. It usually combines removing any remaining lead from the gut, supportive care for vomiting, seizures and dehydration, and specific chelation therapy — medicines that bind lead so the body can excrete it. Blood tests confirm the diagnosis and track progress. The sooner treatment begins, the better the outlook, so suspected lead exposure should never be left to see if it settles.
View Full Details →🦴 Spina Bifida
A birth defect where the spine and its protective covering do not close fully during development, seen most often in tailless Manx cats and affecting the lower back and hind end.
Treatment: There is no cure, so care focuses on managing the individual cat's needs. Mildly affected cats often live full, happy lives with little help. Those with bladder or bowel problems may need help expressing the bladder, careful hygiene to protect the skin, and monitoring for urinary infections. Your vet will tailor a plan and advise on keeping the cat comfortable, mobile and clean, and on watching for complications.
View Full Details →🐾 Flat-Chested Kitten Syndrome
A developmental deformity of the ribcage in young kittens, where the chest becomes flattened from top to bottom, which can crowd the heart and lungs in more severe cases.
Treatment: Care depends on how badly the chest is affected. Many mildly affected kittens improve on their own as they grow and the skeleton strengthens, helped by good nutrition and gentle encouragement to move and build muscle. Some benefit from physiotherapy-style handling or supportive measures guided by a vet. Severely affected kittens whose breathing is compromised need veterinary assessment and, occasionally, more intensive support. Keeping the kitten warm, well fed and thriving gives it the best chance.
View Full Details →👁️ Haws Syndrome (Third Eyelid Protrusion)
A condition in which both third eyelids — the extra membranes at the inner corner of each eye — become visible and slide partly across the eyes, classically alongside a bout of diarrhoea.
Treatment: Haws syndrome itself usually needs no direct treatment and resolves on its own over days to a few weeks. Care focuses on any underlying gut upset — keeping the cat hydrated, feeding a bland easily digested diet if advised, and treating intestinal parasites or infection where your vet finds them. Because a protruding third eyelid can have other, more serious causes, a vet should confirm the diagnosis before it is put down to simple Haws syndrome.
View Full Details →💧 Salivary Mucocele
A soft, fluid-filled swelling that forms when saliva leaks from a damaged salivary gland or duct and collects in the surrounding tissue, most often under the jaw, tongue or neck.
Treatment: Treatment is usually surgical. A vet will first confirm the diagnosis, often by drawing off some of the honey-like, sometimes blood-tinged fluid with a needle. Draining alone tends to let the swelling refill, so the definitive fix is an operation to remove the affected salivary gland and duct, which generally gives an excellent outcome. Where swelling threatens breathing or swallowing, more urgent drainage may be needed to relieve pressure before surgery.
View Full Details →🌡️ Heat Stroke (Hyperthermia)
A dangerous rise in body temperature when a cat cannot shed heat fast enough, most often after being trapped somewhere hot such as a car, conservatory or sunlit room without shade or water.
Treatment: Heat stroke is an emergency. Move the cat to a cool, shaded place at once, offer small sips of water, and begin cooling by wetting the coat with cool (not ice-cold) water and directing a fan over them. Contact your vet immediately and travel with the car air-conditioned or windows open, as internal organ damage can develop even after the cat looks better.
View Full Details →👄 Rodent Ulcer (Eosinophilic Ulcer)
A raised, reddish-brown sore that most often appears on a cat's upper lip, part of a group of skin reactions known as the eosinophilic granuloma complex.
Treatment: Treatment focuses on finding and controlling the underlying trigger, which is usually an allergy. Vets may investigate and manage flea, food or environmental allergies, and use anti-inflammatory medication to settle the lesion. Because these ulcers can rarely become something more serious, a vet may take a biopsy if a lesion does not respond as expected.
View Full Details →🫀 Restrictive Cardiomyopathy (RCM)
A serious heart-muscle disease in which stiff, scarred tissue stops the heart's chambers from relaxing and filling properly between beats.
Treatment: There is no cure, so treatment aims to control the consequences of the disease. Vets typically prescribe diuretics to clear fluid from the lungs or chest, medication to support heart function, and clot-preventing drugs to reduce the risk of a dangerous blood clot. Regular scans and monitoring help adjust the plan over time.
