This month’s star William is the first Pet to star twice in our Pet of the Month – and has rightfully earned his stripes through his amazing ability to bounce back from what appeared to be a severe and rare form of infection of his spine with a Protozoan parasite called Toxoplasma.
As you may remember from his previous fame – Master William is a very robust cat for a teenager and nothing can hold him back from leaping and bounding through life and as a result he has suffered a variety of limb injuries including ligament ruptures, fractures and sprains. He is an incredible character and despite all his injuries has the amazing personality to just get on with things and tell us all about it along the way! So when he came to see us at Midland for a limp on his hind leg, we presumed it was due to his active lifestyle. He was given pain relief and Cartrophen for arthritis which previously had worked very well for him.
Unfortunately this time round the treatment failed to work and William started to show progressive signs of spinal paralysis, so we quickly admitted him into hospital to take some x-rays of his spine. The x-rays revealed he had evidence of arthritis of the spine with some of his intervertebral discs affected (“slipped discs)”. In order to confirm it was the discs compressing on the spine – further investigations would be needed such as a CT scan or an MRI. The two main treatments for a slipped disc is either surgery by a specialist, or conservative treatment with rest and pain management. We opted to try conservative approach first, however despite getting adequate rest and lots of TLC by his dedicated owners Gill and Tony – Williams symptoms continued to advance. He became completely paralysed on his back legs and developed constipation and some urine incontinence. This progression is not generally typical of a slipped disc so we referred William over to Perth Veterinary Specialist for a MRI of his spine and a spinal fluid tap.
The MRI showed us that the problematic discs on the x-rays weren’t actually causing any pressure on the spine at all and his problem was something very different. He had developed swelling of the spinal cord which could mean one of two things – a type of cancer called lymphoma or an infection such a Toxoplasma. A spinal tap was performed but unfortunately didn’t shed any further light on the diagnosis. The only next step to try and get an answer was a biopsy of the spinal cord which is very risky and therefore wasn’t performed. Special blood tests were run for Toxoplasma but unfortunately these tests are often not clear cut and Williams results were in the grey area and not diagnostic.
We decided to put William on a treatment trial for Toxoplasmosis with the hope that if it was an infection by this nasty bug – he would show an improvement, and if was something more sinister, he would not. Amazingly, within a few days of commencing treatment, he started to show some use of his back legs and within 2 weeks he was walking! Incredibly he has continued to go from strength to strength so we continued with his medications for a further few weeks. Now William is back to his usual terror ways, playing with his younger brother Ned, and making his usual demands to us all and we are all so delighted to have him back in action.
Toxoplasma is a protozoan parasite that is found in undercooked or raw meat, it is a common infection in cats and generally very rarely causes any symptoms as cats are often exposed to it earlier in life when they have a strong immune system. William had never eaten raw meat until Ned came on the scene, and was introduced to it as a senior. We suspect introduction of raw meat contaminated with Toxoplasma to him in his senior years meant his immune system couldn’t fight off the infection and it quickly spread to his spine. Spinal Toxoplasma is very rare in cats and very hard to diagnosis. Unfortunately diagnosis is often made by assessing a respond to treatment as in Williams’s case.
