If you check the bottom of Andy’s foot…
…you can see how the veterinarian technician trims a kitty’s foot so there is adequate contact with the cuff to get a proper blood pressure check on an animal. Then they take six or seven measurements, toss an outlier that is much higher or lower than the rest, averages the remaining numbers, and call that the blood pressure.
No wonder Andy hates getting his blood pressure checked!
Sounds like a very unpleasant procedure. Why can’t they invent a cuff for cats like the one for us humans?
They do have a cuff. The discomfort piles up from having hair trimmed on Andy’s foot, the application of gel to increase the contact of the cuff, application of the cuff, then six or seven repeats of the pressure till they get sufficient data to get enough to get an average blood pressure. I agree, thought. It would be nice if they could come up with something that was more pet-friendly. The worst time was the one they trimmed under his tail near the base. He really freaked out on that one.
I can imagine Andy reacting to an unfriendly activity under his tail – ugggh!
I know they have to get it some way or other, but I’ve never known a kitty that wasn’t touchy about intrusions on his or her tail.
Neither have I, but Beba has grown indifferent with age; she barely expresses her displeasure and than calms down. Pyshka, on the other hand, raises a pandemonium.
Andy has a relatively quiet way of protesting indignities like “you forgot it’s kitty food time” (i.e. one second late…) and the like.
LOL Andy is a gentleman! Pyshka bites my ankles when she is hungry.
Andy puts his front paws on my leg. He repeats this till I pay attention, which I ultimately do because each time he has to do it, he puts his claws out just a bit more! What a rascal!
But still a gentleman: “just a bit”! LOL Pyshka has managed to pick up street urchin behaviors during her first four weeks surviving on her own.
Uh oh!
😻
I bet his foot feels a bit drafty with that fur missing. Mom asks, “Has the medicine kept his blood pressure in the normal range?”
The apartment is cat-temperature friendly.
When mine have had blood pressure checks , the base of the tail was shaved. I wonder if one way is more accurate?
Yes, that’s how they’ve done Andy’s, too, but he freaked out. I’ve asked them to make sure they do it on his foot since he hates it but doesn’t get as upset. (“…get upset” – this is why I questioned, and still wonder, how much of his “high blood pressure” isn’t because of the process of taking it.)
He sits through that?
Reluctantly! If he’s really upset, he actually growls a growl that sounds like Hell unleashed. LOL!
All that paw touching doesn’t sound cat-friendly
No. I hope they find a way to check it without so much redundancy if nothing else.
Poor Andy!! My vet has never taken my blood pressure- I’m always so busy chasing mice and ducks and climbing trees-(and getting off the roof), they say I’m very healthy and fit. Must be all the mischief I get into when I go outside every day!
Persian kitties aren’t exactly the most active kitties on earth, though Andy does have regular zoomies like a normal cat does, and he does do apartment patrols to make sure the mousies don’t choose to make a home here.
Yes that’s true- We Siamese stay playful clear up to old age-(and are very talkative)- which the humans love. I had a hard time finding mice in the house before Sushi came-(they hid from me) but Sushi is about as active as a Boulder -so the mice around here have no fear at all- they think she’s a snuggle Buddy- until I come inside!!😹
LOL! Yes, that’s part of the Siamese cat’s charm!
Awwww…*bats eyelashes* Thank you!
My pleasure!
So this is how it’s done! 😍
Yes, and I wish they would develop a noncontact way to take animal blood pressures! Poor Andy surely has lower blood pressure than the check indicates! Frau Hunne’s question elsewhere I think is very valid.
Pour kitty. I hope its blood pressure is good . I have problem with that . This goes down (8 or 9) during the dialysis intead of 12 before and after. !
In friendship
Michel
Andy’s blood pressure is on the high side, and he gets a blood pressure medicine mixed into his wet food. That’s the easiest way for me to give it to him since I have to chase him down to give it to him orally with a syringe. When I use that latter method, Andy gets smarter and smarter about getting away from me!
