How often should pets have a general health checkup?

[Chris]

Hi vets,

Here’s your general recommendations. Once a pet reaches stable adulthood and is past their kitten boosters, etc., it’s most common to have a physical exam annually. An annual exam is required as part of the general criteria for there being an established veterinarian/client/patient relationship.

So even if you feel your cat is very healthy and doesn’t need an exam, you have to have a visit in place to maintain that relationship for wellness/preventative care prescriptions. Most often this is a flea/tick/heartworm preventative, but this might also include sedative medication for travel and fireworks/thunderstorms. This kind of established relationship is required in human medicine as well.

Early signs of concern are so various and we have many many articles here on Cats.com on learning more about what certain signs and symptoms may indicate for cats. However, for cats the top three changes we see occur that indicate some kind of concern include changes in appetite, litter box/elimination problems, and hiding/antisocial behavior. Often, these occur in pairs, or all three may be present at once. They are not specific for any one condition, but you’ll usually see at least one of them if something abnormal is going on.

For older cats, I really emphasize biannual exams starting at 10 years of age. We think of 7 years sometimes as when pets become seniors, and I don’t think it’s wrong to start then, but really around 10 years of age and on is when we start to see the most concerns develop.

Because cats hide illness really well, very subtle clues like owners relaying more hairball frequency, behavior changes, and changes in weight trends can all point to an early problem developing. Many owners may not think that some of these mild differences are significant, but often mention them at wellness visits and sometimes we actually uncover something that needs treatment when we investigate more.

For labwork, I do like when folks are willing to do at least annual labwork for younger cats, at least starting around age 5. In most cases the labwork is normal, but that’s what we want to see for as long as possible. This helps us establish a baseline for what’s normal for a particular patient and then we can more easily pick up on and track, subtle changes. For cats going outdoors frequently, I think this can be more important, also including annual screening for feline leukemia and feline immunodeficiency viruses.

For cats 10 years and older I greatly advocate biannual labwork. A lot can change in an older patient’s health in just 6 months. This also gives us an opportunity to have a weight logged at least twice a year. Weight tracking in cats is so important because it may be one of the only indicators of more concerning disease and subtle weight loss of only ½ lb to a lb that can mean a problem for a cat may not be noticeable at all at home. For my own cats, screening lab work has been crucial over the years in revealing concerns early, like hyperthyroidism, before they developed into more serious illnesses.

I’m advocating the feline cardiac proBNP screening at least annually for cats at this age as well. Subclinical heart disease is very common in cats and they often show no signs of illness until some kind of crisis develops. We now have more therapy options to be proactive about heart disease in cats, making screening all the more important. For cats who are at risk breeds for heart disease, I think this should be done earlier, at 4-5 years of age.

Urine sampling should be done routinely whenever blood sampling is done. I consider it part of the minimum database. Urine tells us a great deal and is sometimes necessary to sort through some changes we see with bloodwork.

A fecal sample is important too. More so for outdoor cats, but even indoor cats can acquire intestinal parasites. In most cases, if cats are sharing a litter box, only one sample from the box is needed.

As for ultrasound and x-rays, I don’t think there is anything wrong with pursuing these annually in older cats if the budget allows for it. Some clinics may include x-rays as part of annual wellness plans. Ultrasounds are extremely valuable, especially for cats and can show concerns that x-rays are not capable of revealing, though access is not readily available at every clinic. I started doing both annually for my own cats when they were about 11 or 12. My access to these is easier than for most as I do my own ultrasounds, and I realize that, but the principle is the same.

In my experience, the most common concerns cat owners overlook include subtle weight loss (“he’s always been a thin cat”), vomiting food (“he eats too fast, he’s always done that”), hairballs (many consider normal for cats but cats normally shouldn’t have them more than once or twice a month at most), and asthmatic coughing (often confused for a cat trying to have a hairball). Cats often tend to themselves and hide things, which means the subtle early changes are really when we need to look into things more.

[Unknown Member]

As for stuff owners miss between visits, the big ones are subtle weight changes (people see their pets every day so they don’t notice slow gain or loss), early dental disease (bad breath isn’t “just normal dog breath”), and minor behavioral changes like sleeping more, hesitating before jumping on the couch, or drinking a bit more water. Catching those small shifts early saves a ton of headache later.