One of our three cats went to the vet on Saturday. They said he has a heart murmur. He needs to have special examinations, etc. that will cost about $500, and then need to go on medication.
Has anyone else ever had a cat who developed a heart murmur? Can you give us an idea of what to expect? Simon is part of the family, we don’t want to lose him any sooner than we have to!
It bears repeating that this is the cat who lived in our house before we did. His owners skipped out on the rent. When we moved in, he always wanted in, but we already had a cat. Then we found out his story from a neighbor. Since then, he has adopted us and our other two cats. He’s the only one who goes outside.
Well, I’m a ferret owner, but hopefully this will be enlightening to you. I also used to work (for several years) in a pediatric cardiology office, so I learned a lot about various heart ailments in that time.
One of my previous ferrets (who was getting old and had another ailment as well) developed a heart murmur. She had an echocardiogram (ultrasound of the heart), which is probably what your vet is going to be doing. This shows how the blood is flowing through the heart, and points out any potential leaks, which is typically what makes the murmuring sound. It could be just a slightly weakened valve inside the heart that’s allowing a little bit of blood to “backwash” after it pumps the blood out of that particular chamber. It might be a birth defect where there’s a hole between chambers of the heart, or something more serious like that. If cat cardiology is anything like human cardiology, the “slightly leaky valve” is more likely, but your vet should be able to explain it to you when you learn what’s up.
My ferret went on two medications that I was familiar with from my work in the pediatric cardiology office - I forget one, but it was a veterinary version of a pretty common heart drug. The other was digoxin in solution - I picked that up from a human pharmacy, and the pharmacist looked at the prescription, puzzled, and asked if it was for an infant. She was good at taking her meds - the quarter of a pill that I had to give her (used a pill splitter) went down fine when powdered and mixed into some oily vitamin solution, and I used a medicine syringe to measure the digoxin and squirt it into her mouth. The medications were cheap, as well. Ask your vet about human pharmacy options, check prices, etc. I think a few months’ worth of the digoxin was under $10, and the other pills were maybe $15 a month or so.
She had been very run-down and not wanting to play much before this, and the treatment perked her up a lot. She lived several more months until her quality of life declined due to a different condition, and it became time to have her put to sleep.
The older of my two Singapura boys, Tenshi, has a heart murmur (3 on a scale of 1-6, making it somewhat severe). His is caused by aortic stenosis, which is fairly uncommon in cats (it appears more in dogs) and his cardiologist says that it’s something to keep an eye on but so far it hasn’t affected him in any noticeable way so, aside from taking him in for ultrasounds once every year or so, we haven’t had a lot of problem with it. Murmurs can be bad and they can be nothing to worry about. It depends on the cause.
I suggest if you haven’t already, get your kitty an ultrasound so the vet can figure out what’s causing the murmur. I also suggest checking out the “feline-heart” yahoogroup, which has a lot of people who know a lot about kitty heart problems and will probably be able to give you some useful advice.
My kitty was born with a murmur - but they told me they’d just to keep an eye on her heart at her yearly appointments - and most likely she’ll live a long healthy life.
My cat Bo is 14 and has had a heart murmer for the last 8 or so years. Apparantly it isn’t severe enough to warrant special meds or such. Matter of fact, my old vet never noticed it, when I switched vets (about 8 years ago) the new vet told me of the murmer. Good luck, I wish the best for your cat.
One of my 14 year old cats was diagnosed with a mild heart murmer about 8 years ago, confirmed by an ultrasound. I had him on daily medication for about a year, but his quality of life went way down because of the fact that he absolutely hated me for medicating him every day. He hid in the closet, under the bed, etc every day when I was up and around, and I had to drag him out to medicate him. The only time he came out was at night when I was in bed, because he knew I wasn’t going to medicate him then. I tried mixing it in foods he liked, and every other way the vet suggested to get him to take it without a fuss, to no avail.
I finally told the vet I was taking him off the meds, even if it shortened his life, because he was absolutely miserable and I never saw him; I decided that I’d rather have a happy cat that dies sooner than a perpetually pissed-off cat that lives to be 20. He’s been off the medication for many years now, and he’s still going strong at 14. The murmur is no worse than it was when he was originally diagnosed. He went back to being a lap fungus cat after a couple of weeks without the meds.
I hope your kitty’s murmur isn’t too severe, and that if you have to medicate him, he’s more tolerant of it than my boy is.
My wife and I want to thank you all for your kind comments and stories.
We’ll know tomorrow what the results of his first test are, and where to go from there. It sounds like Simon might not have too much to worry about. He doesn’t appear to be ill, so he must not be suffering from it. If your kitties are doing OK with it, he probably will, too. He’s got about as easy and comfy a life as any cat could hope to have.
If anyone else has anything to write about, please do.
Like humans, there are three basic types of heart murmurs in cats. There’s the “keep an eye on it” type where the patient never has any symptoms of any sort but has to take special precautions before medical procedures. Simon would need bloodwork and probably an EKG before having any sort of anesthesia in the future. There’s the “take this pill and keep an eye on it” type of murmur. In addition to the precautions above, he’d need regular monitoring of his meds and of the murmur itself. These two categories account for the vast majority of all heart murmurs. Only a small fraction fall into the third category, the “make the most of the time you have left” murmurs.
The specifics of Simon’s prognosis depend on what sort of murmur he’s got. Some of them show up and never get any worse, some get worse slowly as the pet ages, and some progress rather quickly. I seem to remember reading that Simon’s an older fellow, and older cats, like older humans, are prone to developing mild to moderate heart problems. It’s not something to ignore, certainly, but it’s generally nothing to freak out over, either. If he’s bright and bouncy and feeling good now, odds are very good that he’ll be quite happy and comfy for a good long while to come.
My Harley had a heart murmer, pretty severe. After nearly $1000 in tests he was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardio-myopathy (?sp) (and chronic renal failure which was unrelated, but problematic to the treatment of his heart condition). He had this for around 5 years, and it was the renal failure that ended his life, not the heart.
She was good at taking her meds - the quarter of a pill that I had to give her (used a pill splitter) went down fine when powdered and mixed into some oily vitamin solution, and I used a medicine syringe to measure the digoxin and squirt it into her mouth. The medications were cheap, as well. Ask your vet about human pharmacy options, check prices, etc. I think a few months’ worth of the digoxin was under $10, and the other pills were maybe $15 a month or so.