Cardiologist experiences?

Okay so I shouldn't get too ahead of myself but my kitten has a heart murmur. She is about 4.5 months old now so it COULD be serious. I am trying not to worry unnecessarily, but I was wondering if any of you have had experiences with cardiologists. I would appreciate any and all info and opinions on the matter, just in case Toby needs to see one. Thanks in advance!

Also I wasn't sure how to tell if a vet is being pushy in the sense that she seems to want to send my animals to specialists a lot...

My Meeko has had a heart murmur since she was 3 months.
She will be 9 in June.
I never had to take her to a heart dr.
My old cat that has crf now had the echos for her heart because a bad vet told me she had heart problems when she did not.
My vet I go to handles heart problems.
Has a vet scanned her heart?

Personally, I would see a cardiologist. A cardiologist will be able to run tests that your vet cannot and probably determine the cause of the murmur. Early detection in heart conditions can be vital. We had a kitty that was 1 year old when his murmur was detected. It was only a few weeks after that the condition worsened and he was having spells that seemed like an asthma attack. Our vet did chest x-rays and detected a sternum deformation that was pushing his heart to one side. We thought we were going to a cardiologist to see if he needed surgery for that but the cardiologist, within about 30 minutes he found a problem far worse that was causing all of his clinical symptoms and that was going to cause him to die within weeks.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that your vet is probably unable to run extensive testing which may reveal underlying conditions and it's better to be safe than sorry, IMO. Heart murmurs can be benign, but they can be very serious. Feel free to PM me if you have any other questions.

My regular vet detected a murmur and I was referred to an excellent cardiologist. It turned out that my cat did have a potentially very serious heart condition called HCM; fortunately, he has responded well to medication. He had no other outward symptoms except for the murmur.

Heart murmurs are very common in cats, and many times they don't signify any underlying problem. But your vet is right to refer you to a cardiologist to check into it further. I would definitely go.

Sorry I wasn't saying anything against seeing a specialist, just that the vet DOES seem to push it in other ways (like for my dog, she was VERY pushy in that situation and I to this day feel it was unnecessary). I didn't mean that I won't have Toby go see a specialist if she needs to. Thanks, I was mostly hoping for experiences with cardiologists so I know what to expect when and if she is sent to one.

It's just that it hasn't been deemed necessary at this point to even bring her to a cardiologist, since they haven't even run bloodwork yet. They detected the murmur last Thursday, and asked me to bring her back in a week (unfortunately she was booked til Tuesday). Then they will run blood tests or something if it's still there. I am hoping to settle my mind a bit in case I need to bring her to a specialist...