Is this cat asthma?

[TobyTims]

Below is a video of my beautiful cat Lola. She has had a coughing fit twice in the past 5 days or so. I managed to catch the end of the latest one on video:

Cat Asthma?

At first I thought it was just a hairball she was trying to dislodge but I’ve been doing some research and now I’m not so sure. It looks like she might be doing the “seal neck” type position associated with

She was at the vet just 5 days ago for her yearly vaccination and got a clean bill of health, aside from some mild tartar on her teeth. We have been feeding her some new dry food since to help with her teeth, I wonder if that could be causing an issue? But this occurred about 8 hours after her morning meal.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated

 

[Antonio65]

In my humble opinion, this seems more like a hairball.
I saw this happen several times with one of my previous cats.

The other cat I had, Lola, you see her in my avatar, had a real asthma issue when she was 5-8 months old. What I saw in her case was something worse, with the cat having many coughs in a row very close to each other, heavy and violent, with her tongue sticking out and turning blue, and the cat kind of lying on the floor, desperate for air!
It was one of the worst things I witnessed with my cats. At that time there were no smartphones or other handy ways to take a short video. I managed, though, to have a video taken with my handycam (it was slow to turn on and start, just imagine) and the vet told me it was asthma.

I hope I'm right, in the interest f your Lola, not for my reputation, and it's just a hairball. It's shedding season, she might have groomed herself too much.
Let us know if you have more occasions, though I hope not.

P.S.: Your Lola is beautiful

 

[TobyTims]

Thanks Antonio - your Lola is gorgeous too! I’m so sorry to hear about her asthma. And thanks for giving your opinion that it’s a hairball! She is very fluffy and has been shedding a bit (even though we are going into winter here in Australia!) She seems really well otherwise, I’m going to keep an eye on her over Easter and see how she goes.

 

[Antonio65]

Thanks Antonio - your Lola is gorgeous too! I’m so sorry to hear about her asthma. And thanks for giving your opinion that it’s a hairball! She is very fluffy and has been shedding a bit (even though we are going into winter here in Australia!) She seems really well otherwise, I’m going to keep an eye on her over Easter and see how she goes.

I might be wrong, but shedding might even occur when the heaters are on in the house, or when the warm season is over, and cats prepare her thicker coat for the cold season.

My Lola got much better on her own, without any treatment, even if the vet had advised us to keep some drops of cortisone at hand, just in case.Her asthma appeared out of the blue one night, and went away a couple of months later.
Forgot to say it was back in 2000...
My beautiful Lola is at the Rainbow Bridge now, yesterday was the fourth anniversary of that very sad day.
I wish your Lola a long and healthy life!

 

[di and bob]

Yes, it most likely is asthma. I have a cat with badly scarred lungs that acts the same too. I was given an inhaler that I use periodically if he gets worse, it takes a while for them to get used to it. You can also get an injection of steroids that helps with the inflammation periodically too. i also had a cat that coughed and it turned out to be an enlarged heart that caused CHF, or congestive heart failure. Lasix took care of that for many years. A simple, inexpensive chest x-ray the next time you are in can rule that out too.

 

[She's a witch]

It’s coughing, and this is a classic asthma symptom but there are other things that could cause such cough, like heart disease, bacterial infection, some parasites. I’ve heard from other owners of asthmatic cats that some cats got better after switching to wet food only so it might have something to do with dry food (bags have lots of storage mites and even dust) but I doubt it would be the sole cause. You can make some environmental changes around your house, like getting rid of chemicals, fragrances, dusting regularly, changing litter so that it has the least amount of dust (as truly dust free litter doesn’t exist). It’s possible that doing that will remove the triggers completely. If not, and if she still coughs, you’d need to take her for X-rays, even if her breathing sounds fine. If the attacks are often and require some medications, the best would be preventative daily inhaler as it hardly has any side effects as opposed to oral and injected steroids.

 

[TobyTims]

Thank you all for your helpful comments! I’m sorry I did not reply, life got crazy. Unfortunately poor Lola continued to have these cough fits at least 5-6 times over a two week period before I could get her into the vet.

