Cat Chat Feline Forum

My lovely tortoiseshell cat is 13 1/2 years old and over the past few months has developed a cough (mainly when she is purring / at night?).

Initially the vet gave us some antibiotics and anti-inflammatories which seemed to help for a while but it is now back.

We went to the vet last Monday for her boosters, so broached the subject about the cough again then. They listened to her chest/heart etc and all seemed fine.

They have suggested x-rays and blood tests as a way of finding out the root cause (they suspect asthma).
I want the best for my kitty but all the tests came at a cost of about £470 which I can't afford until the end of the month.

Anyway, the cough seemed to have gone away for a few nights so I thought that maybe we could wait. However, over the past couple of nights, it seems to have got a bit worse. The only thing that I can think of that has changed is the cat food (Felix as good as it looks).

Is it possible for cats to become allergic to food and it cause a cough??

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!

I'm not aware of a cough being a symptom of an allergy - but I do wonder about the Felix AGAIL, which has some pretty tough bits of meat in it - could these bits be getting stuck in her throat? my two oldies never even try to eat these bits, so I buy the standard Felix and mash the lumps, or get them pate type food

Welcome to the forums hopefully we can give you some things to think about,even if we can't come up with the actual answer, maybe it can cross a few possibilities off the list.

Like Kay I would be surprised if coughing was an allergy to the Felix although allergies can cause problems in the throat i would have thought it would have given more problems than the occasional cough. It might be worth trying her on a different cat food for a few days if she will eat something else.

My first thought was whether you had changed anything you use around the house, furniture polish, air fresheners, even what you use to wash the bedding with if it is happening mostly at night. All of those i could see effecting her throat more than the Felix might.

Alternatively if it has just been for the last few months could it be that the house is a little more stuffy due to being shut up more as it's winter or the dry heat from the central heating is catching in her throat. You might even be able to notice a correlation between the weather and when she is coughing.

Have you brought any plants in to over winter inside or had any for Christmas that might be causing a problem for her.

The other thing to try and watch for which might help the vet sort out the problem, when she coughs is it just a dry cough, does she seem to bring a bit of something up and do a lot of mouthing and swallowing afterwards or is she coughing and throwing something up, even if it just appears to be clear liquid, (I've had a couple of cats that have had that problem on and off, we have never really found out the cause, but it does seem to happen in older cats and sometimes seems related to fur balls)

There are a lot of things in modern houses that could cause problems, most of them never do, but some can for some people and some animals, the problem can be working out the cause.

Hi and welcome. We had a cat who suffered nasal problems including a cough on and off. He never used to cough when I took him to the vets though. What I did was video him coughing with my phone so the vet could hear the cough and she said it was probably due to him having had cat flu when he was a kitten and can lead to these symptoms later. So it might be worth taking a short video when you catch your cat coughing and that might give your vet some idea what’s going on. I do think though that things in the environment can irritate your cat, such as household cleaners, perfumes, deodorants, candles and air fresheners etc, or other things such as foods may be an issue, also fur balls can cause a bit of a hacking cough. So if your vet can’t see anything it’s worth looking at allergies too. I hope can sort it soon and I’m sending a snuggle her way.

Thank you for your replies. Everything around the house is the same so I’m not sure what could have aggravated her cough. She can run around with no issue and everything seemed ok at the vets (temp/heart/lungs)
I’ll try and get a video of her coughing, but it mainly happens at night (she sleeps in bed all day & doesn’t have symptoms).
I don’t know if anyone’s cat has had similar - it just seems a bit of a mystery to me?!?
I want her to get better but not go through any unnecessary tests.

This is just a bit of speculation - but has she got Siamese blood?

I used to breed them, and when they coughed, they coughed, stretching their necks out and barking as in the video below -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8AiA6y8hEg

Fellow breeders saw it as a Siamese 'thing' and it never seemed to bother the cats. Doing some googling I see that one site says that older cats can develop a chronic cough and that Oriental cats are prone to this.

Years after my breeding days, when a mob of ferals moved in with me, I got landed with a ginger tom with high cheekbones, a tail like a piece of string and a very forceful charm ... part Siamese? I knew it for certain the day he had a cough ...

Good luck with your girl - certainly a good idea to keep the vet involved but I wonder if it is just one of those things.