Question for cat owners..........

[CathyA]

DD has 2 cats. She had one, and then brought in a stray last year. The stray is about 2 and 1/2 years old and is really sweet and active. DD took her to the vet's and had all the vaccinations before she brought her into her apartment.

Lately, DD has noticed that this cat seems to have more labored breathing than earlier. She doesn't open her mouth, but her entire body sort of heaves with each breath......especially after activity.
She's very playful, eats and drinks well, and has normal bowels.
DD took her to the vet the other day and the cat's temp was normal, and her heart and lungs sounded normal. Her urinalysis was normal too. (the cat had peed outside her litter box a couple times....but that could have been a territorial thing). She is neutered.

The vet said an xray would be about $200, and probably wasn't warranted at this time.

Today, DD says the cat played real hard, and laid down and seemed to have labored breathing (whole body heaving when breathing...although mouth was closed).

I'm just wondering about anemia too......but they didn't draw any labs.

Any input into what DD should be looking for? Its possible that DD just never noticed this in the cat before.........but she's pretty perceptive, so I have the feeling it's a new symptom. This cat and the older cat have been extremely slow to accept each other. DD was thinking maybe its a nervous thing.........but I just don't know.

Suggestions?

[cdttmm]

If the cat's breathing returns to normal within a few minutes, I probably wouldn't be too worried about it. Especially because the vet said the heart and lungs sounded fine. I'm wondering what the vet would hope to see on an x-ray that they would suggest that as the next possible step...I would have thought the vet would recommend a full blood work-up. Although, to do an x-ray on a cat they would need to sedate it, and that would require a full blood panel first so maybe that was where the vet was going with that suggestion. Hmmm...wish I had more to offer, but my only cat who's experienced breathing issues had thrown a blood clot after a traumatic injury.

[CathyA]

Thanks cdttmm. Just curious..........was it real obvious that your cat had a breathing problem after the injury? What kind of injury was it? What was the treatment?
DD is gone alot, and it's possible that this cat maybe fell off something in her apartment when she was gone.

[Icecrystal]

DD has 2 cats. She had one, and then brought in a stray last year. The stray is about 2 and 1/2 years old and is really sweet and active. DD took her to the vet's and had all the vaccinations before she brought her into her apartment.

Lately, DD has noticed that this cat seems to have more labored breathing than earlier. She doesn't open her mouth, but her entire body sort of heaves with each breath......especially after activity.
She's very playful, eats and drinks well, and has normal bowels.
DD took her to the vet the other day and the cat's temp was normal, and her heart and lungs sounded normal. Her urinalysis was normal too. (the cat had peed outside her litter box a couple times....but that could have been a territorial thing). She is neutered.

The vet said an xray would be about $200, and probably wasn't warranted at this time.

Today, DD says the cat played real hard, and laid down and seemed to have labored breathing (whole body heaving when breathing...although mouth was closed).

I'm just wondering about anemia too......but they didn't draw any labs.

Any input into what DD should be looking for? Its possible that DD just never noticed this in the cat before.........but she's pretty perceptive, so I have the feeling it's a new symptom. This cat and the older cat have been extremely slow to accept each other. DD was thinking maybe its a nervous thing.........but I just don't know.

Suggestions?

DH and I hand-raised a newborn kitten. He lived to be fifteen months old and then developed respiratory issues. The vet x-rayed his chest and found it primarily occupied with tumor tissue. He further tested the kitten and found him to be FLV-positive. (He neglected to do that when the kitten was new because he was under the impression that kittens with in-utero FLV do not survive beyond two or three days. Needless to say, he was wrong and had endangered four other cats.) Cats don't look like they're sick unless they're really, really sick, generally speaking.

Could you let me know what happens in a private message? I'm new here and don't know how to tell if anything I've posted has generated a response. Prayers up for your kitties.

[CathyA]

I'm unfortunately discovering that a really good vet is hard to find.

DD took her cat to the vet and the first vet said everything was okay......urine normal. Well, the heavy breathing continued and DD took the cat back and got a different vet. he checked the cat over and said everything looked okay. DD insisted on an xray and labs. The xray showed pulmonary interstitial shadows......which I guess meant fluid in the interstitial spaces of the lungs. He ran a bunch of labs....those labs were normal. He checked for heartworm and also I guess there was some lab that would show if the cat had a bad heart. All those seemed normal.

He ended up saying that perhaps something in the air triggered this response in her lungs, and she is now on a steroid for a few days.
But DD is sort of realizing that it might not be trouble breathing, but rather some sort of muscle spasm........like a hiccup.....lots of them. When we visited DD last weekend, the cat hid alot and we didn't get to see this first hand. I was hoping to see it and help DD figure out what was going on.

I have cautioned DD that it might be something that's more systemic than just in the lungs, and she understands this and will keep her eye open on new symptoms.
The cat was a stray that she took in last year. She has another cat, and after about 7 months, they're still not getting along. If this cat does have some funky disease, we sure hope it doesn't spread to the other one.

I had a cat die at age 10 from hyperthyroidism. A year before she died, he was vomiting alot and I suggested to the vet that we draw a thyroid level and he said it wasn't necessary, since he didn't have any other symptoms. Well, by the time he finally drew the lab, the cat was beyond help, and medicine didn't help and he died.

Also..........our 11 year old dog was sleeping ALL the time. We took her in and another vet said she didn't have enough symptoms. We said to drawn the damned test!! It came back and they called and said it was a little borderline, but not in need of anything. We asked for the results, and when we saw them she was OBVIOUSLY hypothyroid. So we started her on thyroid med and she's better now.
But dang..........why don't these vets know much? Fortunately, there's a second vet there now, and so far, I really like him. Its good that DH and I both are medical people and we can decide if what the vet is saying makes any sense or not. I feel bad for people who just have to trust them and then bad things happen to their pets.

Icecrystal........I hope your other cats didn't catch it, and I'm sorry it happened to your kitten. I'll PM you, but wanted to write it here, in hopes of it maybe helping others who read it.

[cdttmm]

Thanks cdttmm. Just curious..........was it real obvious that your cat had a breathing problem after the injury? What kind of injury was it? What was the treatment?
DD is gone alot, and it's possible that this cat maybe fell off something in her apartment when she was gone.

Hi CathyA, sorry, I just saw your question today so wanted to give you a response. Our cat had broken her leg after falling off a table. She had surgery to repair it and it was healing, but then got re-broken some how (she was 17 or 18 years old) and the vet said the re-breaking caused her to throw a blood clot that then traveled to her lungs and caused the breathing issues. Hope that helps and I hope your DD's cat recovers. Good vets are hard to find, but when you find one you'll know it!!!

[onlinemoniker]

CathyA: That sounds really sad for Kitty. I hope it works out soon.

[Icecrystal]

Cathy, thanks for your response. The other cats tested FLV-negative after the fifteen months' exposure. My vet at the time was a very intelligent fellow but overconfident in his biases. He finally figured out that he has limitations. I have no idea why their responses are so sluggish to obvious issues. Perhaps they're used to dealing with hysterical people or something. Here's hoping both kitties do well.

[CathyA]

Icecrystal..........I think you're probably right. I think vets see alot of people who are worried about their pets without having any real symptoms, and maybe the vets have learned to not over-do on the testing.
Unfortunately, that causes problems for those folks who are pretty perceptive about their pet's behavior. My daughter's vet (after she insisted on the xray and it showed something), sort of apologized and said something like "I need to pay more attention to what the pet owners are noticing and saying." ....which was nice of him.