Huh. Never knew cats and dogs could have variance in blood pressure, let alone get it checked. I guess why not?
Hey, the veterinarian needs to make that boat payment somehow! LOL!
Oh, I thought they did that by over-vaccinating pets and over-subscribing meds…
Then there was the incisor Andy had removed because it was rubbing against the upper right canine…! The cost was pretty much what a human dentist might charge.
Yep. I lay down the law when I take my dogs to the vet. They know not to do ANYTHING without asking me!
That’s a great practice!
I wonder if kitties suffer from white coat syndrome [aka white coat hypertonie], too?
I personally think they do, based on watching Andy when this procedure is done. Initially, they did it last during his check ups. I suggested they do it first, again based on his reaction to it. Andy is well behaved during his check ups, but the one and only time I’ve seen him get mildly aggressive (he actually growled!) was during a blood pressure check. An excellent question, Frau Hunne! I’d like to know if others have experienced pet blood pressure checks, how their pet reacted, how the veterinarian technicians performed the procedure, and any other comments about the blood pressure check.
Gabapentin not an option with Andy? Or would that invalidate the result of the blood pressure check?
I can’t recall the specific drug he gets, but it seems to me it’s also used in humans.
It is – Shelly Roche always uses it with her Ferals at Tinykittens
I looked it up since I recall the name, if not the purpose, it was prescribed for me. It turns out it is prescribed to humans (among other reasons) for pain associated with herpes zoster, which I suffered in 2007. I still have some pain from that attack, but it was especially intense for the first few years, the time I was prescribed this drug. The duration of the pain is related to how soon after the onset of the disease treatment begins, and I went much to long since I waited several days for an appointment with my doctor when I probably should have gone to the emergency room. His comment on seeing me: “This is the worst case of herpes zoster I’ve ever seen!” He’d been in practice 30 or 40 years at hat point, so that was pretty shocking to hear. It was on the right side of my face, and left me permanently deaf in the right ear, threatened my sight – or might have killed me had it moved up my optical nerve into my brain! It was – and is – the worst pain I’ve ever experienced.
It also is something to reduce fearin cats. Watch any intakevideo from tinykittens facebook, Shelly talks about it then.
I’m following your suggestion!
Oh and she’s using it with her vet’s nod.
Does your vet agree with our belief that the blood pressure goes up in our pets when at the veterinarian’s?
I have yet to see them take the blood pressure. German vets don’t do that automatically.
Andy has a history of high blood pressure, so he doesn’t have a choice. The late Dougy, on the other hand, never had to endure this procedure because he never showed any heart-related concerns.
Interesting.
Andy’s veterinarian discovered a heart murmur years ago and that was the start of these blood pressure checks. (My mother, who lived to days short of 99 years old, had a heart murmur. Until her 80’s, she was physically active, having been a student athlete playing basketball, field hockey, then swimming for exercise and teaching swimming for 60 years. Apparently a heart murmur isn’t the worst thing to have!)
An aunt of mine was offered heart surgery at 90, the rationale being they could give her 10 more years. She looked at the doc and said, “I don’t want 10 more years!” and walked out. No surgery. She was about 4 months shy of 98 when she died, after a fall.
My father had a cyst in his brain that the doct5or said operating to remove3 would probably kill hi8m. He noted that my Dad (in his late 80s at the time) most likely was born with it and would live with it till he died a natural death before it did him any harm. He live till he was 94. My mother had breast cancer that that brought into remission. Toward the end of her life, it flared again, but the doctor, again, said the harm of treating it (discomfort, etc.) was greater than the threat to her life, so it went untreated. Again she lived to almost 99.
we hate that too… but we hope you got good news … did you get a payment for da fur donation?
Andy’s condition is treatable with a medication I mix into his wet food. His blood pressure was improved but still a bit high. Kidney and eye health are affected by high blood pressure, so it is a good idea to control it!