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Sudden onset of gait change

Campbell

I have a 10 year old male/neutured Siamese mix, 14.5lb. He developed a sudden strange gait (slight limp of hind legs and lowered posture) overnight and began circling to his left in tight circles upon picking him up and setting him down. No vomiting, nystagmus, head tilt, however no appetite. Couldn't climb inside litter box. About 10 hrs later after receiving ~130ml fluids via IV, he stopped the circling and his gait is almost back to normal. Appetite returned. His CBC and chem profile came back normal except for blood glucose ~227. He still walks down the hallway very closely along the left wall. He walked into an object on his left twice. No obvious ear discharge. What causes such sudden onset and remission of circling behavior? Is it reasonable to rule-out ear infxn since CBC came back normal? Thank you!

Symptoms: Lethargy, No Appetite & Anorexia

• Veteran Advisor Angela Spar says:

  January 14th, 2008 at 09:35 PM

  Hi there, YOu could still get an ear infection with a normal CBC. Did anyone look down his ears with an otoscope to view his entire ear canal and ear drum? How was his temperature? How was his urinalysis? did he have a fructosamine checked? ( this checks his sugar over the previous few days-week) Typical things I would be thinking for for these kind of problems would be: Neurological (either inflammation, infection, idiopathic-the fancy term for we don't really know the cause, or tumor); metabolic eg diabetes; infection eg ear infection. DId they put him on any meds to go home with? When we have cases like this sometimes we end up referring them to a neurologist if we can't find a cause and the symptoms are persisting despite trial treatments, where they will often do further tests that we don't have access to like an MRI . I hope you find an answer for his problems soon and that he feels better.

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• User says:

  January 14th, 2008 at 10:48 PM

  His ears were inspected and vet said they were fine. Temperature normal. No UA was performed but his blood glucose was re-checked and dropped to ~150. No meds were given to him. They don't think it is metabolic because his chem test came back normal. What will differentiate between an idiopathic vestibular disease vs a more serious problem such as a brain tumor? Thank you!

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• Veteran Advisor Angela Spar says:

  January 14th, 2008 at 11:08 PM

  Typically a brain tumor will get worse with time, and idiopathic will either stay the same or get better on its own. However the only true way to determine if something is really idiopathic is to rule out all other possibilities, so for that you would need something like a cat scan or MRI to rule out a brain tumor.

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