Home Remedies for Cat Pain

Cat pain may be an emergency and you should not attempt to treat your cat at home. Bring it to the veterinarian immediately if the cat has difficulty breathing, is bleeding excessively, has bloody stool or urine, may have heatstroke, loses its balance, has suffered trauma or injury, cannot bear weight on one leg or if the cat appears to be in extreme pain. Never give your cat acetaminophen to treat pain; it is toxic to cats. If your cat needs pain medication, see your veterinarian for prescription medication.

  1. Fever

    • If your cat's pain is accompanied by a mild fever, you can treat it at home. Apply a cool compress to the cat's belly or give it a short bath in cool water. These remedies should ease the pain and help bring the fever down. If the fever gets higher or fails to go down, call your veterinarian.

    Hairballs

    • If your cat's pain is caused by attempts to cough up hairballs, you will need a hairball lubricant. You can buy over-the-counter lubricants, but you can also feed the cat a teaspoon of petroleum jelly to help the cat cough the hairball up with less pain.

    Skin Abrasions

    • If the cat has a minor skin abrasion or insect bite or sting, mix some water into baking soda until you form a paste. Dab the mixture onto the cat's skin to ease the pain.

    Arthritis

    • Arthritis is a common cause of pain in older cats. If your older cat is stiff, limps or favors a limb, has difficulty getting up or down and is unable to jump, it is likely that it may have developed arthritis. A good way to help ease the pain that can come with arthritis in cats is to keep the cat warm and eliminate the need to jump up or down. Make the cat's food and water easily accessible, choose a large, low litter box and consider purchasing a pet ramp or stairs to allow access to your cat's favorite perch.

      If your arthritic cat is overweight, perhaps the best thing you can do is help it to lose weight with specially formulated diet food (reference 3). Helping your cat lose weight reduces the stress on the cat's joints, which will help ease the pain (reference 3).