Dear Dr. John,

Our old cat is almost 20 and recently started limping. We were concerned with the possibility of arthritis. A friend showed us that our cat had two ingrown nails on his left front foot. We surmised that this was probably causing him some pain and lameness. Rather than trim back the nail since it seemed so painful, we made an appointment to have them cut in two days.

Should we be concerned with infection? We thought we had stayed on top of trimming his nails, but this has never been an issue before. Lastly, how often should a cat’s nails be trimmed and does this need to be done more frequently as a cat ages? M.C.

Dear M.C.,

Prevention in keeping nails from getting ingrown in older cats cannot be stressed enough. Older cats tend to succumb to arthritis and a lack of groomi

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