Cat breathing fast

[Zoeb23]

I have a cat who is around 10, maybe younger, I'm not sure. Yesterday I picked her up and heard a weird squishy nose in her armpit area when i pressed against it incidentally. After that I noticed she seemed to be breathing a bit fast, the sides of her abdomen near her hind legs are moving up and down about moderately fast. I took her breathing rate and it seems to be normal, about 23 breaths a minute. Apart from this she seems normal, her usual self. Ofc i googled it and saw horrible things like heart failure and whatnot.
The thing is, about a week ago we had to rush her to the vet because she licked her flea ointment and was having a bad reaction. The vet quickly sorted her out and then used the stethoscope to check her heartbeat and lungs and said everything is fine. She also said her stools feel normal and her temperature was normal, and didn't feel anything abnormal when feeling her abdomen. The only concern is that shes very underweight, but that was due to her not eating because her teeth were infected a few months ago so she could barely eat. But after having them extracted she was fine, she still isn't really gaining weight though. Around the time of the tooth extraction they did numerous blood tests on her that came back negative.
So, if she does have heart failure or fluid buildup, could it have just randomly developed overnight?? Is that even possible?? My sister claims she looks fine and that she always breathes like that, but I'm not sure. I feel I would have noticed it before. Her sides also seem to be slightly twitching occasionally, like theres something rippling under the surface. I just keep having these horrible thoughts that she'll get worse within a week or something and it turns out i was right to be paranoid any thoughts?

[Ruth B]

If in doubt get her to a vet. It could be nothing, but after all she has been through it could be there is something else going on that was masked by her other conditions. In the end we all know our own cats and tend to pick up the small signs that say something is wrong, no vet should be upset about you bringing in a pet to be checked out if you are concerned. If you don't get it checked out and given the all clear you will just keep worrying and she will pick up on that and will be stressed herself which won't help her recover.

I once took a cat to the vets when the only thing i could tell them was he smelt wrong. He needed his teeth doing so that was booked in and full bloods scheduled to be done just before hand. The blood test pick up very early signs of kidney problems, minor enough not to prevent the dental work, but something to be monitored, that was the smell I had picked up. He made a full recovery afterwards and once the bad teeth were gone his kidneys even recovered. Never be ashamed to ask a vet to check things out when you feel there might be something changed in your pet.

[Mollycat]

Normal breathing rate is around 15 to 30 so your girl is well within the range, not even borderline. It may be you noticed because she is thinner, or was breathing harder or sniffing. But a breathing rate to worry about on its own is pretty obvious and open mouth panting in a resting cat is definitely a big alarm bell. Sometimes even the light can catch their flanks differently and make their breathing more obvious, or just lying in a different position. They have a lot of loose skin that fools the eye in many different situations.

When you hear the squishy noise did the cat react in any way? I'm assuming you didn't feel any kind of wet patch or see anything? You can't feel any kind of lump there? Cats' tummies can make all kinds of gurgles pops squeaks and creaks just like ours can sometimes.

[Zoeb23]

Normal breathing rate is around 15 to 30 so your girl is well within the range, not even borderline. It may be you noticed because she is thinner, or was breathing harder or sniffing. But a breathing rate to worry about on its own is pretty obvious and open mouth panting in a resting cat is definitely a big alarm bell. Sometimes even the light can catch their flanks differently and make their breathing more obvious, or just lying in a different position. They have a lot of loose skin that fools the eye in many different situations.

When you hear the squishy noise did the cat react in any way? I'm assuming you didn't feel any kind of wet patch or see anything? You can't feel any kind of lump there? Cats' tummies can make all kinds of gurgles pops squeaks and creaks just like ours can sometimes.

Hmm yeah it makes sense. Also yesterday was quite hot and she has thick fur so it could be the cause of the faster breathing, and today its a little colder and her breathing seems more normal.
When i heard the squishy noise she meowed and tried to get out of my grip but I doubt that had anything to do with it, because she almost always squeals loudly and tries to wriggle away when you lift her up lol. A while later i felt around the same area and heard no noise or felt any lumps or anything, so i guess that's good. The thing is i suffer really badly from anxiety so its hard not to obsess over these things

[Mollycat]

Without being rude I did wonder, and cats don't help themselves do they by doing weird things sometimes and covering up when they really do feel unwell! If you are worried you can always ring the vet, good ones will give you a call back when they are available. Some can be a bit pushy for you to come in though, they make things very difficult.

Hard as it to reassure anyone over the internet when we're not vets (I don't know, is there a vet on this forum somewhere?) and even if we were the cat would need to be seen - last year I had my first experience of a cat really heavy breathing and believe me it's very different to just a little harder breathing in warm weather. It's quite a distressing thing to witness. The background, my boy had been getting steadily worse and ended up in hospital overnight with a raging fever, the vet stabilised him and we picked him up but within minutes of being home he was back to really ill and open mouth panting as well. It was after hours and we knew we couldn't save him this time but I was hoping he could wait until our own vet opened in the morning, I didn't want his life to end at the emergency out of hours. Luckily his breathing calmed down and his final night with us was peaceful, but I won't forget what distressed heavy breathing looks like anytime soon.

Please keep off google if you already struggle with anxiety though, I mean that kindly, google is a great tool but it's not an anxiety-friendly environment! I hope your girl generally helps you, anxiety can be so debilitating and pets (as long as they are well) can be so soothing.

[Arham131]

Heavy Breathing in cats is a respiratory disease that can be caused by a variety of factors that may or may not be preventable. It is a disease that millions of cats are suffering from at this time, and it significantly reduces their quality of life because it's restricted in both space and time. In this detailed blog post, we have discussed some major reasons behind heavy breathing in cats and some treatments.

* Link removed by admin

[Kimkoi]

Hi.
I don't know if my reply will help but it might help someone one day.
Does your sweet girl go out? If she does it is possible that she has been involved in some sort of accident, if she doesn't please ignore the rest of this reply.
In April my gorgeous boy went out and was literally out for minutes, as soon as I saw him at the door I knew something was wrong, at first I thought he'd been in a fight but very quickly realised it was much more serious, he was rushed to the vets and he was diagnosed with asthma, he had steroids by the vet and I purchased a product called Lung Gold which definitely helped him. He continued to get worse, lost all his weight and not only was his breathing so bad he also had a violent cough, to the point he passed out twice, he did show signs of improving but then suddenly he took a turn for the worse, I knew he was dying, he was rushed to the vets and admitted immediately and told not to resuscitate if it came to that, however he was resuscitated and finally an xray was taken and his diaphragm had been smashed on both sides, which is very rare, he was put to sleep at 3.33am.
Please if you are worried for any reason please get a second opinion, the first vet totally misdiagnosed my beautiful boy who then ended up suffering for weeks, the damage was not survivable even if it had been correctly diagnosed at the start but my boy needn't have suffered for 7 weeks like he did, he was such a gentle soul and it had s distroyed me losing him like I have, knowing he was in such terrible pain all that time and all because the first vet didn't do an xray. Like another reply said - you know your baby and you know when something isn't right.