Weird congestion.. unusual symptoms ideas?

[gm_thomson]

When we first got Baby four years ago at age 2 she had a bad upper respiratory infection - snot, sneezing, snoring, loud sniffly breathing, and reverse sneezing. Cured with less stress, aziathomycin and then Baytril.

Fast forward to a year ago when it started again after we moved house. Started with yellow white snot, same sneezing reverse sneezing etc. It cleared up a bit within a couple weeks and mucus changed to thin occasional clear but we couldn’t get to vet due to COVID so since then she still had daily (other week see below) episodes of other congested stuff... reverse sneezing, louder breathing, sneezing fits, snoring etc.

We got her back to the vet a few months ago and since have tried azithomycin, anti virals, zenequin and now she is on oral predinosolone. But here is the weird thing about it i would like your take on.. its cyclical???. For 4-5 days she is completely fine, 100% normal breathing, no snot nothing. Then over a day or two she goes down hill rapidly and back to reverse sneezing sometimes coughing, sneezing fits etc. Goes on like this for 4-5 days. Then next day fine again back to normal.. repeat.

What is going on? I mean surely an infection or a polyp or damaged nose bones or cancer or indeed any issue etc etc wouldn’t disappear every other week or so? We wondered about something weird triggering an allergy but wouldn’t the steroid prevent symptoms for that? What’s going on?

 

[stephanietx]

Allergies can trigger this and allergies (airborne) change daily. I would suggest asking the vet for a culture and sensitivity test of any discharge so that you can find out if there's a secondary infection. If there's a secondary infection, it will get better with antibiotics, then get worse and you're stuck in a cycle. The c & s test will tell you if there's a bacterial or viral infection and which med will best treat it.

 

[gm_thomson]

thanks stephanietx - the weird thing is that she gets better and worse while still being on the antibiotics so its not like she comes off them and gets sick again. We did zenequin, days 1-5 she was great, days 6-10 bad again, days 7-14 again great. Came of zenequin, cycle repeated.

I wondered too about airborne allergies but I cant find any correlation that would cause the up and down. We even have an air monitor in the house to check for stuff.. nothing cycles like this...

 

[FeebysOwner]

Hi. I do agree that her discharge needs to be tested to see if specific bacterial and/or viral issues can be identified. It is possible that the medications start to diminish the symptoms, perhaps specifically related to a possible secondary bacterial infection, but isn't getting stopping the actual problem if the source of the issue is viral related. And, I am not sure that if this is viral related that steroids would necessarily prevent some of the symptoms from showing up.

 

[BlackCatOp]

I’m sorry your kitty is suffering from chronic sneezing issues. It sounds very similar to my cat Chester. I have included several thoughts below.

Depending on where you live, I would be cautious about fungal disease. Histoplasmosis is very common in my area and can present as a URI. Special urine testing can eliminate fungal causes.

Secondly, have the oral steroids worked- was not sure if or when they were discontinued but did you notice improvement on steroids?

Thirdly, while I understand the above comments trying to help but unfortunately culturing snot/discharge is very rarely diagnostic. Cats/humans have an extensive microflora of bacteria within their nasal cavities. Thus, the likelihood of culturing a pathogenic bacteria out of the thousands of commensal bacteria is very low. So if your vet is hesitant to culture your cat’s snot, this is probably why. I also don’t recommend respiratory virus testing for similar reasons. Most cats were infected with herpesvirus as kittens and thus if the test comes back positive, are the clinical signs really due to herpes or something else.

If the steroids help her then suggestion would have the vet treat kitty long term (3-4 weeks) with steroid and an antibiotic that worked (or a different antibiotic such as doxycycline) Keep treating once improved for the entire period. Then switch from oral steroids to inhaled steroids. If I had to guess, I think she has lymphocytic plasmacytic rhinitis - basically IBD of the nose/nasal passages

https://www.michvma.org/resources/Documents/MVC/2018 Proceedings/carey_03.pdf

I hope she feels better soon!

 

[gm_thomson]

Hi thanks for all your responses! BlackCatOp she has been on steroids now for 10 days. First few days she was good and we had hope, then last few days she has been back to congested again. Course is 30 days so I guess we see what happens.. but my gut tells me this is her normal up and down and they arent making a difference.

I am just so confused why she is up and down at all. How can she go for 4-5days with no symptoms at all.. then 4-5 days with congestion... and repeat?

 

[BlackCatOp]

I agree that’s weird and would suggest seeing an internal medicine specialist if one is available in your area. They will probably want to do CT scan or biopsy to try to figure out what’s going on.

My cat Chester stayed doing well on oral steroids and now has an inhaler. There is hope as he suffered for 4 years prior to getting his symptoms resolved.
Wish I had more to offer

 

[cocoanlace]

Thirdly, while I understand the above comments trying to help but unfortunately culturing snot/discharge is very rarely diagnostic. Cats/humans have an extensive microflora of bacteria within their nasal cavities. Thus, the likelihood of culturing a pathogenic bacteria out of the thousands of commensal bacteria is very low.

Thanks for the clarification on testing the mucus. I just took it off my list for my allergy / herpes cat.