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- Apr 10, 2018
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New to the site. I read stuff on here all the time but never signed up!
I have two cats, one I adopted about 7 years ago, and a 4 year old I found on the streets as a kitten. The 7 year old (the white one in my pic) has gotten kind of a genetic short stick. He has asthma, virtually no teeth despite yearly dental cleaning (most of them had to be extracted), and most recently, a hear murmur first detected about 2 years ago.
Oh, and in January we went to the emergency vet for a bout of uncontrolled vomiting that not even anti nausea medication could stop. $2500 in diagnostics and hospitalization later and another 500 I put on care credit and we had no answers. They wanted another $1000 to keep him another night, $700 for some kind of bowel biopsy, $800 to place a feeding tube. i was already out of money, so I took him home, syringe fed him Hill's Critical Care and gave sub q fluids my regular vet sold to me. I did this for 3 weeks and during that time he'd stopped vomiting and started eating again and was fine.
Today he seems healthy, fat but alert and plays, eats drinks and uses the litterbox.
We do regular screenings in early April, usually, blood tests and urine, as well as dentals because he has mad tooth issues, as part of his routine check up. During all the madness at the ER earlier in january, i had remembered she brought up hearing his heart murmur and I mentioned it to my regular vet. She'd heard one about two years ago but hasn't heard it on any recent exams, including this most recent one (at that time she wasn't worried about it), but we decided to do a cardiopet probnp test. It was about 60 dollars and he didn't have to have any teeth extracted this year which is normally a big expense.
It came back with a reading of 120 which is somewhat elevated, so they want to do more tests. We are going back on the 19th to test for thyroid disease and other things that can elevate the bnp other than heart disease. I believe it costs a few hundred dollars, but the definitive test for heart disease is an echocardiogram, which is 600 or 700 dollars or so.
It's a crap situation. I can always pull a few hundred bucks out of somewhere to help my cat, but I can't afford all these 500-800 diagnostics tests anymore. I wonder if anyone has any experience with the cardiopet bnp, or a cat with a lower bnp or early heart disease. My vet says she has never done treatment for asymptomatic cats, only ones already in heart failure. Are these pets lives significantly improved by catching heart disease as early as possible? Do they even medicate cats that aren't showing signs of disease? Is anyone in a situation like that? Have you declined an echocardiogram and how did the cat do?
Not even sure it's definitely heart disease, just stuff that's been on my mind. I've gone through a lot with this cat.
I have two cats, one I adopted about 7 years ago, and a 4 year old I found on the streets as a kitten. The 7 year old (the white one in my pic) has gotten kind of a genetic short stick. He has asthma, virtually no teeth despite yearly dental cleaning (most of them had to be extracted), and most recently, a hear murmur first detected about 2 years ago.
Oh, and in January we went to the emergency vet for a bout of uncontrolled vomiting that not even anti nausea medication could stop. $2500 in diagnostics and hospitalization later and another 500 I put on care credit and we had no answers. They wanted another $1000 to keep him another night, $700 for some kind of bowel biopsy, $800 to place a feeding tube. i was already out of money, so I took him home, syringe fed him Hill's Critical Care and gave sub q fluids my regular vet sold to me. I did this for 3 weeks and during that time he'd stopped vomiting and started eating again and was fine.
Today he seems healthy, fat but alert and plays, eats drinks and uses the litterbox.
We do regular screenings in early April, usually, blood tests and urine, as well as dentals because he has mad tooth issues, as part of his routine check up. During all the madness at the ER earlier in january, i had remembered she brought up hearing his heart murmur and I mentioned it to my regular vet. She'd heard one about two years ago but hasn't heard it on any recent exams, including this most recent one (at that time she wasn't worried about it), but we decided to do a cardiopet probnp test. It was about 60 dollars and he didn't have to have any teeth extracted this year which is normally a big expense.
It came back with a reading of 120 which is somewhat elevated, so they want to do more tests. We are going back on the 19th to test for thyroid disease and other things that can elevate the bnp other than heart disease. I believe it costs a few hundred dollars, but the definitive test for heart disease is an echocardiogram, which is 600 or 700 dollars or so.
It's a crap situation. I can always pull a few hundred bucks out of somewhere to help my cat, but I can't afford all these 500-800 diagnostics tests anymore. I wonder if anyone has any experience with the cardiopet bnp, or a cat with a lower bnp or early heart disease. My vet says she has never done treatment for asymptomatic cats, only ones already in heart failure. Are these pets lives significantly improved by catching heart disease as early as possible? Do they even medicate cats that aren't showing signs of disease? Is anyone in a situation like that? Have you declined an echocardiogram and how did the cat do?
Not even sure it's definitely heart disease, just stuff that's been on my mind. I've gone through a lot with this cat.
Glad you finally decided to sign up and join the forum. Unfortunately I do not have any personal experience with heart disease in cats but wanted to reply to your post and bump it up. In case you haven't read this Article I thought I would suggest it: 
