Very distressed cat and blood tests. Anyone have bloods taken from cat's legs?

[worriedandsad]

Does anyone have blood tests for their cat taken from hind legs? Our cat needs frequent blood tests but he absolutely freaks out when they shave him and try to take blood from neck. Have switched vets and the new vet says that he only does this in very extreme circumstances as he finds when he takes blood from legs the veins often collapse and he fails to get blood. Has anyone else found a vet that does this as a matter of course rather than the neck and what do people do instead if their cat get very very distressed from bloods being taken from the neck. This older cat has a possible heart issue so we really do not want to sedate him every time.Thanks very much.

My senior girl is the same and our previous vet did do the hind leg blood sample a few times - it is much more difficult for them to find a vein and the last time she did it she only got a very small amount of blood. Then that vet left and my new vet won't even try it... Mine gets sedated, every 6 months.

Any chance you could have a visiting vet.Very very much less stressful.I had my cat shaved and cut where he had an abscess at home.Not cheap but worth every penny.

Would the vet allow you to stay with the cat to soothe it while the bloods are being taken? We got much more normal looking blood pressure results this way, but I did have to argue my corner.
I didn't want DCat pumped full of expense blood pressure meds every day just because she was suffering from "white coat syndrome"

Already looked at the visiting vet route - there are none anywhere near where I live. Tried very hard to find one but no one. :(

We were in with vet today soothing but cat still flipped out and vet stopped in end. We are goimg back tomorrow for another attempt but I feel so sorry for the cat.

My old cat with hyperthyroidism was like this, and I changed to a different vet after the first one failed to get blood from her. The new vet put a blindfold on her then put her in a zip up bag to keep her still, and took her front leg out to get blood from her. She still needed a nurse to hold her. It didn't look very nice, but it was a quick procedure and successful every time. She lived for another 3 years on tablets to control it. My vet did minimise blood tests but she did have them when necessary.

Back leg venopuncture is very tricky and usually obtains only small quantities of blood usually just enough for a single test.
Neck/jugular gives you the best quality decent size sample the quickest, but lots of cats dislike having their neck stretched.
Front legs are the next best sample site.
As a practice we use towel wrapping combined with anaesthetic on cotton wool to obtain blood samples from cats, but we have a mixed responsibility to staff safety the occasional really violent cat requires sedation for staff safety. Very low dose sedation is safer for a cat with a heart condition than a very high stress unsedated blood sample which increases blood pressure and increased the risk of them throwing a clot.

Fart had blood taken from her chest not her neck. I held her and she never even flinched. But she was very well behaved.

Fatty, not fart!

Neck/chest is roughly the same area - all jugular vein.

My vet always does front leg, so it must be possible... I have helped hold the cats still several times.

I'm not in the UK though.