My Lucky

abdrgnldy

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Hi Everyone,

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile...it has been a tremendously busy year!

Since I posted last, my husband and 6 (yes, 6) kitties have moved from So. Calif to Ontario, Canada then to Las Vegas, NV.

Lucky has had Hyperthyroidism for the past 2 years and is still on her meds and was doing well until about June.

She had to have tooth surgery to have some teeth removed. All of a sudden she was sneezing and sneezing blood no less. After the surgery, she continued to sneeze, but no blood and no residue. Then about a 2 weeks ago, she started to not only sneeze, but have nasal discharge.

I took her to the vet, and she was x-rayed and had blood tests. The Vet stated it looked like Feline HerpesVirus. He has her on antibiotics, but has told me he would like her to have rhinoplasty (?) if the sneezing of blood continues. Plus in her x-rays, it may look like she might have a tumor.

Does anyone know how much cost I can expect it to be? She is 15-16 yrs old and they do sedate her to take blood, so I am not worried about her going for surgery, I just don't want her to have any more pain or problems with her sneezing..

Thanks!
Ana
 

cloud_shade

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A couple of years ago, my cat Spot had rhinoscopy performed. It was about $1200. In his case, he had bacteria deep in his nasal cavity and "ulcerative and distortion of tissue" with the treatment being antibiotics. In his case, his body couldn't tolerate the antibiotics. The procedure did seem to lessen the frequency of sneezing (the reason for the scope was frequent sneezing with one-sided nasal discharge, occasionally blood-tinged) but he never was able to finish the course of antibiotics--he always reacted badly to them.

Do you know if your vet did dental x-rays? If not, you might ask whether that would be a possible avenue to explore. If the teeth were badly damaged, it's possible a piece of the root may have been left behind and may be causing infection.

Edited to add: Spot was also hyperthyroid with a heart murmur. He did okay on medication but the radioiodine treatment didn't work for him--probably because he had been hyperthyroid for too long so the growth was too large. Ultimately, he died from heart failure due to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy several months after the rhinoscopy. I haven't heard of any connection between sneezing and hyperthyroidism, but I just wanted to mention his experience since it seems similar to your kitty's.
 
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abdrgnldy

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Thank you for the information...now I'm a bit worried since she has hyperthyroidism (which I was going to mention to the specialist anyway and the new vet does know, but I was going to remind him). She has been on the medication for it for about 2 years now.

The normal vet has her on medication right now to help her get over her "cold"/sneezing. We are scheduled to go back on 9/12 and I was going to discuss this rhinoscopy more with him.

My husband and I decided it would not hurt to go for the consultation with the specialist after 9/12. Course the Vet Referral Ctr won't give any estimates until we go to the consult...

I want what is best for Lucky, but I don't want her in any pain...
 

cloud_shade

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I understand those feelings--that was my reasoning behind taking Spot in for the rhinoscopy. My parents didn't understand, but for me it was about having information with which to make decisions. I wanted to know what was causing his sneezing and whether it was causing him pain or severe discomfort. If your Lucky's T4 is controlled well on medication, then my experience is that it didn't add any additional complications--with Spot, his heart murmur ended up being a bigger issue, but even so, he came through three different surgeries in the time I had him.
 
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