It hurts her to "go"

[keepingin4med]

My cat was treated at vet for a crushed right back foot claw, got foot wrapped along with a painkiller and antibiotics. This started nearly 3 weeks ago. Since receiving a (what I thought was a rather roughly-administered) injection of either antibiotic, painkiller or sedative in her back right hip close to the spine, I can feel that she has developed a bit of a swelling at the injection site, and that this is the probable cause of her avoiding having no more than few bowel movements in the past 3 weeks even though she continues to eat well. Been back to vet for an enema as x-ray showed much impacted waste. Cat keeps exhibiting signs of pain (bunching up, twitching, frantically licking flanks, running & hiding) associated with injection site and I think the swelling is effecting her colon and makes her avoid defecation. Vet keeps taking "wait & see" approach. Can we do anything to reduce swelling/pain and return her to normal bowel habits and her previously happy personality?

[Savas]

Honestly, the biggest danger from injection problems is cancer/tumours. If you're worried about your vet's casual attitude, I'd consider checking with another vet. It's not the vet's fault it happened (hopefully, usually it's just one of those things) but he may be worried that you'll blame him if it goes badly.
Steroids are usually used for scarring/inflammation, so there's a chance he'll give him a steroid shot. They're doing incredible things with "specific steroids" now, so the dangers are small that a problem will arise (I won't lie, anything can happen though).

I'd be wary of the pain med's, though. I'm against pain med's for animals unless it's an extreme situation.

It does sound like kitty is doing better otherwise, happily. The behavioral changes sound fairly typical and healthy. Let me know how it goes!

[keepingin4med]

Thanks for your sensible comments. If anything, her appetite has increased since her initial injury... it's almost as if she's using food as a distraction from her pain. That's one reason I was worried, as a matter of course, that she wasn't also defecating regularly. (Before her foot accident she was more of a picky, slow eater, but her bowel habits were normal.)

It's a week since her foot's been healed, she's been off meds and had her enema. She also hasn't had to wear her head-cone/collar anymore this week (put on so she didn't pick at her foot  and it also kept her from jumping around so much), so I was interested in seeing if these changes would improve things. Foot and appetite are great, but the twitching/bunching up/hiding/sore injection site remains. Spoke to vet about it today, and as I thought he would do, he touted the injection site problem as one he'd not encountered before and said my cat's probably just "sensitive." His only suggestion now is to have her take a painkiller for a week to see if it helps. I'll be going to vet's office soon to pick up meds. You mention steroids... do you think that is likely to be what he'll prescribe? Steroids scare me, are you familiar with any way they can be bad for the cat? What might the treatment be if the pain persists after a week of painkillers?

[Savas]

These med's will commonly cause digestive issues, and it can be a few weeks before they settle. You can try a bland diet, like chicken bits mixed with boiled white rice.

As to the injection site...unfortunately, sometimes injections can cause problems to crop up. Scarring, growths, etc... You can try warm compresses on the site if kitty will allow, but unfortunately if a problem is arising, you may just have to "wait and see" which problem it is before appropriate action can be taken (usually steroidal or surgical).