Kong & his heart murmur

My 11 month old kitten was recently diagnosed with a heart murmur...one that wasn't present at any of her initial vet checkups. We took her to the cardiologist about a week ago and thankfully everything is looking good with her heart. The cardiologist called it a physiological murmur, meaning that its there, but its not causing any noticeable problems. We'll have to have her rechecked in about a year because while she isn't showing any clinical signs of heart disease, she's at the age where it can start developing. Her murmur was graded a 3/4 by our vet but the cardiologist classified it as a 1/2. He said it could be based on her stress level, meaning that the more anxious she is, the worse the murmur sounds.

Back in April we lost a cat to heart disease (HCM), and he didn't have a murmur until he got sick. He had been to routine vet exams and a murmur was never noticed until he started acting like something was wrong. The ER vet heard the murmur and 2 weeks later (after the ER vet appointment and 2 rechecks by our own vet) he suddenly and shockingly collapsed and died. We never even had time to figure out what was wrong with him. He had been lethargic and limping and heart disease was suspected, but it was obviously too late to do anything about it.

So my point is - I've learned the hard way that murmurs don't always mean something bad. So far it looks like our cat with the murmur is perfectly healthy, while another cat who never had a murmur until right before he died, was obviously very sick without us knowing. He was just over 2 years old when he died.

I know how scary it is to find out that your cat has a heart murmur, especially when you went to the vet for something completely un-heart related. I took my cat in because she had a swollen cheek, and came home scared to death because the vet heart a murmur. Unfortunately heart disease seems to be tricky and murmurs can mean bad things or nothing at all, whereas no murmur doesn't mean the cat is healthy. The more I read about feline heart disease, the more frustrated I get.

I sincerely hope everything is ok with your cat. I hope he's one of the lucky ones who has a murmur but no other problems. Please let us know how the ultrasound goes. Sending good vibes your way

My Jack is 3 and he has one. The vet said on a scale of 1-6 his is 1 because he can hardly hear it.

I asked should he not have a scan?, but he said no as it was very faint, and i asked if i should stop him from playing as much as Jack can run around like a sprinter at times, but again he said no, and just let him carry on as normal.

Lots of healthy coming his way, but if you do a search at the top of the forum and key in "heart murmurs" theres lots of threads there to help you

My 6-year-old littermates both have grade 2 murmurs. Pete's was first detected when he was 9 months old and Claire's just a few weeks ago on a routine vet visit. We intially just monitored Pete, but after xrays showed Pete has a slightly enlarged heart, our vet recommended a cardiac ultrasound, which led to a diagnosis of mild HCM. That was 4 1/2 years ago and with daily meds, Pete has been doing fine and there's been no further progression of the disease. Given Pete's history, our vet recommended an ultrasound for Claire after detecting her murmur, also resulting in a diagnosis of mild HCM.

Neither Pete and Claire have shown any other symptoms and are otherwise healthy, active cats. Will be interested in hearing what your vet says about Kong. Sending lots of vibes for him.

No wisdom to impart but wanted to add my support and to Kong.

Please keep us posted.

I haven't heard of sub aortic stenosis, but I just wanted to wish you luck with the cardiologist, and that your cat will be ok.