Any Tips For Using Saline Drops For Nasal Congestion, Or How To Make A Cat Sneeze?

[Furballsmom]

Whoops, on rereading your post above I see you already tried the steamy bathroom, I'm sorry. Is there any chance that a longer time of it would make any difference?

In any case, KMR and Gerber baby food are great suggestions!

There is also Pedialyte, and kitten glop --there are recipes on the internet for these and KMR.

Fortiflora might help. Cheddar or parmesan cheese, tuna juice, nutrical, ....honey rubbed on the gums...

Gently heating these items, try finger feeding too.

Hang in there, I'm sending every good thought I have, and again, sorry for missing that you'd already tried the steam.

 

[Huskyluv]

No, I really appreciate any help. We will give the steam another try...it can't hurt to try again.

I am debating putting a call into the vet this afternoon. Her breathing just sounds so much more congested that I switched her back to the Cerenia drops since it's the 1 thing that made some little bit of difference in the past. She is on probiotics as well, ever since she started antibiotics and she's stayed on probiotics at the recommendation of the vet.

We'll see which other suggestions to try. Offered her a meal just now and she ate a few bites before walking away...not much but better than nothing.

 

[cheeser]

No, I really appreciate any help. We will give the steam another try...it can't hurt to try again.

I am debating putting a call into the vet this afternoon. Her breathing just sounds so much more congested that I switched her back to the Cerenia drops since it's the 1 thing that made some little bit of difference in the past. She is on probiotics as well, ever since she started antibiotics and she's stayed on probiotics at the recommendation of the vet.

We'll see which other suggestions to try. Offered her a meal just now and she ate a few bites before walking away...not much but better than nothing.

Hang in there, hon. I know how frustrating this can be, and my heart goes out to you and your precious little fur baby. *hugs y'all tight*

In our case, we're blessed to at least know what our cat's problem is. There's just nothing we can do to fix the problem without running the risk of making it a whole lot worse. So we have to manage as best we can, and pray for wisdom to help us make it from one day to the next re: all of Buddy's ongoing issues.

Sometimes nasal congestion can be caused by something pretty simple, like allergies that cause the nasal passages to swell and inhibit drainage, and an antihistamine can often help to take care of that. Sometimes the vets have to do a lot of cultures to nail down exactly what kind of bacterial, viral, and/or fungal infection a cat has, and hopefully the proper medication will take care of that. Or sometimes cats can have nasal polyps that keep the sinuses from draining properly, etc.

So my humble recommendation would be to get another opinion, preferably with a specialist. As the saying goes, a fresh pair of eyeballs can provide a fresh perspective.

Just curious, has your kitty always been congested since you've had her? I was wondering if maybe she was pretty much born with herpes or something, kinda like ours may have been.

 

[Huskyluv]

Thank you, yes she has had this congestion for as long as we've had her. I was not aware of her having this congestion prior to our adopting her. We were aware of her having issues with her eye, intestinal parasites, being very underweight & having bacterial & fungal ear infections when we adopted her though. One of her litter mates died and another is also having health problems. She was born to a feral mother who was trapped for TNR.

Our vet suggested we could have her checked for polyps but that would require putting her under which she suggested we could do when she goes under for her spay. I had hoped to use a low cost spay clinic but then we wouldn't be able to check for polyps if we went that route. I just don't know if we should go through the extra cost for all that when she's already racked up $1k+ in vet bills to date and she's only 4 months old.

For starters I'm going to try to pick up a humidifier for her tomorrow, see if that helps any.

 

[cheeser]

Thank you, yes she has had this congestion for as long as we've had her. I was not aware of her having this congestion prior to our adopting her. We were aware of her having issues with her eye, intestinal parasites, being very underweight & having bacterial & fungal ear infections when we adopted her though. One of her litter mates died and another is also having health problems. She was born to a feral mother who was trapped for TNR.

Our vet suggested we could have her checked for polyps but that would require putting her under which she suggested we could do when she goes under for her spay. I had hoped to use a low cost spay clinic but then we wouldn't be able to check for polyps if we went that route. I just don't know if we should go through the extra cost for all that when she's already racked up $1k+ in vet bills to date and she's only 4 months old.

For starters I'm going to try to pick up a humidifier for her tomorrow, see if that helps any.

Of course, every cat is different, and YMMV and all that.

We bought some humidity monitors for the house like this one, as well as a humidifier and some dehumidifiers. For Buddy, we found that if the air humidity is less than 50%, the mucous in his nose thickens something fierce, and he has a harder time expelling it. However, if the humidity is over 65%, then the yeasty ears and fungal infections he gets on his skin flare up. But if we can keep the humidity somewhere within the Goldilocks range where it's juuuuust right, then he tends to do better re: his chronic upper respiratory symptoms.

Unfortunately, it's a little more complicated for us, because Buddy also has FIV and FHV, and has always been kinda sickly -- apparently even since he was a kitten. But sometimes there are a few things we can do to help alleviate his symptoms, such as the bathroom steam treatments, the humidifier, OTC nose drops, allergy meds, and supplements that the vet recommended. You might ask your vet to see if any of those could be an option for your kitty to provide some relief while y'all get this all sorted out.

I wish y'all all the best, and hope the humidifier helps!

 

[Huskyluv]

Thank you, thank you again! You've been so very helpful. I am curious if an allergy med might help. I wonder if the vet could give me a dosage amount over the phone to try to save me another office visit. I haven't found anything online about OTC allergy meds for kittens though...only cats. Wondering if it's even a possibility for her at this point.

That is really great info on the humidity sweet spot for your cat. We will have to do our own trial and error it sounds like.