The Weirdest Medical Cases of 2023

Getting a new cat, as many an owner will attest to, can sometimes be an ordeal. But one woman’s adoption story might have been a lot more traumatic than most. In October, doctors reported on a case of recurrent Clostridioides difficile—a hardy, diarrhea-causing infection—that might have originated from the woman’s cat.

The woman began to experience symptoms a month after adopting a stray cat. After months of only partially successful treatment and repeated bouts of diarrhea, the woman asked her doctors if her cat could have possibly infected her. She decided to have her veterinarian test the cat for C. diff, which came back positive. Both she and the cat then got a round of treatment, and only then did her dreadful symptoms finally come to an end.

The authors note that they only have circumstantial evidence for tying the cat to the woman’s infection. But if it did happen, it would be the first documented case of cat-to-human transmission of C. diff.

And let’s face facts: If any animal would know how to hide its tracks well enough to avoid smoking gun evidence of a medical crime, it would be a cat. This isn’t even the only suspected incident of a stray cat giving a human a nasty and unusual infection reported by doctors this year.

Getting a new cat, as many an owner will attest to, can sometimes be an ordeal. But one woman’s adoption story might have been a lot more traumatic than most. In October, doctors reported on a case of recurrent Clostridioides difficile—a hardy, diarrhea-causing infection—that might have originated from the woman’s cat.

The woman began to experience symptoms a month after adopting a stray cat. After months of only partially successful treatment and repeated bouts of diarrhea, the woman asked her doctors if her cat could have possibly infected her. She decided to have her veterinarian test the cat for C. diff, which came back positive. Both she and the cat then got a round of treatment, and only then did her dreadful symptoms finally come to an end.

The authors note that they only have circumstantial evidence for tying the cat to the woman’s infection. But if it did happen, it would be the first documented case of cat-to-human transmission of C. diff.

And let’s face facts: If any animal would know how to hide its tracks well enough to avoid smoking gun evidence of a medical crime, it would be a cat. This isn’t even the only suspected incident of a stray cat giving a human a nasty and unusual infection reported by doctors this year.