Cat Health Concerns

[droidus]

I have a tabby cat who is ~3 years old. He has seen multiple vets., and they all said he has a heart murmur. I am not sure of severity or details. Is this common? Any recommendations or questions I should ask?
He also has also been diagnosed with stomatitis. The vet said either they'd have to remove all or a few, and luckily it was only a few. Now a new vet I am going to (a few months later) is saying that he really needs to have all of his teeth removed. I asked if removing all of his teeth would resolve the stomatitis problem, and she said possibly. Any recommendations or advice, or anything else I can try first?

 

[Hugospal]

An old cat of mine had a full mouth extraction and it cured his stomatitis. I think either way, cats are better off without the infected teeth. They even eat dry food and don't really seem to care that they don't have teeth. It's a strange jump from only needing a few teeth removed in such a short time to needing them all removed, but like with bad stomatitis, I think eventually they all have to go. I will say we did steroid therapy with my old cat for years and it did work well until it didn't work anymore, if you are looking for a temporary fix and maybe not wanting him put under twice in such a short time you can ask your vet about that. We did an injection on a monthly basis and it was about 20 dollars.

My white spotty tabby, Hugo, is minus about 15 teeth too and while it's not stomatitis he's way happier without all that infection in the mouth too. In both experience, the nasty gums have seemed to heal after teeth were removed.

Heart murmurs are tricky though. I'm going through evaluation with one of my cats now that has a heart murmur. Apparently they can be innocent a lot of the time but can also signal a problem. There is no way to know without testing that can be quite expensive.

 

[duckpond]

These are issues i have never dealt with in my cats. I am hoping all goes well with your guy. Keep us updated.

 

[Timmer]

My cat has been diagnosed with a heart murmur. There is some extra blood work I had done on her to diagnose whether it was something that should be treated or further evaluated, and it was not. Not yet, anyway. She is not a cat that I can catch or give medications to so I probably won't treat her for it if it comes to that, unless I can get something made up at the compound pharmacy and put it in her food.
I met a wonderful woman on here whose cat had stomatitus. Perhaps she will chime in and tell you her experience.

 

[Etarre]

I don't have experience with either problem, but for your own peace of mind, I'd suggest getting a 2nd opinion from another vet before doing anything as serious as having all your cat's teeth extracted. He's relatively young, so you'll both be living with the decision for quite awhile no matter what you decide.

I can say from experience that it's very easy to second-guess your decisions on behalf of your pet in hindsight, and helpful to know you did everything you could to make an informed decision.

Also, it sounds like your vet has given you a diagnosis without providing as much guidance as you'd like on the implications of that diagnosis or your various options. I'd make sure to keep asking for the guidance that you need to feel comfortable making a decision.

Good luck! I'm sure you'll make the right decision for your kitty.

 

[SnugglesAnn]

I had an 11 year old cat who was diagnosed with stomatitis last August. The way the vet described it to me, the full mouth extraction normally cures the majority of cases and the cats normally do very well with this- even eating dry food afterwards. Unfortunately for my baby, she also had suspected cancer which led to me having to put her to sleep in January. So, I don't know how much of her problems were being caused by the stomatitis and how much of it was the cancer.

I do know that when she received her first steroid shot, it helped tremendously for several weeks. Stomatitis is a very painful disease- they are basically allergic to their own teeth so their mouths end up chronically inflamed. During my research on stomatitis, there were several methods or combination of methods that people try. Some have luck with just the steroid shots, but most ended up choosing surgery since prolonged exposure to the shot sometimes reduces its effectiveness and the surgery seems to be the best chance of curing the problem. There were also those that responded to a combination of lysine and plaque off. I tried both of these with Snuggles and it was easy to put it into her food, but again, I can't attest to whether or not it helped since in the end, she ended up having other problems.

Good luck with your baby. :-)