Allergy, Sneezing And Reverse Sneezing

mosimom

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If your cat(s) still have allergy symptoms then why are you off the Zyrtec/antihistamines?
If you search here then you will find other cats on antihistamines for months and years.

I think your vet putting you on them short term is to see if they work at controlling the symptoms. Of course after you stop giving the antihistamine symptoms will come back if you haven't found the trigger. Most here never find the trigger so they use Zyrtec/Claritin/etc. year round.
 
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nese

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If your cat(s) still have allergy symptoms then why are you off the Zyrtec/antihistamines?
If you search here then you will find other cats on antihistamines for months and years.

I think your vet putting you on them short term is to see if they work at controlling the symptoms. Of course after you stop giving the antihistamine symptoms will come back if you haven't found the trigger. Most here never find the trigger so they use Zyrtec/Claritin/etc. year round.
We used Zyrtec for 3 weeks. They do not have sneezing now, and reverse sneezing is reduced noticably. I guess our vet do not want to keep them on antihistamines on long term unless symptoms are severe ??

Last year we used Zyrtec for 3 months for our cat with asthma. This time our vet thinks 3 weeks is enough. Of course we will contact him if their sypmtoms start again. Maybe that time we may have to use it longer.
I hope we find the trigger, and they won't need Zyrtec on long term :(
 

lively

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Hi everyone, I am new. I came across this site after I googled up my own challenges with 2-3 kitties. I have a sneezing issue with one kitty and my 2-year-old cat has asthma. he was dx with mild asthma from x-rays and videos that I took to show vet what is happening. The kitty is what we can't figure out. He doesn't sneeze after anything specific but his sneezes are constant. Thank you all for whatever advice you are able to share.

I was wondering if any of you found or figured out the cause?
hoping all your fur babies are okay and doing well.

take care all
 

beckbjj

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A couple of things here....

First and foremost, you've got to get your asthma kitty on steroids (either oral Prednisolone or the Flovent/Flixotide inhaler) and also get a "rescue" albuterol inhaler for when she actually is having an attack. Asthma is a chronic condition and can't be treated just here and there. It must be treated on a constant basis. Every time your cat has an asthma attack, it is causing damage to her lungs and shortening her life. The goal is to prevent the coughing spells entirely. My asthma kitty is on Prednisolone 2.5 mg (1/2 of a 5 mg tab) every other day and has not had even a minor coughing spell in many months. The Prednisolone is very significantly cheaper and less demanding on your schedule than the Flovent, but Flovent has fewer side effects. For me, Prednisolone was the only way I could go, for various reasons, and it's been just fine for her.

Second, re the sneezing/reverse sneezing kitty, I just went through this with one of my little ones. My vet was pretty convinced she had nasopharyngeal polyps, which causes the exact symptoms your kitten has, including the stuffy/runny nose, so you may wish to suggest that to your vet and have him or her try to check. Apparently it's considered a very minor surgery to remove the polyps, which should end the symptoms. The only catch is that if your vet can't readily see polyps in the kitty's ears, he/she will have to anaesthetize the kitty to check...but on the bright side, if the vet finds any while the kitty is asleep, they can be removed right then and there. The vet can also do a nasal flush at the same time, to see if there may be something else blocking the nasal passages that can be flushed out. (Side note: My kitty actually turned out not to have polyps, but rather had tonsillitis. Tonsillitis is less common than polyps, and doesn't cause a stuffy/runny nose, so it's not likely that your kitty has tonsillitis.)

Best of luck!
 

Nuha85

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Sorry to hear about your loss. I am new, and I too came across this sight when one of our furbabies didn't stop sneezing.

I see the thread was posted last year already, but I am hoping this information can be of some use. Apologies again for the long post but wanted to give the full picture of what was happening because we were equally confused and worried about little Haku.

I have 3 cats (1.5yrs Saoirse), Ben (1 year) and Haku 5 months. They are all rescues and ofcourse they might come with something you not aware of.

