So we have some stray cats that we’ve been feeding for years. All have been fixed, but could not be adopted out because they were feral. One is about 9 years old (I think) and lately has been wanting to come into the house, I believe in order to escape a neighborhood tomcat who comes in our yard to bully our cats.
So now that she’s been coming in the house for several months, I notice she is coughing/wheezing. I thought it was a hairball & got medication from our vet to treat it. But she continues to wheeze throughout the day, and has never coughed up a hairball.
The logical step would be to take her to the vet, but unfortunately I’ve had to cancel the 2 appointments I made for her because the first time I couldn’t find her anywhere & the second time, when I was trying to get her into the carrier, she ran under our king sized bed & I couldn’t get to her-she stayed there for hours. There are a lot of nooks and crannies in our house & since she is wary of people, I’m pretty sure she has found them all. I have found her in weird places (such as inside a pull out sofa) just by following the sounds of the wheezing
Symptoms:
-heavy wheezing where she crouches down & looks distressed
-wheezing did not respond to hairball treatment (I even switched to a hairball prevention food)
-the wheezing is intermittent, usually every couple of hours as far as I can tell
-no weight loss or loss of appetite (she’s chubby)
-hard to tell if there are any behavioral changes because she’s so reclusive
After seeing , I think it might be asthma after all. But even if I can get her to the vet, I have no idea how I would be able to give her medication to treat it
If it were my cat, I’d probably ask the vet for a sedative that I could mix into a can of tuna (or some other food she finds irresistible) in order to get her into the office - that’s also how I got my cat to take her meds.
My cat responded better to mineral oil than to standard hairball remedy, BTW - maybe because I could use an eyedropper to carefully increase the dosage. You have to be careful not to overdo it, or you’ll be following her around with Lysol.
I must’ve somehow deleted my link from my prior post. Her wheezing sounds like this.
But this cat is so skittish that I can’t even get a video of her wheezing to show my vet. When I approach her with the camera, she runs from me.
Sedatives are a good idea. I hope my vet will give them to me without seeing the cat first.
ETA: Does anyone know what would happen if it goes untreated, provided it is truly asthma? I’m having a hard time imagining how I could give this cat an inhaler or steroid shots given how feral she still is.
My guess would be asthma but it could also be a kitty cold or another disease that’s lingering. I would ask for the sedative to try her and take into the vet’s office. I believe if you explain the circumstances the vet should give you the sedative. She’ll likely need you to give your best guess as to size and weight.
As far as giving her meds in the future, you can get your cat meds compounded by specialized pharmacies that turn the meds into the proper dosages in yummy cat approved flavors like liver that are easy to add to foods that they will eat. I used this place and recommend them. They are not expensive. Roadrunner Pharmacy They will ship the meds to you. I had several elderly cats for a while, and I hated being the person they didn’t want to see. This pharmacy changed our relationship back into a more normal “look it’s the food/warm lap lady” one.
Sounds a bit like my rescue cat Darcy. He’d hunker down and hack like an old chain smoker. I took him to the vet, who diagnosed respiratory issues (common in cats)and suggested a number of tests which may or may not have helped figure out exactly what was going on with him. Weighing options and with my vet’s agreement we decided to treat the cough with steroids. The cat was not happy with a daily pill, so I had to have him injected every few months. It did seem to help him.
If you can’t get the sedative, please come back and let us know. I think there were some very creative ideas from the team here on catching reluctant kitties the last time something similar came up.
Poor kitty! Thank you for taking her in and caring for her. I agree she needs to see a vet. I hope the tranquilizer in food works. If your vet won’t go for it, find one used to dealing with ferals/rescues. You can ask local rescue groups for recommendations.
Catch her when you can during the vet’s hours, THEN call the vet and ask to bring her in. That’s what we did w/ my folks’ feral female in order to get her spayed and then to get her shots a year or so later.
My worry about a sedative in order to get her to the vet would be that she’s already not getting enough oxygen and it could depress her breathing further.
Thanks for all the help, everyone! This cat is the quirkiest cat I’ve ever known. We have numerous cats who all hang out together, but this one is a loner and hisses at all the other cats & doesn’t interact with them at all (they run when she comes around,). She doesn’t like people either-we were never able to nurture the feral out of her, even though we took her in at 4 months–and her littermate didn’t trust us at first but developed in to the sweetest most loving cat. We’ve tried everything including pheromones, but she’s just crotchety and persnickety, it’ just her nature.
She also does not respond to catnip and every other cat I’ve had goes apeshit for it. Go figure. But she LOVES food, so I made a plan with the vet. First, he wasn’t willing to give her sedatives without weighing her and she doesn’t let people pick her up. It’s kind of weird having this wild animal living in my house, when she’s refused to come inside for years. That’s why I’m convinced that she’s really suffering.
So anyway, they hooked me up with a rescue group who is going to lend me a trap & we will set the trap inside my house with wet food inside. Once she’s trapped, I call the vet & they will fit her in that day. This is the best approach I think since the last time I tried to get her in the carrier, she scratched the hell out of me. I kind of dread putting her through this cause I know she’s going to hate it (and me) but listening to this horrible wheezing is torture. Once there, they are also going to treat her for fleas since we can never get close enough to put Advantage on her.
Thank god there are cat lovers on this site, cause some of my friends & family think I’m nuts! Wish me luck!
Our cat, Lefty, had snorting/sniffling nasal issues, admittedly different than what you are describing, and he simultaneously lost interest in food and activity, and hunkered down as if waiting to die.
The vet said it’s almost always nasal cancer in such cases, but did not recommend spending $1500 on an MRI (why not a CAT scan?) because there’s no real treatment possible. Lefty had rallied briefly when we gave him an antibiotic, but the vet said that’s probably because the antibiotic shot had a steroid base, and steroids sometimes shrink the tumors temporarily, bringing relief. So the vet offered to give Lefty a steroid shot which might ease his discomfort somewhat while we waited for the end.
Lefty was immediately (as in, within hours) approximately 100% better, eating and playing happily, no snuffling. Looked more like a cure than “relief.” That lasted about a month, and then he slowed down again and began to snuffle, so we went back in for another shot: why not, it did so much for his quality of life.
After three steroid shots total over a few months, he had no more symptoms and has been back to his old self now for about a year.
We didn’t have to give anything orally, just a quick needle at the vet’s three times and he seems entirely normal. Our vet was surprised. So it’s possible steroids might help your feline friend even if it doesn’t seem to make sense – might be worth the 50 bucks as a last resort if the problem isn’t figured out/fixed by other means.
