NOTE You are not my veterinarian and I promise not to substitute your generous fact-sharing with actual veterinary advice. Seeking opinions, etc.
Bridget has a sort of a cough. She’s had maybe ten coughing fits or episodes today that I’ve noticed, lasting about a dozen coughs each. She’s had these symptoms before, maybe a year ago; we went to the vet, and the vet did several expensive tests and sent her home with antibiotics but was kind of light on the whole explanation deal.
She’s definitely not feeling great, but also definitely not feeling awful. She’s interacted more or less as usual for her (normal bouts of chilling disdain interspersed with lovey lap purrs and demands for slaughter-play). She has also spent more time in “kitty loaf” posture than is usual for her, which as I understand it is catspeak for “I feel like crap, but I’m a cat and won’t admit it.”
Her coughing fits sound kind of juicy, if you know what I mean; what in humans would make me think of phlegm in the lungs. She hasn’t coughed anything up. She sounds a little wheezy in her moment-to-moment breathing, though not as much as a human with pneumonia would. She does barf sometimes (not today or recently) and her coughs sound like she might be about to barf again, but she hasn’t.
She and her brother are full-time indoor-only cats (though her brother does get the occasional leashed foray into the fenced backyard; she doesn’t because she is a wicked escape artist).
Grass pollen is off the charts today around here. I’m a refugee from serious allergies myself. Do cats get asthma?
How do you tell the difference between lung congestion and imminent barfitude and/or hairballage in cats?
Should I be worried? I mean, I *am *worried, but should I be?
TIA.