Sneeze/Wheeze/WHAT?!

It could be a cough or an asthma-related symptom. My mother has a feline herpes cat and she does this.

Yes, please get her to the vet and explain exactly what your cat did. It could be helpful to google videos of cats coughing or having an asthma attack to see if it looks similar to what your cat did

Maybe this video, from a feline asthma site ... "Fritz the Cat", that shows one kitty during an asthma attack will help you.

http://www.fritzthebrave.com/asthma/symptoms.html

My cat Dexter has asthma. When his lungs begin to shut down, he was very still with extreme rapid breathing.
All feline asthma attacks do not look the same but if you suspect Pounce's symptoms might be asthma it is essential to discuss that with your vet.

Pounce

My gosh I could hardly stand to watch that video it made me so anxious for the cat.

My Baby (1/98) had asthma. He had to take prednisone for it for many years. When he got older I was able to taper him off and he only needed it for short periods of time.

Scary scary.

Please keep us posted on Pounce, and if you can take some video of an episode for the vet.

Pounce

If you smoke, and smoke in your home, you must stop now. Immediately. Cigarette smoke is deadly to asthmatic cats.

You must always go outside, stay away from any windows, and make sure all the smoke has blown away from you before going back in.

When my Baby mentioned before developed asthma I was a smoker and smoked inside. After his first asthmatic attack I never smoked inside again.(though it took another 15 years before I finally quit)

Well there wasn't anything you could do about that. Baby's asthma was certainly worsened by living in a smoke filled home the first two years of his life, but I don't know if he would have had it anyway, of course. He still needed medication, even after I stopped smoking inside.

There are other treatments besides steroids these days I think, that video xo cats posted mentioned albuterol treatments.

You might do some research so when you bring Pounce in you know what to ask the vet about. Hopefully your vet keeps up on new info, but if s/he doesn't, s/he may find some links or print outs from you helpful. I know my vet always appreciates it when I give her links and info I've come up with.

My Dexter's asthma trigger was the dust from clay litter/we now use only corn litter.
He has had two severe attacks in his life...
the first when he was a kitten, then 9 years later when I briefly used a clay litter again. That almost killed him.

If Pounce is diagnosed with asthma, along with his medication, you will need to become a detective to try and discover what is triggering his attacks.
It is a challenge but not impossible.

I will be watching for your updates.

Pounce

^Corn and wheat are allergens, too, so for some cats those litters can be just as bad.

These cats where just brought over, correct? Another odd possibility could be fungus. Who knows what they could have come in contact with that was in the air? There are also some infections that can cause serious lung inflammation that would look a lot like asthma.

If you end up needing to using an inhaler you'll want to get the aerokat to help. Shipping was ridiculous for me so I don't even want to know what it will be for you. Maybe you can find a Japanese site selling it?

Except none of them are in cats and it can be fatal. Some cats can actually get bartonella infections, so again make sure they check the lungs before just saying asthma.

Thanks for the update. I dose my cats regularly with hair ball remedy, and petromalt is in the rotation (I use three kinds) They hate it of course

But I started thinking after you mentioned again that this happens after eating I wonder if she is aspirating her food. This means getting some of it into her lungs, "going down the wrong pipe" is what we always called it as kids.

Is she eating canned food?

Peace of mind.

This sounds very positive...
your description ... "her whole body almost CONVULSES", could easily be Pounce hacking up a fur ball.
Have you noticed fur ball traces, small amounts of regurgitation or vomit with fur in it, on your floors?

Pounce is very lucky to have such caring people watching after her.
I will be watching for your updates.

A hairball can be very frightening, if you've never seen it, but from your description, it sounded classic.

Pounce is coughing, wheezing, hacking, crouched down, neck stretched out, and possibly weaving her head back and forth? Does that sound about right?

Often hairballs can cause a lot of problems, and the fact that they don't come up is why.

Hair does not always form a big finger shaped tube inside the cat.

They can form as flat mats that cling to the walls of the stomach and intestines. This can cause serious illness. They can create huge amounts of gas in the cat's stomach and intestines too, causing projectile vomiting every time the cat tries to eat or drink.

I speak from experience on this. Mazy's first hairball experience was one where she had so much gas in her she could not eat or drink. The hair was stuck, the gas just continued to build up, and projectile vomiting was the result.

