This post is sponsored by Assisi Animal Health*
Bob showed up at Cindy Jones’ neighbor’s house in the foothills above San Diego one day. “He was definitely feral,” says Cindy, “but obviously he knew food could be found where humans were.” Since the neighbors had no interest in feeding a feral cat, she began to feed him daily. “It wasn’t long before he figured out that humans weren’t that bad – as long as they played by his rules.” During the two years of living next door, Bob learned that “humans were entertaining as well as a source of food.”
Then the neighbors decided to rent their home to a couple with hunting dogs. Even though the new renters said “the dogs won’t chase the cats unless they run,” Cindy wasn’t going to take any chances. Bob came to live on her property in a catio that she and her husband had built for him and another stray that also lived on the neighbor’s property. Since then, even though Bob is still very feral, he has learned to love his humans and tolerate people in general.
Lymphoma, and a leg injury
Bob has a form of indolent lymphoma, which he’s struggled with since he befriended humans, but the medical issue that brought the Assisi Loop into his life was a mystery. The cat run he lives in has ramps, a giant scratching post that he can climb to get to the shelves, and hiding places and a cat walk that connects the cat run to an annex which has the same catified set up. “One morning, I went in to feed him, and he couldn’t put any weight on one of his hind legs,” says Cindy. “I rushed him to an orthopedic surgeon, who palpated the area and took x-rays.” The vet said that it looked like it may be a soft tissue injury, or it could be a tumor somewhere, caused by his lymphoma. He sent Bob home with Gabapentin and an order for crate rest.
Due to Bob’s nature, crate rest wasn’t really an option. “When he was neutered they called him ‘belligerent’,” says Cindy. Instead, she blocked all upward access in the cat run and kept him on the Gabapentin, which knocked him out quite well in the beginning. Eight weeks later, he still hadn’t improved. If anything, things looked worse. “He was holding his leg cocked out to the side a bit to take pressure off something, which looked worse than his initial injury.” At a recheck vet visit around the same time the vet recommended to either keep treatment the way it was (rest and Gabapentin,) or get a very expensive MRI to find out whether it was a tumor, or if it was just how he was going to be for the rest of his life.
Cindy was not happy with either option. “Bob had gone through treatment for lymphoma and we’d recently decided to pull him off the chemo protocol because of the side effects he was having, so my only goal was to give him as many happy days as I could.” She thought maybe acupuncture might help, so she called a holistic vet. Unfortunately, acupuncture was out of her budget. When the vet mentioned the Assisi Loop, Cindy decided to order one. “I’d ‘hail mary’d’ with Bob before.”
The video below shows Bob after limiting his movement for eight weeks and giving Gabapentin twice a day:
Using the Assisi Loop for Bob
Cindy started out using the Loop twice a day, first thing in the morning, and last thing at night. “Because of his distrust in anything unusual (especially indoors), I snuck it on him (laying it over his stifle and hip) when the Gabapentin kicked in and he was nice and snoozy,” says Cindy. “He got up a few times during the early treatments, but has settled in to not being all that bothered if I timed it right.”
Cindy reduced his Gabapentin to one dose a day at night, so Bob could spend quiet evenings indoors. “The sedation via the Gabapentin made this possible because in the past when he was brought inside for various reasons, he paced and stress panted.” She took him off the other daily doses of Gabapentin. He spent his days in the cat run as usual. He still took prednisolone for the lymphoma, but that had been ongoing prior to the injury as well.
Within eight days of two treatments daily, his limp had noticeably improved. “He was doing some weight bearing on the leg whereas before he had barely been toe-touching with his leg fully collapsing each step. It was quite astounding.” Within about a month, he was using his leg fairly normally. Since Cindy is not sure what caused the limp in the first place, it was impossible to say whether it would return, “but for the last two months, it has allowed Bob to be in less pain and to get around like a normal kitty….and for that I am truly grateful!”
This video shows Bob after eight days of using the Assisi Loop:
Sadly, Bob passed away shortly after I wrote this post. Two weeks ago, he came in from his outdoor enclosure walking with a limp. Eventually, he lost control of his bladder and bowel function, and Cindy had to make the agonizing decision to let him go. Bob’s neurologist believes that this quick deterioration was most likely an indicator that Bob had a tumor on his spinal column, which is usually inoperable. Cindy is currently mourning her beautiful boy, but she told me “I am still a full on believer in the Assisi loop, as it gave Bob his mobility back when, in hindsight, his time was limited. For this I am incredibly grateful.”
How the Assisi Loop Works
The Assisi Loop, created by Assisi Animal Health, is a non-pharmaceutical, non-invasive device provides targeted pulsed electromagnetic field therapy (tPEMF™). tPEMF, which was first studied in the 1970s and is FDA-cleared for use in humans, uses low-level pulses of electromagnetic energy to stimulate the body’s own healing mechanisms to help relieve pain and swelling. This therapy can benefits cats with pain associated with arthritis, pancreatitis, wounds, or post-surgical swelling as well as many inflammatory conditions. The Loop is well tolerated by most cats. In fact, many cats really enjoy receiving Loop treatments. Because the Loop stimulates the body’s own healing process, rather than introducing a new substance (like a medication), even a sensitive cat body can handle it easily.
The Assisi Loop Lounge Therapy Pad
Featuring the same pain control of the Loop via targeted pulsed electromagnetic field therapy (tPEMF™,) the Loop Lounge™ is the only therapeutic pet bed backed by scientific research. Click here to read more about the Assisi Loop Lounge.
For more information about how the Assisi Loop or the Assisi Loop Lounge could help your cat, visit http://www.assisianimalhealth.com or contact Assisi Animal Health at info@assisianimalhealth.com, 866-830-7342.
*FTC Disclosure: This is a sponsored post, which means that I was compensated to feature this content. Regardless of payment received, you will only see products or services featured on this site that I believe are of interest to our readers.