Ehlers Danlos Syndrome in Cats

[Ruth B]

Rather than clog up Mollycats thread where this topic had cropped up as a side note, i thought it best to start my own here.

People may have come across Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (EDS)in humans, it is a rare inherited condition that effects the connective tissue, common symptoms are joint hypermobility and fragile or stretchy skin. What less people know is that it can can occur in cats, and can produce one other odd symptom, wings.

Having more than a passing interest in cryptozoology, the winged cat phenomena was what introduced me to the condition. I love all types of mysteries, but I love it even more when people actually check out the mystery to see if they can find a rational, scientific explanation, I'm the type that is just as happy when they can as when they can't. So of course tales of cats with wings dating back centuries caught my attention, and then to find it had a medical explanation made it all the better for me.

Then a year or so after I adopted Freyja and Saturn the rescue they came from had a kitten that was experiencing unusual issues, he had problems with both paws and skin. His two siblings were fine and were quickly adopted, but until the cause of the skin and paw issues was solved the person who ran the rescue decided that Murphy couldn't be put up for adoption. It took the vet a while, it is after all a very rare condition, but Murphy was finally diagnosed with EDS, his symptoms had rung a bell for me, and while I knew it by a different name, it was the same condition.

The official term for the condition in cats is Feline Cutaneous Asthenia, and while the symptoms of it can seem worrying to us humans when we see them, they don't seem to bother the cats as much as we thing they should. Murphy stayed as a permanent resident of the rescue, and I saw photos posted of his sores that looked horrendous, but didn't seem to bother him, it was just unlucky that his skin would tear easily, they just needed looking after to make sure they didn't get infected. His paws would also seem to dislocate a bit from time to time and then relocate themselves afterwards, but it never stopped him running around a nd playing. His skin is starting to sag a bit now, but again that is part of the condition, I'm just waiting to see if he develops wings. The wings are actual wings, but caused when a cat with EDS has skin on its back and shoulders, which is normally stretchy anyway, stretch more than normal and then not return to its original position, gradually this forms patches of fur covered skin that extend from the body. The wings don't contain any muscles, but can appear to flap passively when the cat runs, or muscles in the cats back can appear to make the wings move a bit.

If anyone want a long read on some of the winged cats that have cropped up throughout history, this is a nice write up on them by one of my favourite cryptozoologists Karl Shuker and well worth a read, not to mention seeing the photos of actual 'winged cats'.
http://karlshuker.blogspot.com/2018/02/ ... hings.html

[Mollycat]

Thank you Ruth, that is interesting, and I was wondering until you got to it whether Murphy was ever adopted out.

So with loose flaps of skin, and cat skin being so loose to begin with, do they also tend to get sores in the folds like wrinkle dogs do? Or is it mainly from small tears?

I always think it's worth writing posts about uncommon conditions and situations just for info, because sooner or later someone somewhere googling because their cat is going through it will find it.

[Ruth B]

It doesn't seem like the sores occur under the wing flaps, so I think i is just from knocks and small tears. As mentioned in the article, sometimes the flaps will fall off naturally with no bleeding or wound so i guess the skin just slowly dies off, which might prevent the sores occurring, or it could be that once the skin looses so much of its elasticity that it can form wings it doen't tend to tear as much. It is all speculation at the moment, I don't think that a lot of research has been done on it as it is only recently really that the link has been made between EDS and the Winged cat phenomena. Its one reason I love the updates on Murphy to see how things are progressing with him.

[susand]

Thanks for this Ruth. It’s very interesting and I’ve learned a lot.