Cats, while one of the most popular pets in the world, can sometimes seem the hardest animals to medically treat. They are experts at hiding pain, and traditional anti-inflammatory or pain relief drugs can often do great harm to their internal organs. Assisi Animal Health has long been proud of the Assisi Loop’s ability to reduce pain and inflammation in cats without harmful side-effects, and now, North Carolina State University has launched painfreecats.org, a resource for those who want a more reliable way to tell if their cat is in pain.
Of course, Assisi’s most famous feline client is celebrity cat Lil’ BUB, who has been successfully treated for osteopetrosis since 2013. The Loop has also been used to treat chronic arthritis, a urinary tract obstruction, gastrointestinal upset and more.
But how to tell if your cat might benefit from the Loop? About 40 million cats in the US suffer from chronic and debilitating pain associated with neuromuscular and orthopedic conditions. Only a small percentage of these 40 million affected cats have been properly diagnosed and are under a vet’s care. The barrier to delivering needed professional care: the inherent difficulty in diagnosing their pain.
The Feline Musculoskeletal Pain Index (FMPI), developed by Dr. Duncan Lascelles, BVSc, PhD, DACVS, is a “Clinical Metrology Instrument;” a tool for scoring the degree to which a cat is in pain through a questionnaire that measures the cat’s mobility, agility and disposition. The FMPI is the only clinically validated instrument for diagnosing and monitoring feline chronic joint pain.
By measuring things like willingness to jump, whether the condition has gotten worse, or a decrease in appetite, the FMPI can help pet owners and vets assess what type of treatment their cat would most benefit from.
We invite you to visit painfreecats.org to fill out and submit an FMPI for your cat. Print it and take it with you to your next vet appointment. This will help your vet understand how best to help your cat. Feel free to share this message with all the cat lovers you know!