How Do I Know If My Cat is in Pain?

HOW DO

I KNOW

IF MY

CAT IS IN PAIN? Both dogs and cats can be very good at pretending to be “just fine”, even though they may be feeling quite a lot of pain. One explanation is that any evidence of weakness may make one more vulnerable to attack by other predator type animals and therefore

Sandra L. Waugh VMD, MS it is safer to appear healthy and strong. Of course, some diseases are easier to disguise Windsor Pet Dental than others. A limp is usually easy to see, as is vomiting and/or diarrhea. But other kinds of pain are not so obvious, and dental pain is often well disguised. Even with considerable pain in the mouth dogs and cats will eat a normal amount. They may eat using just one side of mouth, may tip the head consistently to one side, allow food to dribble out of the mouth, be a bit slower to eat, or refuse to eat dry food and it can take careful observation to perceive this. Eating, after all, is necessary to sustain life and to not eat due to pain means dying of starvation.

Humans have the ability to put their pain into words. Dogs and cats cannot talk and it is up to us humans to become detectives. To help you detect pain in your cat go to www.felinegrimacescale.com. The Feline Grimace Scale was developed in 2019 at the Université de Montréal with funding from Zoetis. As the name implies, it is a means of assessing your cats facial characteristics to produce a “pain score”. There are diagrams as well as photographs to demonstrate how it is done. A video can be found on YouTube by searching for “A new tool helps measure pain in cats”. (And now there is even “an app for that” for iPhone or Android!).

To give you a quick idea of this, you would observe your cat undisturbed for 30 seconds. If your cat is grooming, eating or meowing, wait until she/he is done. If sleeping, wait until she/he is awake. You are then going to observe 5 different parameters: Position of the ears, eyes open or squinted, muzzle relaxed or tense, position of the whiskers, position of the head in relation to the shoulders. Then score each as 0, 1 or 2 as shown below. If you get a total score of 4, your cat is experiencing some pain. The higher the score, the more pain and the more serious the problem. See your veterinarian with a pain score of 4 or more.

The ears are normally facing forward. As pain increases the distance between the ear tips increases. Eventually the back of the ear becomes visible.

When the eyes are squinted, the upper and lower eyelid move towards each other.

Curved Downward

Relaxed, spread out and loosely curved Whiskers closer together at origin. Can be slightly curved or straight. Whiskers are tense and spiked at the end. (moved forward and away from the face)

Closer Together Spiked at the End

And here is a real world example.

EARS: I can see the back of the ear....... 2 EYES: Squinted almost shut................... 2 MUZZLE: Hard to see but at least a 1... 1 WHISKERS: Still have some curvature but definitely have tension......................... 1 HEAD: Below the shoulders with the chin toward the chest .......................... 2

This kitty has Stomatitis, a very painful condition in the mouth.

Behavior changes can also occur with pain and cats that are experiencing pain will often hide. If your cat suddenly changes his/her routine, this would be an excellent time to use the scale.

They are working on a Grimace Scale for dogs. Until then, there are other references for dogs which I will write about next time. Dr. Waugh is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

She also holds a Masters Degree from Washington State University of Veterinary

Medicine and is owner of Windsor Pet Dental, PLC.

The position of the head is evaluated along with all the other parameters.