View Full Details →🧫 Glomerulonephritis
Inflammation of the kidney's tiny filtering units (glomeruli), which causes valuable protein to leak out into the urine and can lead to kidney damage.
Treatment: Treatment targets both the kidney damage and any underlying trigger. Vets may prescribe medication to reduce protein loss and control blood pressure, a therapeutic kidney diet, and sometimes clot-preventing drugs because heavy protein loss raises clotting risk. Finding and treating the underlying infection, inflammation or tumour is a key part of management.
View Full Details →🦠 Pyelonephritis (Kidney Infection)
A bacterial infection of one or both kidneys, usually spreading upward from the bladder, that can cause sudden illness or quietly damage kidney tissue over time.
Treatment: The mainstay is a course of appropriate antibiotics, ideally chosen from a urine culture so the right drug is used for long enough — kidney infections often need several weeks of treatment. Fluids support the kidneys, pain relief keeps the cat comfortable, and any predisposing factor such as a stone or urinary obstruction is addressed.
View Full Details →👁️ Eosinophilic Keratitis
An unusual inflammatory eye condition in which a pink, raised, chalky-looking film of tissue creeps across the surface of the cornea.
Treatment: Treatment aims to calm the abnormal inflammation, most often with topical anti-inflammatory eye medication used for an extended period. Because the feline herpesvirus is frequently involved, vets may pair this with antiviral treatment and monitor closely, since some anti-inflammatory drops can aggravate a herpes flare if used alone.
View Full Details →🦠 Bacterial Pyoderma (Skin Infection)
A bacterial infection of the skin, usually developing on top of an existing problem such as allergies, wounds or over-grooming, causing sore, crusty or pustular patches.
Treatment: Treatment targets both the infection and its underlying cause. Vets typically prescribe antibiotics — topical creams or medicated washes for localised cases, or a course of oral antibiotics for more widespread infection. Clipping the fur, gentle cleaning, and controlling the original trigger, such as fleas or an allergy, are all part of getting the skin to heal and stay healthy.
View Full Details →👃 Nasopharyngeal Stenosis
An abnormal narrowing of the passage at the back of the nose where it meets the throat, causing chronic noisy, snorting or congested breathing.
Treatment: Treatment aims to widen the narrowed passage. Vets may use balloon dilation, where a small balloon is gently inflated to stretch the stricture, sometimes combined with placing a temporary stent to hold it open. Surgery is occasionally needed. Because the narrowing can re-form, some cats need the procedure repeated or ongoing monitoring.
View Full Details →🦷 Tooth-Root Abscess
A pocket of infection at the root of a tooth, often causing facial swelling, pain and reluctance to eat on one side of the mouth.
Treatment: The infected tooth almost always needs professional dental treatment under anaesthetic — commonly extraction of the affected tooth, thorough cleaning, and drainage of the abscess. Antibiotics and pain relief are used to control infection and keep the cat comfortable, but they treat the symptoms rather than the underlying diseased tooth, which must be dealt with directly.
View Full Details →🦟 Mosquito-Bite Hypersensitivity
An allergic skin reaction to mosquito bites, causing crusty sores and hair loss on the thinly haired bridge of the nose and the ear tips.
Treatment: The mainstay of treatment is preventing further bites by keeping the cat indoors at dawn and dusk when mosquitoes are most active. A vet may prescribe anti-inflammatory medication such as a short course of steroids to calm the allergic reaction, along with treatment for any secondary skin infection. Cat-safe insect control around the home helps, but never use dog mosquito or flea products, as many contain permethrin, which is highly toxic to cats.
View Full Details →🌾 Grass-Seed Foreign Body
A barbed grass seed or awn that lodges in the skin, paws, ears or eyes of an outdoor cat and works its way inward, causing infection and pain.
Treatment: The seed must be found and completely removed, which usually requires a vet. Superficial seeds may be lifted out with fine forceps, but those that have migrated deeper often need sedation or a minor procedure to locate and extract them, followed by cleaning of the tract. Antibiotics and pain relief are given to treat infection and keep the cat comfortable, and any abscess is drained.
