How a 13-Year-Old Cat Got Her Jump Back in About 4 Weeks — Without Daily Pills or Monthly Injections.

I thought my senior cat was just slowing down. Then my vet explained what cats hide — and what the research says to try before anything stronger

Updated 2 May 2026

Read time: 4 mins

Written by Megan Williams.

Cat lover of 20 years

If your cat is slowing down, this is one of the most important things you'll read this year.

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I can tell you the exact moment my heart broke a little.

 

It was a Tuesday morning in our kitchen. I picked up Pepper — my 13-year-old tabby — and set her on the windowsill, her favourite spot in the world. The place she used to leap onto from a standing start.

She stood there for a moment. Then she got down. Carefully. Front paws to the chair, chair to the floor. And she walked away.

 

Standing there with my coffee, a year of small memories rearranged themselves. She hadn't slept on our bed in months — I'd told myself she preferred the armchair. She took the stairs in stages — I'd called it "her little routine." She'd stopped grooming her back half. She'd gotten grumpy about being picked up.

 

My cat hadn't been slowing down. She'd been quietly giving up everything that hurt — while I called it "ageing gracefully."

 

Here's the uncomfortable part: none of those changes looked like a big deal. Each one had a perfectly reasonable explanation. That's exactly how this gets missed — it never looks like anything at all.

Cats don't limp. They just jump less.

Cats are biologically built to hide pain. Dogs limp and whine until you book the vet. Cats evolved as solitary hunters — in the wild, showing weakness makes you a meal. So they adapt instead, quietly deleting painful things from their life so smoothly that the person who loves them most never sees it happen.

 

She doesn't stop jumping onto the bed because she's old. She stops because the landing hurts.

 

And it's far more common than most owners realise. In one study where researchers X-rayed 100 cats aged ten and older, 90% of the cats over 12 showed evidence of degenerative joint disease — arthritis — whether or not their owners had noticed anything. Yet estimates suggest only a small fraction of arthritic cats ever receive ongoing treatment or management — by some counts, around 7%.

 

You didn't fail your cat. You got beaten by an animal that has spent forty million years perfecting the art of hiding pain. The only question is what you do now.

The vet visit that gave me an answer — and a problem

The vet confirmed it: classic degenerative joint disease, very common at her age. "Okay," I said. "What's the pill?"

 

That's when I learned the second thing nobody tells you. Compared with dogs, cats have far fewer long-term arthritis medication options, and the ones that exist need close veterinary supervision. They also don't suit every cat — particularly seniors, cats who fight daily dosing, or cats like Pepper who find the monthly clinic trip (and the bill that comes with it, which adds up to well over a thousand dollars a year) genuinely distressing.

 

Then my vet said the thing that changed everything.

 

"Before any of that, I'd want her on a proper marine omega-3. EPA and DHA. It's one of the few nutritional approaches with placebo-controlled evidence in cats — actual cats. Most owners have fish oil filed under 'shiny coat' and have no idea about the joint research."

The research that measured what owners actually notice

In a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, cats with X-ray-confirmed arthritis were given either fish oil — rich in EPA and DHA — or a placebo oil. Nobody knew which cat got which. The fish oil cats showed less stiffness when walking, and higher jumps — the exact things owners notice. Both findings were statistically significant.

 

In a separate randomised, double-blind trial of 72 pet cats with arthritis, significantly more cats on omega-3-enriched nutrition improved — with changes appearing within about four weeks.

 

To be clear: these were not random studies. They were independent studies of omega-3 support in arthritic cats. But they were the reason I started taking EPA and DHA seriously.

 

The mechanism made sense to me too. Arthritis pain is closely linked with inflammation in and around the joint, and EPA and DHA are involved in the pathways that help moderate inflammatory responses — which is why marine omega-3s keep coming up in joint research.

 

It also explained the half-finished pot of joint chews in my cupboard. Glucosamine-style products focus more on cartilage support. EPA and DHA are different — they're tied more directly to the inflammatory side, which is where the cat-specific evidence caught my attention. Different jobs. (Also, Pepper refused to eat the chews. A supplement your cat won't eat isn't a supplement — it's a drawer of guilt.)

That's when my vet recommended me Fureeze

Fureeze isn't an arthritis medication, and it doesn't claim to be. It's a daily marine omega-3 sachet — EPA and DHA from anchovy fish oil and Antarctic krill oil — designed to support joint comfort, mobility, skin, coat and general ageing health in senior cats. Three things sold me.

 

First, the EPA and DHA are stated per sachet. Not hidden inside a vague "omega blend" where you can't tell how much your cat is actually getting. You can read the numbers on the box.

 

Second — the part I didn't expect — Fureeze didn't start in the supplement aisle. They started as a freeze-dried treat company obsessed with single ingredients fussy cats would actually eat: wallaby, quail, even crocodile. The sachet came later, built by people whose whole business depended on knowing what a cat will accept. It shows. One sachet mixed through her normal food, and Pepper licked the plate — because concentrated marine oil simply tastes like fish. No capsule to hide, no chalky powder, no chasing her around the kitchen.

 

Third, it's one sachet, once a day, sealed until it hits the bowl. No pilling. No measuring. No oily bottle going rancid in the fridge.

What actually happened

Weeks 1-2: No visible change — just the absence of a fight; she ate it eagerly every day. This is when I'd have quit if I hadn't read the research: the trial cats improved over about four weeks, because omega-3s need time to build up. I kept going.

 

Week 3: She started grooming her back half again — a pose I hadn't seen in a year.

 

Week 4: My husband, on a Sunday morning: "Was Pepper on the bed last night?" She was. She'd jumped up in the dark, on her own, for the first time in months.

 

Week 6: The stairs are one motion again, and she's back on the windowsill most mornings, supervising the street.

 

Is she a kitten again? No — nothing in a sachet changes that. But the things she'd quietly given up, she has quietly taken back. 

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "My vet asked what I'd changed in my cat's diet. Said first thing — this." 

— Michael C., Verified Buyer

 

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Pre-portioned, no mess, no refrigeration needed — finally a supplement that's actually convenient. Won't be going back to liquid fish oil." 

— Sarah M., Verified Buyer

 

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "I have two cats and a dog, so I need something practical. One sachet each, no measuring, no arguments about who got more." 

— Priya S., Verified Buyer

 

It works out to about a dollar a day. Compared with the heavier options — and compared with doing nothing — it felt like a simple place to start.

 

Reviewed at 4.7/5 across 2,500+ verified Aussie and UK customers.

What Aussie and UK cat parents are saying

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If you noticed your cat isn't jumping around as much

If the change was sudden or severe, see your vet first — arthritis is a conclusion your vet should reach, not one you should assume.

 

But if your story is like mine — gradual, subtle, a senior cat slowly editing the jumps out of her life — then understand what "wait and see" actually means. The stiffness she's hiding doesn't pause while you decide. Every month is another month of her remaining years spent on the floor instead of the windowsill, beside the bed instead of on it.

 

You can't make her young again. But you can absolutely change how she spends the years she has left.

One sachet a day. 28 days per box. The research window is about four weeks — which means within a single box, you could know whether she's one of the cats who gets her jump back.

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Megan Williams is an UK based writer and lifelong cat owner. This article includes affiliate links; Fureeze provided product for review but did not approve the final copy. Always consult your vet before introducing a new supplement, especially if your cat is on medication, has pancreatitis, or is pregnant.

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