Never-Ending Toe Fractures

By Kay Hisano | Dated July 24, 2023

While his owners were away, Jack the bird-loving Ragdoll, got a little too distracted by the birds flying around his balcony and fell off his 3-story high balcony railing. Later that day owners found him sitting outside on the streets looking scared and holding one of his paws up. Owners rushed him to Northside Emergency Veterinary Service (NEVS) that night, and thankfully there were no serious injuries that they could detect. However, there was a high suspicion that one of his toes could have been fractured, and was presented to us the following day for some radiographs.

Jacks’ broken toe.

Much to our suspicion, the radiographs taken confirmed that Jack had a fracture in one of his toes in his left forelimb. Poor Jack was reconsidering whether the birds were worth his broken toe.

Although cats are much better at landing safely from heights compared to dogs, they can still sustain serious injuries such as broken limbs and pelvis, shattered jaws, fractured teeth, punctured lungs, and even internal injuries. Although they may seem completely well, it is always the best option to get your lovely pets examined by a Veterinarian to get the all-clear.

To our surprise, it seems as though we are having a pandemic of fractured toes this month. We have seen 4 other patients come through the clinic with a fractured toe. Treatment for fractured toes will depend mainly on which toe is affected. Some may require surgery or bandaging while some may only need strict cage rest and anti-inflammatory medication. Often times a Veterinarian can feel the instability in the toe during an examination, but the only way to confirm the type of fracture is by taking radiographs.

In Jack’s radiograph above, one of his metacarpal bone was fractured and the two fragments of bones are no longer aligned with eachother. Therefore, Jack had to go home with a bandaged foot and will need rebandaging in the upcoming weeks, and repeat radiographs as we are worried that the fractured bone may heal in an abnormal position, leading to impaired function of the bone. We are all hoping for a full recovery from Jack in the next coming weeks, and hopefully, he’ll leave those birds alone from now on.