View Full Details →🍬 Hypoglycaemia (Low Blood Sugar)
An abnormally low level of glucose in the blood, which starves the brain of fuel and can cause weakness, disorientation, collapse and seizures.
Treatment: Hypoglycaemia is an emergency. If a cat is conscious and able to swallow, rubbing a little honey or glucose syrup onto the gums can raise blood sugar quickly on the way to the vet; never pour liquid into the mouth of a collapsing or seizing cat. Veterinary treatment involves intravenous glucose to stabilise blood sugar, followed by investigation and treatment of the underlying cause, whether that is an insulin overdose, illness or a problem such as a liver disorder or tumour.
View Full Details →😿 Idiopathic Facial Dermatitis (Dirty Face Syndrome)
A distinctive skin condition of mainly flat-faced breeds in which a black, waxy debris builds up in the folds of the face despite a clean environment.
Treatment: There is no outright cure, so treatment focuses on control. A vet will usually confirm the diagnosis and rule out ringworm, mites and allergies, then set up a gentle cleaning routine using vet-approved wipes or medicated washes to keep the folds free of debris. Secondary yeast or bacterial infections are treated with appropriate topical or systemic medication, and some cats are helped by anti-inflammatory therapy during flare-ups. Owners are shown how to clean the folds carefully and regularly at home.
View Full Details →🥩 Vitamin A Toxicity (Hypervitaminosis A)
A painful, often crippling bone disease caused by long-term feeding of a liver-heavy diet, which floods the body with far too much vitamin A.
Treatment: The cornerstone of treatment is immediately correcting the diet — switching the cat off liver and other vitamin-A-rich foods onto a complete, balanced cat food. This halts progression, but bony changes that have already fused joints are usually permanent. A vet will provide pain relief and anti-inflammatory medication to keep the cat comfortable, and may recommend physiotherapy-style support and a carefully managed environment. Early cases improve considerably once the vitamin A source is removed; advanced cases are managed for lifelong comfort.
View Full Details →🍬 Insulinoma (Pancreatic Tumour)
A rare tumour of the pancreas that pours out too much insulin, driving blood sugar dangerously low and causing weakness, tremors and seizures.
Treatment: Emergency low blood sugar is corrected first, with the owner rubbing a little honey or glucose syrup on the gums on the way to the clinic and the vet giving intravenous glucose. Longer-term management centres on surgery to remove the affected part of the pancreas where possible, which can give the best results. When surgery is not an option, frequent small meals and medication such as steroids (and sometimes diazoxide) are used to keep glucose from crashing. Careful monitoring of blood sugar guides treatment.
View Full Details →🧠 Hydrocephalus (Water on the Brain)
A build-up of fluid within the brain that raises pressure inside the skull, most often seen in kittens and causing a domed head, clumsiness and behavioural changes.
Treatment: Treatment depends on how severe the fluid build-up and pressure are. Milder cases are often managed medically with drugs that reduce fluid production, such as corticosteroids or diuretics, sometimes alongside anti-seizure medication. In selected severe cases a surgical shunt can be placed to drain excess fluid away from the brain, though this is specialised surgery with real risks. A vet or neurology specialist will tailor the plan to the individual cat and monitor its response closely.
View Full Details →👶 Cleft Palate
A gap in the roof of the mouth, usually present from birth, that lets milk and food pass into the nose and airways and makes feeding dangerous for young kittens.
Treatment: The definitive treatment is surgical repair to close the gap, but this is usually delayed until the kitten is a few months old and strong enough for anaesthesia. In the meantime the priority is keeping the kitten fed and free of infection — often by tube feeding or careful assisted feeding to bypass the defect, keeping it upright, and treating any chest infection promptly with veterinary care. A vet, and often a surgical specialist, will plan the timing and technique of repair for each kitten.
View Full Details →🧠 Feline Dysautonomia (Key-Gaskell Syndrome)
A rare disease that damages the autonomic nervous system — the automatic wiring controlling the gut, bladder, pupils and tear glands — causing widespread, serious dysfunction.
