Identifying Feline Pain: New Feline Grimace Scale (& additional scales)

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Tomlin

Tomlin

Member Since 2019
Hello,

Having a cat with chronic pancreatitis, I learned as so many do, how to identify if T is in pain. This can be extremely challenging with cats if you have never had to recognize it before. In addition, as the pain becomes more controlled or lessens, the signs of pain also become more subtle and often harder to recognize (unless you see a BG go through the roof :eek:....usually a red flag during an illness).

Last year a new pain scale for cats, meant to be be easy to use, was released. It is validated. It is called the Feline Grimace Scale (FGS). I am going to attach an article about the scale, the training for the scale (will be a link at the bottom) as well as 2 other validated scales used in helping to identify Feline Pain: The Glasgow Pain Scale (like this one as well) and the UNESP-Botucatu Multidimensional Composite Pain Scale for assessing post operative pain. Sometimes, utilizing more than one scale is helpful :) especially when you are like o_O:nailbiting:.

Hopefully, it will help with managing pain at home and also help in communicating with your treatment team to determine best approach if what you are doing isn’t working or if there is a concern that something isn’t going well with a recovery.

Website for Grimace Scale:
https://www.felinegrimacescale.com/

Training for Grimace Scale:
https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art:10.1038/s41598-019-55693-8/MediaObjects/41598_2019_55693_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

I have also taken pics of Ts personal pain, nausea faces and positions which have been helpful, especially at the beginning of the journey 5 years ago.
 

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purrrrfect.
It's making me save it into docs (which I have absolutely no idea how to work) but I figure saving this is well worth trying. THANK YOU!!!!
 
Using Windows 10 and Firefox. When I click on the links above, I get the option to open the files either in a Firefox tab or in Adobe Acrobat Reader.


Mogs
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jt and trouble (GA) said:
Eh it happens a lot these days but yeah VERY interesting!!! THANK YOU!
Click to expand...

You are welcome! Trying to identify pain in cats is not easy...especially when it becomes more subtle during recovery from an illness/dental/surgery. Nothing like trying to figure out whether to give a pain med or reduce dosing when the cat doesn’t show the more obvious signs. Hopefully this will help! Chasing pain after the fact is never good so I like to make sure we are ahead of it.....before it is so bad that the obvious signs reappear.
 
Thank you so much for this information!:bighug: It is going to be incredibly helpful going forward. I just practiced using the Feline Grimace Scale on Butters, and then did it while looking at a photo I took of her two weeks ago when she was in the worst part of her pancreatitis flare, having been undermedicated by the first ER I brought her to. I could spot stark differences in the action units between then and now. I'll use the other pain scales also, as I believe that the more tools I have in the toolbox, the better. I cannot thank you enough for posting this.
 
I am so happy it will be helpful ! Based on what I have read it sounds like they want to expand its use to owners. The fact that it’s validated vs subjective is helpful & I also have found that it is useful with the more subtle signs which I find to be much more difficult to identify sometimes—especially when making decisions about whether to reduce medications or not. We don’t want to medicate if it isn’t necessary, but we don’t want to end up chasing pain either :(.
 
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