start with a pet store

Chapter 713 Cat Food Controversy

He put the little guy on the table. He needed to do a quick neurological examination to determine whether the little guy's symptoms were neurological symptoms. If so, he also needed to determine roughly where the symptoms were.

The logic of neurological examination is actually relatively simple. The nervous system generally follows a control link from top to bottom, that is, from the brain to the spinal cord and then to the surrounding nerve endings. If there is a problem in one of the sections , then all neurological functions below this section will have symptoms.

For example, if the little tabby now has a problem with the cervical spinal cord, the little guy will have symptoms on his forelimbs and hind limbs.

He looked at the little tabby. Its main symptom was that it couldn't lift its neck, and its limbs seemed fine. At least standing and lying down are not affected.

He made a note that if the culprit was a neurological disease, it would definitely have to look for possibilities in the brain or cervical spinal cord.

But now it can control its limbs independently, can stand and walk independently, and is not paralyzed. The cervical spinal cord of the little guy should also be ruled out.

But he also felt that the little guy didn't seem to have a brain problem, because during the head and facial examination, he found that the little guy's state of consciousness was relatively normal, including the size of his eye pupils.

There is no nystagmus or anything like that that occurs when there is a brain problem. It can also interact with people normally. There is no head tilting, turning in circles, or ataxia. From this point of view, the little guy does not belong to the central nervous system. Nervous system problems.

In other words, the little guy has ruled out brain and cervical spinal cord problems. At least before the MRI results came out, Lu Jingxing ruled out these.

He looked at it and said to the little tabby's owner, the girl: "My preliminary estimate is that the little guy's neck muscles are weak, and it shouldn't be a nerve problem..."

"Ah, isn't it a neurological problem? I went to many hospitals, and they all said it was definitely a neurological problem, so they all said it couldn't be cured..." The girl didn't know whether to be happy or disappointed.

"Let me see. The NMR results should be out. Let me see the results..." Lu Jingxing turned on the computer. Xiao Liu had already sent the NMR results.

Lu Jingxing's intuition was right. The little guy's nerves were indeed fine.

The girl came over and said, "How's it going, Doctor Lu? Is it a neurological problem?"

Lu Jingxing shook his head: "No, it should just be neck muscle weakness. But why is the neck muscle weakness? From my experience, it should be caused by hypokalemia. Cats will lift their heads when they have low potassium. It doesn’t start.”

"Low potassium? Does potassium deficiency mean that you can't lift your head? I remember that my boyfriend's dog at home seemed to be lacking potassium last month, but he didn't say it was lowering his head. He just said he always had no appetite or something, and then he went to the hospital for a checkup. I know it’s a potassium deficiency, but there’s no such thing as my nuts…” the girl said as she thought.

"You are really right. Let me tell you a little trivia. Potassium deficiency will cause muscle weakness no matter what animal it is, including humans. But with so many animals suffering from hypokalemia, only cats can't lift their heads, not dogs. For this phenomenon, most mammals have a structure called the nuchal ligament. The nuchal ligament connects the spine and cervical vertebrae and serves as an auxiliary muscle, traction and support for the head..." Lu Jingxing explained this to the owner while guiding the little one to raise his head with his head. process.

The girl listened very carefully and nodded from time to time.

"However, cats are the only animals that do not have nuchal ligaments, and their head and neck are completely supported by muscle strength..."

"Why, cats and dogs look similar?" The girl was puzzled.

"First, it's a matter of physiological structure. Second, it may have evolved slowly from cats, because cats are more flexible than dogs." Lu Jingxing explained with a smile.

The girl nodded: "That's true, cats seem to be more flexible than dogs."

Lu Jingxing smiled: "They are much more flexible. Therefore, when a cat suffers from hypokalemia and muscle weakness, it is easy for the cat to be unable to lift its head. Of course, this does not mean that other animals will not have this problem. In this case, if it’s just a cat, if it’s confirmed to be hypokalemia, this will definitely happen.”

In fact, from the beginning, Lu Jingxing considered whether it was a problem in this area, but the first thing to rule out was definitely a neurological problem.

It was only after seeing the results of the MRI that he was more certain of his knowledge, because its symptoms are still very typical, because it has one and only one symptom, the inability to lift the head, which is too similar to hypokalemia.

Then MRI confirmed that it had no other neurological symptoms such as brain disease or cervical spinal cord disease, nor was it said that it had been exposed to poisons. This symptom appeared acutely, so it was definitely not a developmental malformation. After ruling out everything, Lu Jingxing said to the owner: "Let's draw blood from it and do a test to confirm..."