Treatment: There is no cure, so care is supportive and intensive: hydration and nutrition are maintained, often by assisted or tube feeding, artificial tears protect dry eyes, and medicines and manual techniques help the bladder and bowel empty. Mildly affected cats can slowly recover over many months with dedicated nursing, but the outlook is guarded and many severely affected cats do not survive.
View Full Details →🐈 Manx Syndrome (Sacrocaudal Dysgenesis)
A group of spinal and nerve defects seen in some tailless Manx cats, where the same gene that shortens the tail also disrupts the lower spine and the nerves to the bladder, bowel and hind legs.
Treatment: There is no cure, and management depends on severity. Mildly affected cats may need only a high-fibre diet and monitoring, while more severely affected cats need help expressing the bladder, careful bowel management, treatment of infections and scrupulous hygiene. Some spinal defects can be surgically addressed, but severely affected kittens sometimes have a poor quality of life. Signs are usually apparent by a few months of age.
View Full Details →🍽️ Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency (EPI)
The pancreas fails to make enough digestive enzymes, so food passes through poorly digested — a cat that eats well yet steadily loses weight and passes bulky, greasy stools.
Treatment: EPI is managed rather than cured, and most cats do well once treatment starts. The cornerstone is adding pancreatic enzyme replacement to every meal, usually as a powder mixed into food. Because EPI in cats very often accompanies low vitamin B12 (cobalamin), and frequently inflammatory bowel disease or pancreatitis, vets typically test for and supplement B12, and may add a highly digestible diet, folate, and treatment for any concurrent intestinal disease. Response is monitored by weight gain and improving stools, with enzyme doses adjusted to the individual cat.
View Full Details →🍄 Blastomycosis (Systemic Fungal Infection)
A serious infection caught by inhaling fungal spores from damp soil, which can spread from the lungs to the eyes, skin and other organs. Rare in cats but potentially life-threatening.
Treatment: Blastomycosis is treated with a prolonged course of antifungal medication — typically itraconazole or, in severe cases, amphotericin B — given for many months and continued for a period after signs resolve to prevent relapse. Cats with significant lung involvement may need oxygen support and hospitalisation early on, and affected eyes sometimes require additional treatment or, if severely damaged, removal. Because the drugs affect the liver, periodic blood tests monitor for side effects, and treatment is guided by a vet throughout.
View Full Details →🩸 Cytauxzoonosis (Bobcat Fever)
A rapidly fatal tick-borne blood parasite of cats, sometimes called “bobcat fever,” that causes sudden high fever and collapse and demands emergency care.
Treatment: Cytauxzoonosis is a medical emergency with no time to spare. The most effective current treatment combines the antiprotozoal drugs atovaquone and azithromycin, given alongside intensive supportive care — intravenous fluids, heparin, nutritional support, oxygen and sometimes a blood transfusion — usually in a hospital setting. Even with prompt, aggressive treatment survival is far from guaranteed, but early intervention markedly improves the odds, and cats that recover can remain carriers for life.
View Full Details →👂 Aural Haematoma (Ear Flap Blood Blister)
A swollen, fluid-filled ear flap caused by burst blood vessels, usually after violent head-shaking or scratching at an itchy, infected or mite-ridden ear.
Treatment: Treatment aims both to drain the swelling and to fix whatever caused the head-shaking. A vet may drain the blood with a needle, though it often refills, so many cases are managed with a small surgical drain or an operation to open, clear and quilt the ear flap so it heals flat. Anti-inflammatories and treatment of the underlying ear infection, mites or allergy are given alongside. Left alone, the blood is slowly reabsorbed but the ear frequently scars into a permanently puckered shape.
View Full Details →🦵 Luxating Patella (Slipping Kneecap)
A kneecap that slips out of its normal groove, causing an intermittent skip or hop in a back leg; often mild in cats but sometimes needing surgery.
Treatment: Management depends on severity. Many mild cases in cats need no more than keeping the cat lean, maintaining gentle activity and monitoring, sometimes with joint supplements or anti-inflammatory pain relief during flare-ups. More severe or painful cases, or those causing persistent lameness and arthritis, may be corrected surgically to deepen the groove and realign the kneecap. A vet grades the looseness to decide whether surgery is warranted.
