Enlarged Heart: Help

[squatchopotamus]

I'm going to try to keep this brief. We have a 7 year old domestic shorthair cat that we rescued 2 years ago. Over the weekend, he was a little lethargic, but Sunday night my boyfriend felt worried enough to take Sasquatch (our kitty) to the emergency vet clinic. After some testing, it was found that he has an enlarged heart due a condition that he was likely born with. His heart rate and blood pressure was extremely low, even for cats with this condition, and he spent the last 2 nights at the clinic. The cardiologist found medication that got his blood pressure and heart rate back up, and while we have only spoken to the cardiologist over the phone, it sounds like he is not very optimistic. We asked if he was in congestive heart failure, and the answer that we got was a wishy-washy maybe sort of answer.

Sasquatch will hopefully come home tonight, and I'm sure that we will be given lots of information when we pick him up, but does anyone here have any insight? The vet said that life expectancy for cats in his condition varies greatly. With a dog he could give us a definitive range, but he has seen cats live for a month and he has seen them live for a couple of years.

Does anyone have any tips on how to keep him healthy and comfortable once he comes home? Should we feed him something specific? I haven't the slightest idea what I am in for in the coming weeks.

Thanks in advance!

 

[foxxycat]

The best thing is to stick to the time for doses of medication. Also a little exercise isn't a bad idea-no running and jumping-but interaction with a wand toy while laying down-say a few minutes each day-start small. Also they may have you keep track of fluids-I would probably slowly switch to wet food only diet-it's easier to digest and less issues with constipation. Since fluid allotment will be crucial-dry food just is hard on the body when they get older. Smaller meals more often too. It's hard to say what to do-just try to let him rest and keep the meds on time.

Do you know what they recommended for medications? Is he easy to pill?

I use a pill popper and empty capsules with butter followed by a syringe of water then feed them wet food-so they associate pill popping with food and less fighting.

 

[squatchopotamus]

We got Sasquatch home, and he is in surprisingly better condition than we expected. Now he is just mad at us we think. He isn't hiding, but he is giving us that death glare. He has been prescribed Pimobendan, Plavix and Lasix. We have never had to give him pills before, and given what he has been through in the last 48hrs, I'm expecting him to be a real treat. He hasn't touched his dinner yet.

 

[squatchopotamus]

He has always gotten wet food for dinner, and dry food for breakfast and a midnight snack (so that he doesn't wake us up at 5am begging for food). But we will cut out the dry food.

 

[Zandalee]

He has always gotten wet food for dinner, and dry food for breakfast and a midnight snack (so that he doesn't wake us up at 5am begging for food). But we will cut out the dry food.

art
I have one dying from an enlarged heart right now, Armand. He was diagnosed at 15 yrs. old but I did not recognize his symptoms. He acted as if he had a cold. After much research, I have found that CoQ10 30 mg once a day seems to help. They give it to cats in Japan with enlarged hearts. I also give him feline cardiac support - 1 pill a day. I crumble half a pill into his tb of raw goat milk and swish it to dissolve before adding his very good quality canned food and stirring together. You definitely want to get Taurine powder supplement and add just a pinch every day. There is an epidemic of enlarged hearts in dogs and cats and you will not learn of this in mainstream media ways. My vet said his old college professor told him this and that it was due to pet food companies because even though the labels say it's in there, the processing kills most of it. Armand was given 6 months in Jan, 2017 and he's still here. Make sure there is no damn corn in their food. It is GMO, they cannot digest it, and cats are meat eaters. Read labels. Our country is killing us and our pets and that is a fact.

 

[Zandalee]

We got Sasquatch home, and he is in surprisingly better condition than we expected. Now he is just mad at us we think. He isn't hiding, but he is giving us that death glare. He has been prescribed Pimobendan, Plavix and Lasix. We have never had to give him pills before, and given what he has been through in the last 48hrs, I'm expecting him to be a real treat. He hasn't touched his dinner yet.

That's a lot of drugs for a cat that isn't actively dying - in fact Armand only gets 1/2 lasix 2X a day and benzepril.