Her treatment was massive doses of hairball remedy, and as much running as I could get her to do (exercise is good for gas, and she doesn't allow stomach massage) until all the gas and fur was passed. She now is on a regular regimen of hairball remedy. Every other day, or sometimes two days on, one day off, in shedding season (April - October) and every four days in winter.

Tolly is the one whose fur forms flat little mats that line his insides. He gets deathly ill if I do not stay on top of his hair ball regimen, and sometimes even if I do. His last illness lasted 84 hours. I am fortunate that I have the skills and supplies to administer sub q fluids at home, so he did not have to be hospitalized while I massively dosed him with hairball remedy, and gave him fluids daily, (as he was not eating)and massaged his stomach and abdomen while waiting for the stuff to start passing. (I am in touch with my vet the whole time during these episodes)

So..what I am saying is, just because a cat has never had hairball problems before it doesn't mean they won't ever. And sometimes it can be a one time thing, but often, once the trouble starts it can be a life long trouble, that you just have to stay on top of.

And I think I already said, just because they don't bring them up, doens't mean they aren't having them.

In fact that kind of convulsive hacking, with no hair ball coming up, could very well mean there is a thin mat of the stuff lining her throat or esophagus, causing constant irritation, and thus the coughing.

Just to point something out. Some of Blann's coughing fits are like this (though not so much weaving back and forth), yet his sisters just coughed. Even when it's from the same thing, in different cats coughing fits can look very different.


Whenever Sherman or Sho, or past cats, have a hairball they lick their lips. This happens whenever a cat is trying to vomit anything up due to saliva pooling in the mouth (happens with humans, too) and is really the only consistent symptom of the episodes I have ever seen.

Nekoha: Just in case, I suggest you ask the vet about doing an x-ray at the next visit. It may cost a bit but it's so simple to do that it's surprising that x-rays aren't one of the first things done whenever a cat has been coughing a lot. At the very least it can rule out a lot of things very quickly.
If there is an underlying heart or lung problem, you do not want to waste time not treating it.

Is there anyway you can do Pounce first and get the x-ray done soon? I know that with mine if I had chose to wait a month it could have resulted in death.

Ditto this. I have one that was recently diagnosed with asthma and while I know the coughing fits can mean different things for different cats, what your Pounce is doing sounds just like what my Moe was doing. An X-ray was the first thing the vet did and the asthma showed up right away. I can't read an x-ray, but the vet took one look at it, said she saw definite signs of asthma and sent it off to a radiologist who said the same thing. When she listened to his lungs though in the normal part of the exam, they sounded fine. She had to do a little more investigating and some tests to determine that it was definitely asthma, but my point is that she saw something that looked asthma related om the x-ray right away, but heard nothing from listening to his lungs. Moe started off having the occasional coughing fit, and I wasn't too concerned at first, but I was shocked at how quickly the occasional coughing fit turned into a twice daily coughing fit. It was scary because we were also concerned that he might have had a heart problem too, and the vet didnt want to start him on any type of treatment plan until his heart had been checked by a cardiologist, so there were a few days when I knew what was wrong with him, but I had to just watch him cough, without being able to do anything for him. It was horrible .

But anyway, my point is, definitely get that x-ray done. It might not be asthma. But if it is, it needs to be treated ASAP. Moe's on an inhaler now and aside from 2 very minor coughing fits, he's been doing really well.

Also, my vet told me that asthma often develops in cats between the ages of 1 and 2. Of course that can vary for every single cat, but Moe was about 1 1/2 when he first started coughing, so if your cat is young, maybe thats why its only started to be noticeable now. Just a thought.

However, I really hope that she's just aspirating food . Though not to scare you, but I thought that Moe might have been doing the same thing, but it just seemed like he was having problems breathing while he was eating because its apparently good for asthmatic cats to eat from elevated food bowls.

Blann would do the same thing. He was coughing so much that he'd start to cough while eating - and I can only imagine that his throat was a bit raw from all the coughing, too. It finally got the the point that if he was coughing before it was meal time or felt like he was going to cough during eating (he'd start to swallow more, you could tell he was getting the need to cough sensation) that he would walk away from his food. He eventually, and rapidly, lost weight from doing this.

An x-ray will show any inflammation in the lungs, whether it be from a chronic condition or an infection. Fluid in lungs will also show up. It will also show if the heart is enlarged at all.

Better to deal with any of this in a regular vet visit where you're not as stressed, and it cost less, than at the ER.