Haku is the one that has been going through the same thing recently. He was adopted on 18 December 2017. He came from a shelter that has rescue kittens and they normally share one shelter space together when they are ready to be adopted.

Haku came home with sneezing but we we thought it was just the sniffles. Nothing to worry about. We then noticed that he would almost struggle to breathe while eating and drinking, and that he is gobbling his food. Since he is a rescue, we figured that he would have needed to get food on his own along with his siblings.

He would at first, jump onto our table while we were eating and steal our chicken/meat! With his ‘stray mannerism’ we thought the gobbling of the food was just another symptom of his survival trait because he would knock the other two out the way when it was feeding time.

With all the above said this could be well unrelated- that it’s just the ‘stray symptom' (If i could call it that?). He has become way better with regard to stealing food and realizing there are plenty of food resources in the home.

The first time we took him to the vet about his sneezing, the vet suspected that he could have a low immune system and/or that the sniffles is a common case among shelter cats.

Five nights ago he got a terrible attack. We took him to the vet the morning straight away.

They sedated Haku, and had to flush out his poor tiny nose for 10mins! And what they actually discovered was that, he had bloody gunk and other sort of darkish gunk (no pus) from his nostrils (mostly from the left nostril) and his left eye was tearing up too (this was clear).

The vet couldn’t believe the amount of flushing that needed to be done. He suspects that this gunk was lodged up his nostrils before we got him from the shelter and it slowly got worse. We do not smoke in the house, have wooden floors, no carpets (besides some small mats that is dusted everyday), we vacuum etc. I have allergies too so the house has to be fragrance and smoke free.

He is on antibiotics at the moment (doesn’t help that he is an impossible piller lol) but the vet needs to eliminate if this is fungal or bacterial. He said if it is fungal it will be a long process to pull his nose right. It’s basically an ENT issue either way.

We still figuring out what the actual cause is. Will keep you updated on Haku.

All the best of luck!
 

di and bob

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The best way I have found to pill a cat is to get Greenies Pill Pockets for cats and tear a small piece out of it. Then 'cement" the pill to a piece of bacon. You can split pills to make them smaller, but call your vet first to make sure it is OK.They gobble it up. If they spit it out do it again. If it's a capsule, you can open it and sprinkle it in a small amount of tuna juice. It hides the taste and smell. Same with a liquid. With a liquid, the ONLY way I can get it into my Casper, who will scratch off your face to get away :), is to lift him by the loose skin on the back of the neck to lift his front feet off the ground. It INSTANTLY quiets him, it is as mama would do to move a kitten, and is instinctive to quiet them.
 
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nese

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Hello,

I didn't receive some of the latest notifications about this thread, I don't know why. It has been a long time and we have some improvements which may help others having similar issues.
6 months before, we decided to change our litter again. Although we tried wood pellets before, it was for a very short period of time because one of our cats didn't use it. Now, we introduced new litter very slowly and it was successful.
2 weeks after completely switching to wood pellets (we are using it with DIY sifting litter box), I noticed sneezing of our asthmatic cat was completely gone and coughs reduced dramatically. She is not on any medication since then and doing well than ever, only has very little cough now and then.

Our other cat (10 months old now), which has sneezing, reverse sneezing and allergies is also doing better but her symptoms are not completely gone. She developed clogged nose with a non-clear discharge. After taking her to vet, they run some blood tests. On her hemogram wbc was low again; 3.9. So they run panleukopenia, FELV and FIV tests, which are all negative. We again used immune booster for three weeks, antibiotics (because of seconder bacterial infection which cause non-clear discharge) for 14 days. I also gave her probiotics.
We run hemogram again after 3 weeks, and her wbc was normal around 7. Her nose discharge was completely gone, no sneezing and reverse sneezing.

