Anyone here with a flat chested/turtle chest cat??

Hi guys
First time visitor to your forum . I'm the owner of a wonderful 11-1/2-yo male kit called Tikvah who I handreared from a day old, but who has a congenital flat chest which thankfully really hasn't caused him any major problems apart from some serious bowel issues when he was only a week old and some breathing probs until he was about 6 months, but which he recovered from ok.

My vet say's Tikvah is the only cat in his practice with this problem so another 1st for him with my gang of kits (I'd a previous one who ended up making vet history in the UK for being the only one with NKHDM to not only survive the initial episode but to go on to recover fully from it and never require insulin again - you can read his story on Inka's Site), so his own experience of this issue is somewhat limited too.

Now, however, it's rearing its ugly head once again, as he's developed a raft of cardiac issues (grade 4 murmur, arythymias, tachycardia) which have been put down to his chest conformity as his scans/tests are all ok (thankfully). So I'm really just keen to see if anyone else has or had a cat with this problem who has had experience of these particular issues with them?

Ok - I can't say much as I'm dire with using acronyms without explanation too, but what's fcks - flat chested kitten syndrome??

But yes - I'm looking to see how many people have cats with this problem and in particular whether any have gone on to have cardiac issues and if so, how they've fared.

Thanks

What age is she? Have you found you need to keep her weight down to stop her having difficulties? Tikki's been in excellent health until now, so I really can't complain, but intrigued to see it's not that rare of a problem for cats to have - certainly not come across anyone else in my area with experience of it in their animals.

Yeh - I was nearly contemplating starting a forum for all those who had cats with this problem, but doubt there'd be too many interested, as there's not a lot you can really do for them - either they're not too badly affected and do well, or they're severely affected, and do badly. Fortunate Tikvah was one of the good ones . And ultimately I suppose heart probs will affect most older animals anyway regardless of their deformities, but was just surprised he's seemingly got so many issues hence my interest in finding someone else with similar problems

Yep - he was x-rayed when he was just 3 months old once the problem was diagnosed. Ironically he'd had x-rays when a week old after he suffered a blocked bowel, but that vet missed the chest problem completely, even though it was hugely obvious to anyone looking at him! But today, he just had a heart scan and no x-rays (to my knowledge). However, the difficulty now will be spotting when he does have some other more serious heart problem - given that he had SO many abnormalities today yet a normal heart scan - very weird indeed.

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Just found a Yahoo Group set up for the problem which is a start at least -