feline asthma

[dottycat]

[/b Has anyone got a cat with asthma? I've had my cat a month now and just recently I noticed him breathing noisily. I took him to the vet yesterday who said he may have picked up something when he was in the rehoming centre or he's got asthma. I just wondered are your cats inhalers and has it made a difference to your cats health. Thanks

[lilynmitz]

What treatment has your vet recommended?

[dottycat]

He's had an antibiotic injection.

[andtiggertoo]

My old cat Fred had feline asthma, which we successfully kept under control for about three years until he died (of something completely unrelated to the asthma). We had him on a twice a day regime of inhalers (Fluoxetine/Flixotide from memory), which was fine. However, he was a particularly tactile cat, and we think he just viewed it as another sort of a cuddle when we were administering the inhaler.

Check his breathing rate. It should be around 20 breaths a minute. If he is breathing particularly fast, give the anti-biotic time to work, but take him back to the vet and ask for further tests. If he does turn out to have feline asthma, you will find a very helpful group on Yahoo - mostly US based, but very good.

Apparently a lot of vets don't seem to know very much about the use of inhaled steroids for feline asthma, but in the long run, if you can get your cat to adapt to them, they are much better because the drug goes straight to the lungs and bypasses things like the liver and kidneys, so is much safer. Once or twice we had to top Fred up with prednisolone in the beginning, but latterly he was fine.

It's about four years since he died, so my memory is a little bit hazy, but if I can help at all, please don't hesitate to message me. It was very worrying to start with, I remember.

[dottycat]

Vet doesn't think it's asthma. He had some injection a couple of weeks ago but the noise is all the time now but can only be heard when sitting next to him. I might take him back but it took me 30 mins to get him in the basket last time.

[booktigger]

If he's still breathing noisily, you have to take him back to the vets, regardless of how much of a struggle it is.

[andtiggertoo]

I absolutely agree. You posted on 1 July first of all, and it's now nearly two weeks later. That is plenty of time for the antibiotics to kick in, and if he is still wheezing, then he really does need go to back to the vet.

[dottycat]

Ok ill take him tomorrow

[andtiggertoo]

And what did the vet say?

[bobbys girl]

My older cats, Willow (11) and Tom (about 12) can both be quite noisy when breathing. They both snore when asleep. Otherwise they are in perfect health. Perhaps it is age related?
As for putting a cat in a basket, I had trouble with Bob until my vet reversed him in - wow, what a difference. Easy when you know how!
Hope you find out what's wrong very soon. Let us know the outcome.

[dottycat]

This is the third time of typing this. The vet said it could be a number of thing s but to try eliminating things first. His breathing is better at the vets than at home but she said there's still some noise there. I've moved his bed because it's next to washing powder. The next steps are steroid injection and then if no better xrays. He doesn't go out currently because I'm hoping to move house in the next couple of months. Would you let him out? I've had him 2 months.

Fingers crossed we can get to the bottom of this.