One week later, she developed non-clear discharge again, but the strange thing is it only lasted for one day. I cleaned her nose, the other day she was back to normal... I took her to vet anyway. They noticed that she starts reverse sneezing when they make pressure on one point on her throat. They examined that point more carefully. She has something like pharyngitis or laryngitis which causes bacteria to grow and cause nose discharge. Since she only had discharge for one day and was normal when we are at the vet, they said to monitor her for now and bring if she gets worse.

It has been 3 weeks since our last vet visit, and antibiotic threatment. She is fine mostly but developes clogged nose once in every 7-10 days. I drop saline solution to her nose, which makes her sneeze and clean her nose. It gives her relief for one week. I also give her vitamins and probiotics to strenghten her immune system.
Our vet says it is caused by a virus (they do not have any test to determine the type of virus), her immune system will recover it as she gets older and stronger. I hope so.

By the way, our third cat (which is also a rescue cat and 7 months old now) is together with them since 4 months. They share litter boxes, food and water bowls, and has not any health issues. So, i believe this is something not contagious, or she already has immunity to it. All of our cats have FVRCP vaccines.
 

beckbjj

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They noticed that she starts reverse sneezing when they make pressure on one point on her throat. They examined that point more carefully. She has something like pharyngitis or laryngitis which causes bacteria to grow and cause nose discharge. Since she only had discharge for one day and was normal when we are at the vet, they said to monitor her for now and bring if she gets worse.
Just an idea here, something to ask the vet about next time you go there with this kitty. My reverse-sneezer was getting worse and worse and the vet thought she had nasopharyngeal polyps. He scheduled her for surgery to find and remove them but ended up not finding any, but what he DID find was that she had tonsillitis, badly inflamed tonsils. I wonder if the thing about pressing on your kitty's throat could possibly mean that your kitty also has inflamed tonsils. In my kitty's case there was no clear cause, she had no infection and no cancer, but a bacterial infection in tonsils is not super uncommon and maybe that's what yours has.

My vet removed my kitty's tonsils and although she does still have some reverse sneezing, it is greatly reduced from the daily occurrence it used to be, and seems now to be probably environmental (when there's fireplace smoke etc.).
 

tarasgirl06

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Hello,

I didn't receive some of the latest notifications about this thread, I don't know why. It has been a long time and we have some improvements which may help others having similar issues.
6 months before, we decided to change our litter again. Although we tried wood pellets before, it was for a very short period of time because one of our cats didn't use it. Now, we introduced new litter very slowly and it was successful.
2 weeks after completely switching to wood pellets (we are using it with DIY sifting litter box), I noticed sneezing of our asthmatic cat was completely gone and coughs reduced dramatically. She is not on any medication since then and doing well than ever, only has very little cough now and then.

Our other cat (10 months old now), which has sneezing, reverse sneezing and allergies is also doing better but her symptoms are not completely gone. She developed clogged nose with a non-clear discharge. After taking her to vet, they run some blood tests. On her hemogram wbc was low again; 3.9. So they run panleukopenia, FELV and FIV tests, which are all negative. We again used immune booster for three weeks, antibiotics (because of seconder bacterial infection which cause non-clear discharge) for 14 days. I also gave her probiotics.
We run hemogram again after 3 weeks, and her wbc was normal around 7. Her nose discharge was completely gone, no sneezing and reverse sneezing.

One week later, she developed non-clear discharge again, but the strange thing is it only lasted for one day. I cleaned her nose, the other day she was back to normal... I took her to vet anyway. They noticed that she starts reverse sneezing when they make pressure on one point on her throat. They examined that point more carefully. She has something like pharyngitis or laryngitis which causes bacteria to grow and cause nose discharge. Since she only had discharge for one day and was normal when we are at the vet, they said to monitor her for now and bring if she gets worse.

It has been 3 weeks since our last vet visit, and antibiotic threatment. She is fine mostly but developes clogged nose once in every 7-10 days. I drop saline solution to her nose, which makes her sneeze and clean her nose. It gives her relief for one week. I also give her vitamins and probiotics to strenghten her immune system.
Our vet says it is caused by a virus (they do not have any test to determine the type of virus), her immune system will recover it as she gets older and stronger. I hope so.