View Full Details →🍇 Grape & Raisin Toxicity
Grapes, raisins, sultanas and currants can trigger sudden kidney injury and should never be fed to a cat — treat any amount eaten as an emergency.
Treatment: This is treated as an emergency. Do not wait for signs to appear — contact a vet or an animal poison line straight away if you know or suspect your cat has eaten grapes, raisins, sultanas or currants. If ingestion was very recent a vet may make the cat vomit and give activated charcoal to limit absorption. The mainstay of treatment is several days of intravenous fluids to protect and support the kidneys, together with anti-sickness medication and repeated blood tests to monitor kidney values. The earlier fluids are started, the better the outlook.
View Full Details →🧴 Essential Oil & Liquid Potpourri Poisoning
Cats lack a key liver enzyme, so concentrated essential oils and liquid potpourri can poison them through the mouth, the skin or a diffuser — several common oils are dangerous.
Treatment: If oil is on the coat or skin, wash it off gently with a mild liquid hand-dishwashing soap and warm water to stop the cat swallowing more while grooming, then keep the cat warm and get to a vet. Do not make the cat vomit — many of these products are either caustic or easily inhaled into the lungs, and vomiting makes things worse. There is no antidote, so veterinary treatment is supportive: intravenous fluids, liver support, control of tremors and body temperature, pain relief for oral burns, and monitoring. Take the product packaging with you so the vet knows exactly what was involved.
View Full Details →🚨 Emergency Signs — Go to the Vet Immediately
- • Difficulty breathing or open-mouth breathing
- • Straining to urinate (especially male cats)
- • Collapse or sudden inability to walk
- • Suspected poisoning or toxin ingestion
- • Seizures or uncontrolled tremors
- • Eye injury or sudden vision loss
- • Severe bleeding that won't stop
- • Unconsciousness or unresponsiveness
- • Body temperature below 37°C or above 40°C
How to tell when a symptom is serious
Cats evolved to mask weakness, so they rarely show illness clearly. Rather than waiting for an obvious sign, owners and vets watch for change from the cat's normal baseline. The practical method is:
- Know the baseline — your cat's usual appetite, water intake, litter output, weight, and activity.
- Notice deviation — eating or drinking noticeably more or less, hiding, litter box changes, or weight loss over weeks.
- Judge urgency — gradual changes warrant a routine vet appointment; the emergency signs above warrant immediate care.
Severity on this page is a guide to typical urgency, not a diagnosis. A "mild" condition can still be serious for an individual cat, which is why a vet visit is the safe default whenever you are unsure.
Worked example: spotting kidney disease early
A real-world pattern
Milo is a 12-year-old cat. Over about three weeks his owner notices the water bowl emptying faster and two extra wet patches in the litter tray each day. Milo's appetite is slightly down and he has lost roughly 200 g.
Individually each change is small. Together — increased thirst, increased urination, mild weight loss, and reduced appetite — they form a classic early pattern of chronic kidney disease, one of the most common conditions in older cats.
Because the owner knew Milo's baseline, the vet ran blood and urine tests early. Caught at this stage, kidney disease is managed with diet and monitoring for years — far better than waiting until the cat is visibly unwell.
Frequently asked questions about cat health
When should I take my cat to the vet?
See a vet promptly for any sudden change in eating, drinking, litter box habits, energy, or weight. Go immediately for difficulty breathing, straining to urinate, collapse, seizures, suspected poisoning, or uncontrolled bleeding.
What are the most common health problems in cats?
Common feline health issues include dental disease, obesity, chronic kidney disease, hyperthyroidism, urinary tract problems, fleas and worms, and upper respiratory infections. Many are manageable when caught early.
Why is my cat straining to use the litter box?
Straining to urinate can signal a urinary blockage, which is a life-threatening emergency, especially in male cats. If your cat is straining and producing little or no urine, contact a vet or emergency clinic immediately.
How do I know if my cat is in pain?
Cats hide pain well. Watch for hiding, reduced grooming, changes in posture, reluctance to jump, loss of appetite, litter box avoidance, or unusual aggression. Any of these warrants a vet check.
How often should a cat have a health check?
Healthy adult cats should see a vet once a year, and senior cats aged seven and over every six months, because early disease detection greatly improves outcomes.