He took the little guy to the blood test room to check whether he had hypokalemia and also whether he had hypoglycemia.

The blood test results came out quickly and confirmed Lu Jingxing's inference. The little guy's blood potassium concentration was only 2.83mmol/L. Apart from this, there are no other abnormal indicators. The functional systems including liver and kidney are also normal.

Now that we know the cause, let’s find out the cause and why there is potassium deficiency.

Lu Jingxing asked the girl to sit down at the table opposite him.

"There are many causes of hypokalemia, diet-related, such as insufficient intake, kidney function-related, such as excessive excretion, drug-related or some other internal medical problems. I looked at nuts and it It's not very big, less than a year old, right..." Lu Jingxing hooked the little guy's feet with his hand. The little guy hung his neck and leaned against the bag where the girl brought it over, looking weakly at the table.

"Yes, almost one year old..." the girl said.

"So, at its age, it shouldn't be caused by internal medicine. Did it have any gastrointestinal symptoms such as diarrhea and vomiting in the past few days before it fell ill? Also, what kind of cat food have you been feeding it?" Lu Jingxing looked at the girl.

"Well, his appetite has always been normal, and he hasn't had diarrhea or vomiting. As for cat food, because he was picked up outside a pet store next to our community, I have been buying cat food from them. Liang, I have pictures, Nan, this is the brand..." She showed the pictures on her phone to Lu Jingxing.

Lu Jingxing frowned when he saw this brand. His first reaction was that it was a bit strange. This brand was too niche. He had been in contact with many manufacturers. In his impression, there was no such cat food. , that is to say, he had never heard of this brand. He checked it on the computer and found that this brand could not be found on the Internet at all. There was not even an advertisement. This was just a miscellaneous brand of cat food.

This surprised Lu Jingxing. Maybe the girl was out of gratitude because she had picked up the cat outside a pet store, so she had been buying cat food at the pet store. But with her unhesitating attitude when she just had an MRI, he felt This cat food is probably not cheap, because the girl doesn’t look like someone who would buy cheap cat food.

"What's the approximate price of this cat food?" Lu Jingxing asked curiously.

"It seems to be about two hundred and one bags. One bag weighs about ten kilograms. The boss brings it to my house every time..." The girl was a little confused: "Is it a problem with the cat food?"

"Well, based on my experience, it's probably, but two hundred and a bag, about ten kilograms, shouldn't be low-quality cat food..." Lu Jingxing felt that at this price, unless the shop owner had falsely reported the price, it shouldn't be reasonable. , but this brand is indeed too niche, and it cannot be ruled out that it is a problem with the manufacturer.

He paused and said: "Now I can confirm that it is hypokalemia that I mentioned at the beginning. The cause should be the cat food. Fortunately, it was discovered in time and did not cause other complications. ..." Lu Jingxing said with certainty.

"Then, then...how to cure this?" After finding the problem, the girl was still worried.

"This treatment is easy. Now we only need to help Nut to increase its blood potassium concentration. No other further treatment measures are needed. My suggestion is to prescribe some potassium supplement tablets for it to take at home. God, and the most important thing is to change it to cat food..." They are all colleagues, so he can't explain it too clearly, so he will stop at that.

"Is it so simple? How should I prescribe this potassium supplement tablet, and how much should I prescribe?" The girl did not expect that the final treatment was so simple. You must know that she had gone to many hospitals, and they all said it was neurological and that it could not be cured!

"Well, I've already prescribed it. It costs about seventy yuan. You go to the front desk and pay, and our staff will give the medicine to you..." Lu Jingxing handed the prescribed order to the girl.

"Ah, it's so cheap...can it really be solved?" She still couldn't believe it. She had no hope before coming here.

"Then what do you think?" Lu Jingxing looked at her with a smile: "This is not a difficult disease. The main purpose of taking the MRI is to rule out neurological problems. Otherwise, we would have given you a blood test from the beginning. That kind of MRI You can save money, but it’s just like this. If it’s a neurological problem, I’m afraid of delaying the condition, so it must be ruled out.”

"Thank you so much. I can't save money on MRI. Thank you. I'll stop by your place to buy food. Oh, I have good intentions. I didn't expect that it would harm the nuts. Forget it, I won't be able to go to that boss in the future. Let’s buy food then…” The girl sighed softly.

"That's not impossible. You can buy a bag from us later. If you want to buy again in the future, just continue to choose this brand. The brands in our store are basically all good. I have selected them. Then you can take pictures of this. After eating for the first time, just go to him and get this brand..." He smiled and gave her some advice.

(End of this chapter)