She was looked over by the vet and found to be in perfect health.The vet could not hear any concerning chest sounds which would indicate asthma, but conceded it could be a mild form or an unusual hairball presentation. The vet also did not think her food was the cause, even though we switched her to a new dry food around the time the coughing started.

Somewhat unhelpfully, the vet told me to just monitor her another week and come back if it doesn’t improve - then she will do a chest X-ray. So far, the coughing has continued and there is no pattern to when it occurs. It’s horrible to watch but hoping we’ll have some answers soon

 

[Jem]

I know the vet said it wasn't the food, but is it possible that the new food is not agreeing with her and she now has some sort of acid reflux?

 

[TobyTims]

I agree, it seems too coincidental not to be related to the new dry food!

But on the other hand, the coughing attacks happen all times of day and don’t seem to be related to her food (eg today she had one at 5.30am, which was almost 24 hours since she had the dry food). So I’m a bit confused.

I don’t want to change anything before I go back to the vet in a week, but definitely will consider changing it afterwards.

 

[di and bob]

My little female does the same thing. There is no.pattern or special times, she also gets bloody dime sized sores on her back at times. I really think it is allergies but have never pinned anything down. She does seem to have the episodes after anything with tuna, so I eliminated that. Then she has another. It IS frustrating. I'm just thankful it is infrequent.

 

[She's a witch]

I agree, it seems too coincidental not to be related to the new dry food!

But on the other hand, the coughing attacks happen all times of day and don’t seem to be related to her food (eg today she had one at 5.30am, which was almost 24 hours since she had the dry food). So I’m a bit confused.

I don’t want to change anything before I go back to the vet in a week, but definitely will consider changing it afterwards.

My asthmatic cat’s lungs sound perfectly good through stethoscope, yet the X-rays shows inflammation. I’d definitely go back for X-rays.

 

[arr]

My cat too. He was just diagnosed with asthma on Friday. We would never have known without the X-ray.

 

[Antonio65]

But on the other hand, the coughing attacks happen all times of day and don’t seem to be related to her food (eg today she had one at 5.30am, which was almost 24 hours since she had the dry food). So I’m a bit confused.

Well, in my opinion an allergy might just build up in her system, regardless the time she came in contact with what triggers the allergy. The food stays in the system for long time.

 

[TobyTims]

Thank you all!

My family cat (who still lives with my parents) also had very severe asthma that was only diagnosed via chest x-ray - he wasn't even coughing actually, which was even more unusual. So I was definitely sceptical, but thank you for re-affirming my need to get the x-ray done! I'll monitor Lola for the week but I've already got her booked to go back on the assumption it won't go away (which it hasn't so far).

I'll let you all know the outcome!

 

[TobyTims]

Hi everyone - its been awhile since I was on here, I wanted to give an update for anyone who is interested. Lola finally went in for her chest x-ray yesterday. I delayed it a bit because the coughing seemed to disappear for about a week, but then it came back.

The good news is that the xray came back totally clear. The bad news is we still have no idea what is causing this poor girl to cough!!

The vet said it could still be asthma or bronchitis, at an early stage. The next step would be to do some procedure under a general anaesthetic, where they take a sample of the airway to determine conclusively if its asthma.

The vet has suggested we monitor her for awhile and then bring her back for the procedure if the coughing is still continuing.

I really don't like the idea of putting her under a general anaesthetic for this procedure, especially since she is so well outside of these little coughing episodes. So I'll have to think about it

If anyone has any thoughts, or has been through something similar, I'd love to hear your experience!

 

[Antonio65]

It's clearly a tough decision to take.
If Lola was my cat, I wouldn't put her through this procedure if at the moment she's being fine between the episodes.

 

[She's a witch]

I decided against Bronchoalveolar lavage for my girl, but her X-ray showed inflammation so it was easier decision. Before you do this, make sure that all the other diseases are ruled out, especially HCM. You can do this through blood test.