Start at the pet store

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 which part of the body the symptoms were.

The logic of the neurological examination is actually quite simple. The nervous system generally follows a control link from top to bottom, 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 the nerve functions below this section will show symptoms.

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

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

He made a note that if the culprit was a neurological disease, it must be possible only from the brain or cervical spinal cord.

But now its limbs can be controlled autonomously, it can stand and walk autonomously, and it is not paralyzed. So the little guy's cervical spinal cord should also be ruled out.

But he also felt that the little guy didn't seem to have a brain problem, because when he examined his head and face, he felt that the little guy's consciousness was relatively normal, including the size of his pupils.

There was no nystagmus or anything like that that would happen when there was a problem with the brain. He could also interact with people normally, without tilting his head, turning in circles, or having ataxia. From this point of view, the little guy didn't have a central nervous system problem.

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

He took a look and said to the little tabby owner, the girl: "My preliminary estimate is that the little guy should be a manifestation of weak neck muscles, not a nerve problem..."

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

"Let me see, the MRI results should be out, let me see the results..." Lu Jingxing turned on the computer, and Xiao Liu had already sent the MRI results.

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

The girl came over: "How is it, Dr. Lu, is it a nerve problem?"

Lu Jingxing shook his head: "No, it should be just neck muscle weakness, but why is the neck muscle weak? In my experience, it should be caused by hypokalemia. Cats can't lift their heads when they have low potassium."

"Low potassium? Does potassium deficiency mean that you can't lift your head? I remember that my boyfriend's dog seemed to be lacking potassium last month, but he didn't say he lowered his head. He just said that he always had no appetite or something. Then he went to the hospital for a check-up and found out that it was potassium deficiency. There is no such phenomenon as my nuts..." The girl thought and said.

"You are really right. Let me tell you a little-known fact. Potassium deficiency will cause muscle weakness in any animal, including humans, but among so many animals with hypokalemia, only cats can't lift their heads. Dogs don't have this phenomenon. Most mammals have a structure called nuchal ligament, which connects the spine and cervical vertebrae, and plays a role in assisting muscles and traction and supporting the head..." Lu Jingxing explained the process to his owner while guiding the little guy to lift his head with his head.

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

"But cats are the only animals without nuchal ligaments. Their head and neck are completely supported by muscle strength..."

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

"First, this is a physiological structure problem. Second, it may also be a gradual evolution of 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: "It is much more flexible. So, when cats have hypokalemia myasthenia, it is easy for them to not be able to lift their heads. Of course, other animals do not necessarily have this situation. But for cats, if it is confirmed that it is hypokalemia, it will definitely have this situation."

In fact, Lu Jingxing considered whether it was a problem in this aspect at the beginning, but the first thing to rule out must be neurological problems.

He was more certain of his cognition after seeing the results of the nuclear magnetic resonance, because its symptoms were still very typical, because it had only one symptom, which was that it could not lift its head, which was too similar to hypokalemia.

Then the MRI confirmed that it had no other neurological symptoms such as brain disease or cervical spinal cord disease, nor did it say that it had been exposed to poison. This symptom appeared acutely, so it was definitely not a problem of developmental malformation.

After excluding everything, Lu Jingxing said to the owner: "Let's take a blood test to confirm it..."

He took the little guy to the blood test room to see if he had hypokalemia and hypoglycemia.

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

Knowing the reason, then find the cause of the disease, why is there a lack of potassium.

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, and each bag weighs about ten kilograms. The boss brings it to my home every time..." The girl was a little confused: "Is it a problem with the cat food?"

"Well, based on my experience, it's probably true. However, two hundred and a bag weighing 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. Oh my god, and the most important thing is to change it to cat food..." They are all colleagues, so he couldn't explain it too clearly, so he would just stop there.

"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 if it is a neurological problem, it will delay 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 his place and get this brand..." He smiled and gave her some advice.