By the way, our third cat (which is also a rescue cat and 7 months old now) is together with them since 4 months. They share litter boxes, food and water bowls, and has not any health issues. So, i believe this is something not contagious, or she already has immunity to it. All of our cats have FVRCP vaccines.
Thank you for sharing this out of concern for others. Hopefully it will be informative for them. Some cats have these respiratory issues chronically and there is nothing that can be done about it.
 

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Just letting everyone know that my cat who suddenly had chronic reverse and regular sneezing fits after getting some sort of gastric virus. Thousands and thousands of dollars later they biopsied his nose and found an infection that was best treated with Orbax. 5 days on it and his symptoms have almost completely gone- this is after MANY courses of other antibiotics, and vets who said it was just chronic rhinitis and nothing would help. I’m grateful to finally seem to have helped him! I hope this helps someone else whose cat has chronic reverse sneezing.
 

di and bob

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Thank you so much for following up on what worked for your cat! Your persistence and love came through! You may have just saved many others countless dollars and heartache by posting. Once again thank you so much and I'm so happy your little one is improving!
 

tarasgirl06

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Just letting everyone know that my cat who suddenly had chronic reverse and regular sneezing fits after getting some sort of gastric virus. Thousands and thousands of dollars later they biopsied his nose and found an infection that was best treated with Orbax. 5 days on it and his symptoms have almost completely gone- this is after MANY courses of other antibiotics, and vets who said it was just chronic rhinitis and nothing would help. I’m grateful to finally seem to have helped him! I hope this helps someone else whose cat has chronic reverse sneezing.
VERY glad for your cat (and you!) and thanking you profusely for posting this. I have no doubt many cats will be helped by it!
 

Vazimmy

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I am just so glad something helped. It was so terrible seeing him struggle for so many months with no relief. The first two vets did not even know what reverse sneezing looked like..!!
 

fodder

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Thanks for posting your findings here. My cat is still sneezing badly!
The vets won't give him anymore antibiotics because they are scared of creating a super bug by using the antibiotics for so long, even though they stop the sneezing completely.
They have no other solution for me and it is really stressful. My guy is non stop sneezing day and night at the moment. He sneezes blood which i am sure is due to damage in his nose from the non stop sneezing.

Im taking him in to the vet again tomorrow to beg them for more antibiotics. Thanks to your post i will have something new to ask about.
 

tarasgirl06

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Thanks for posting your findings here. My cat is still sneezing badly!
The vets won't give him anymore antibiotics because they are scared of creating a super bug by using the antibiotics for so long, even though they stop the sneezing completely.
They have no other solution for me and it is really stressful. My guy is non stop sneezing day and night at the moment. He sneezes blood which i am sure is due to damage in his nose from the non stop sneezing.

Im taking him in to the vet again tomorrow to beg them for more antibiotics. Thanks to your post i will have something new to ask about.
*PRAYERS* for him to be helped! Perhaps the Orbax will help? I have heard and seen that a lot of people swear by L-Lysine for respiratory wellbeing for cats.
 
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nese

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It sounds like a little cough to me. Have you had your vet check her? Is she always doing it after eating?
 

Vazimmy

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It sounds like coughing then maybe a sneeze in there. Has her heart been checked? Sometimes coughing in cats is a sign of heart disease.
 
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nese

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yes we took to vet and got shots

she has been like this on and off for a while
since late sept this year

Is This Noise Asthma Or Allergies?
I think it sounds very different than asthma. At least it is different than our asthmatic cat's.
Since it is on and off for a month approximately, I would first consider if there are any changes in her environment, in home, furniture, food, litter etc… in this time period.
If it is shedding season, you may also consider the presense of a hairball. I have read sometimes hairballs can also cause coughing.

Did you mention her situation to your vet? What do they think? You can show the video to your vet to get their opinion.
 
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