You should seek the advice of your veterinarian if your pet is ill as only he or she can correctly advise on the diagnosis and recommend the treatment that is most appropriate for your pet.

When formulating a differential diagnosis list it is useful to employ the DAMNIT-V scheme 

The DAMNIT-V scheme involves formulating a list of differential diagnoses under the following main headings :

D - Degenerative

A - Anomalous

M - Metabolic

N - Neoplastic

I - Inflammatory

T - Traumatic

V - Vascular

All of these categories of disease will not be appropriate for some disease syndromes, but the scheme is useful to remind clinicians to consider all the possibilities.

Updated January 2016