[Midnight_Angel]

I just had my 10 mo old male cat fixed and declawed almost two weeks ago now, and he has seemed fine, a little taken down because of the sudden lack of testosterone (sp?) but the last day and a half he keeps sleeping in the same spot and I realized he is favoring one, if not both of his front paws, and screams if I try and look at them, is this normal, would he still be healing??? What should I do?

[Wondergirl]

Please take him to the vet asap. He may have an infection, or part of a claw has become ingrown.

By declawing him, you have had the first sections of his toes cut off down to the first joint, not just the nails cut off. That's why infection is such a danger.

[morgaine300]

Sometimes vets don't a great job of this. It has to be done absolutely properly to make it successful and not have these kind of issues. Years ago I worked for a vet who did tons of declaws (before everyone started questioning it), and I never saw these kind of problems. And now I hear about problems left and right, and I got to wonder what's going on there. I can understand the pain issue from having it done, but some of the other things I hear -- I just got to wonder if it's just vets doing a mucky job of it.

My current vet -- I have no clue how he actually feels about declawing -- they keep them for a few days, probably because of the risks and wanting to keep an eye on things.

Well, what's done is done. At this point the vet needs to figure out what's going on. And then on your end, you should try to use a little box without the grainy litter, like just ripped up newspaper or something, and definitely not let him out. You can help by keeping things as clean for him as possible. And... don't know about this, but I wonder if just keeping him on an antibiotic for a couple of weeks would help. Maybe that's something they should do as matter of routine, like when they do dentals.