I could be jumping the gun as the diagnosis has not yet been made but… I took my cat to the vets with snuffles, snot and sneezing and he turns out to have a fast and irregular heartbeat. The vet asked a lot of questions, prescribed antibiotics and said to bring him back for another heart check next week. He says it could be heart disease and the cat may need treatment for that.
Background: Vespa is nearly seven and non pedigree. He has a history of sticky eyes and sneezing ever since he had cat flu as a kitten. Since Christmas he has seemed under the weather and his eyes have been worse, I was bathing them. After I was away the weekend before last I returned to find that he was wheezing and snuffling a lot, as well as having whole barrages of sneezes. The first time I took him to the vet he got a full examination but that vet said nothing about his heart and just gave him a long acting antibiotic injection. (Vespa didn’t have a temperature). I saw the second vet yesterday, which is when I was told of the possible heart problem. Naturally when I got home I googled it, from his symptoms and the questions the vets asked I think they are looking at Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy
The symptoms could be one or several of the following, I have bolded the ones which apply to Vespa:
Lack of appetite Increased weariness / lethargy Less activity Difficulty in breathing Gagging
Weight loss
Coughing.
If he does have this the prognosis is not good even with treatment so I’m very worried. He’s a lovely gentle little cat, as well as being a very naughty boy and I would hate to lose him. He also has a sister (littermate) and as it is hereditary she could also be afflicted. So, here I am paging Vetbridge, CrazyCatLady and anyone else who might know anything about it.
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Our cat has it. He was diagnosed at age 3; he is now 10 1/2 and doing fine. So it can be managed.
Lightning is on a regimen of Atenolol, Diltiazem, and aspirin. He’s relatively good about pills – he tries to spit them out, but he doesn’t try to bite or scratch.
With treatment, your cat can have many more years.
First, a nitpick. Yes, the cat had a temperature. Pretty much everything does. I think you mean that he did not have an elevated temperature (fever). A cardiac ultrasound is how the diagnosis of cardiomyopathy is made. The prognosis is generally poor. I think the testimonials given by pinkfreud and RealityChuck are atypical. Most cats that I see with cardiomyopathy live 6 months or less even with agressive treatment. I have seen a couple that have lived many years, but they are 2 out of hundreds.
Also, for your chronic/recurrent respiratory/conjunctivitis stuff, are you using Lysine? It can decrease the frequency of outbreaks.
Get the cardiac ultrasound. So much of any further discussion hinges on the results of that one test.
One more thing…
The signs/symptoms you are seeing are very nonspecific and could be seen with many different problems. A chest xray is much cheaper than an ultrasound, and you might want to persue that initially.
I’m nowhere near Surrey but thanks for the thought. Yes Vespa does indeed have a temperature, he is warming my lap up very nicely at this very moment, earlier he was running about very cheerfully, following me about like his usual self… He is back to the vet on Monday, it’s the PDSA so it will be up to them how they actually make the diagnosis, it’s the fact that they have detected anomalies in his heart rhythm that is giving me most concern, rather than the more peripheral symptoms. I guess the best thing I can do til then is look after him and try not to fret.
About Lysine, it doesn’t seem to be available over here. After hearing about it on these boards I asked at the chemist/pharmacist and the guy basically laughed at me .
Thanks for your help, I’ll post again when I know more.
Here is the promised update, a bit late. Vespa has now been back to the vet twice. He has recovered his spirits completely, zooms round the house and garden and chases his tail in the (empty) bath. Unfortuantely he has also returned to his habit of terrorising his sister. He is still being treated for his conjunctivitis with antibiotics and the vet hadn’t heard of lysine as a treatment either.
What the vet has said about his heart: there is an occasional irregularity, he thinks it may be a conductive problem (or did he say conduction?). The PDSA doesn’t have the neccessary equipment to do an ECG on a cat – apparently it’s difficult. As Vespie is apparently not suffering any impairment due to the heart irregularity for now, they will just keep an eye on him. I’m going to look into the cost of having him tested at a private vet but the vet didn’t seem to think that he does have Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy. I am relieved and feeling just a touch foolish.
I don’t know what the PDSA is (something like the Humane Society, maybe?), but it strikes me as odd that a vet clinic can’t do an ECG on a cat. If they don’t have enough cardiac cases to justify the expense of the machine, maybe, but every little backwoods clinic I’ve ever seen has managed to find the dough. It’s certainly no harder to do on a cat than on a dog.
The PDSA, People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals, provides vetinary treatment for those unable to afford it. Where I live the local clinic serves the city and several outlying towns. It’s quite big and I always thought of it as well equipped … I certainly got the impression that he was talking about cats as being difficult as opposed to dogs. Given that heart disease is relatively common in dogs I would be surprised if they don’t have an ecg at all. I don’t find the particualr vet I saw yesterday very easy to talk to, i really hope it’s his day off next time I go.
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