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- Sep 6, 2011
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My 17 year old cat has been coughing for about six months and I have yet to figure out why.
Background: He is overweight (about 16.5 lbs) and has some trouble breathing normally. I can hear him breathing when he's resting, and he breathes rapidly. He also suffered from a bout of kidney failure a year ago when an old vet gave him Metacam. This nearly killed him and he hasn't been the same since, but he is now stable and his kidney blood levels are in the higher end of normal. He is an indoor/outdoor cat...mostly indoor, but goes out later at night when we can keep an eye on him.
I've taken him to the vet on numerous occasions to diagnose this coughing issue. We did a basic blood panel along with a chest xray, and everything looked clear as far as fluid and heartworms go. His bronchioles were smaller than what they should have been and the vet mentioned possible medication to open them up, but he was also wary of it due to my cat's past with kidney failure.
My cat is very sore in the stomach area, but his chest xray showed the majority of his stomach and nothing bad showed on the xray. He has bad hips and doesn't appreciate any type of examination on the back half of his body, but our vet was able to do a pretty decent one at one point and didn't feel anything abnormal despite noticing his obvious soreness.
The most strange part of this is that when you press on my cat's stomach/chest the wrong way (eg. during an examination, when picking him up, etc.), it triggers the coughing. His eating grass also triggers it. He will go days without coughing, but as soon as he goes outside and eats grass, he will start coughing that night. The grass connection seems pretty obvious, but the pressing on his stomach doesn't make sense to me.
When he coughs, his stomach gurgles very loudly and it sounds like he's got something in his throat. But he's definitely coughing. He's never had a hairball in his life.
Does anyone have any past experiences like this or have any ideas as to what this could be?
Background: He is overweight (about 16.5 lbs) and has some trouble breathing normally. I can hear him breathing when he's resting, and he breathes rapidly. He also suffered from a bout of kidney failure a year ago when an old vet gave him Metacam. This nearly killed him and he hasn't been the same since, but he is now stable and his kidney blood levels are in the higher end of normal. He is an indoor/outdoor cat...mostly indoor, but goes out later at night when we can keep an eye on him.
I've taken him to the vet on numerous occasions to diagnose this coughing issue. We did a basic blood panel along with a chest xray, and everything looked clear as far as fluid and heartworms go. His bronchioles were smaller than what they should have been and the vet mentioned possible medication to open them up, but he was also wary of it due to my cat's past with kidney failure.
My cat is very sore in the stomach area, but his chest xray showed the majority of his stomach and nothing bad showed on the xray. He has bad hips and doesn't appreciate any type of examination on the back half of his body, but our vet was able to do a pretty decent one at one point and didn't feel anything abnormal despite noticing his obvious soreness.
The most strange part of this is that when you press on my cat's stomach/chest the wrong way (eg. during an examination, when picking him up, etc.), it triggers the coughing. His eating grass also triggers it. He will go days without coughing, but as soon as he goes outside and eats grass, he will start coughing that night. The grass connection seems pretty obvious, but the pressing on his stomach doesn't make sense to me.
When he coughs, his stomach gurgles very loudly and it sounds like he's got something in his throat. But he's definitely coughing. He's never had a hairball in his life.
Does anyone have any past experiences like this or have any ideas as to what this could be?