This may be kind of a long story, but I wanted to see if anyone has ever had a similar issue with their cat. Our two and a half year old generic tabby cat was recently diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (enlarged heart). To start at the beginning, I left for work on a Friday morning, came home late Friday night and couldn't find the cat. I eventually figured out she was hiding under the bed, which she does occasionally, and also saw a full litter box. I didn't think anything of it since she was fine when I left in the morning and went to sleep. The next day I get up and she's sitting in my bathroom just staring off into space. I chalked it up to just her odd behavior and let her be. Later in the day I noticed heavy abdominal breathing. Her normal vet was closed for the day, so I just kept an eye on her. About 11pm that night, I see that she's flaring her nostrils while she breaths and call a 24hr vet. The vet says that she should be okay through the night and I can bring her in in the morning.
Since her normal vet is closed Sundays, I called her backup vet that we use. Once I described her symptoms, they said to bring her in immediately. The vet looked at her and said that she needs oxygen and informs me that when cats get like this they can go from bad to really bad quickly and pass away. He suggests that we give her some oxygen for 45 minutes and then he'll take a look at her. He suspected a fluid build up and also gave her a shot of lasix to help her pee and release some of the fluid. At this point, i'm beside myself since 2 days before this she was running around and was her old normal self.
The vet then comes back and says that he suspects an enlarged heart and that we can try to x-ray her but I should consider putting her to sleep because she's really having trouble breathing. He shows me her gums and they were turning blue. I decide to have the x-rays done since the doctor said that it'll tell us how bad the damage is. We got to play with her for a few minutes before the x-rays since he said there is a chance that she may stop breathing during the stress of taking them. During that time, I actually see her move around a bit and jump from a table to a chair. It was almost like she was trying to tell us there was some life left in her and to give her a chance. It was also the first time I saw any real activity since Friday morning. We get the x-rays taken and the vet says that the lungs aren't as filled as he thought and that it may be a bad respiratory infection. He prescribed a weeks worth of Clavamox and lasix and said to watch her behavior.
Over the two days we force fed her water and food and by Tuesday night she started to show signs of life. She usually sleeps in our bed, but since Friday she hasn't. On Tuesday night she jumped back into the bed as we were going to sleep. We decided to take her to her normal vet on Wednesday for a second opinion and he gave us a good sign saying that cats with bad hearts don't go from almost dying to running around over the course of a few days. He did recommend an ultrasound to rule out heart problems.
So we have the ultrasound performed and the cardiologist said it's an enlarged heart. The vet said to finish the antibiotics and ween her off the lasix. He also prescribed her Atenolol and Benazepril daily and a baby aspirin twice a week and said that in another 4-5 weeks we can do another ultrasound to see if her heart shrinks. The vet also wasn't sure what caused this. In the month preceding the episode, she figured out how to escape from the house a few times. The vet said she may have caught a lung worm while she was out. I also wonder if she ate a poisonous plant (we have birds of paradise and chrysanthemums growing around here, but I'm not sure that poison has a gestation period since it was about a week since she had gotten out last). Her blood and urine work were also inconclusive. I also contacted the person we got her from when she was a kitten (she was from a litter of 6 kittens). Neither the mother cat nor any of litter have had heart troubles either. And up until the initial Friday, she never panted or showed any signs of being sick. She's also been through a bunch of vet checkups and none of them have ever detected anything.
I'm actually included to think she had a really bad reaction to Advantage Multi. The cat occasionally stays at my girlfriends house (this is where she was escaping from) where she can get fleas from their dog. In the past I've given her regular Advantage and we've never had any issues. Since she got out this last time, I wanted to give her the Multi since she may have picked up worms. The regular Advantage uses imidacloprid where the Advantage Multi uses imidacloprid and moxidectin. I'm wondering if the moxidectin did it. The vet doesn't think so since he's never seen it before, but I don't know.
So I guess my question after this long story is what's next? This all occurred the first weekend in January. Now if you look at her, she looks and acts almost exactly like her old self. She runs around the place, climbs our window screens, has her 4 foot vertical jump back, etc. No real difference except that I can still see her doing the abdominal breathing (though not nearly as bad as when this initially started). I still have another three weeks before we go in for the follow up ultrasound so I guess i'll know more then. Has anyone else ever gone through something similar like this? I'm trying to stay positive since she acts (plays, eats, uses the bathroom) normally, but I don't think I'll be at rest until the next ultrasound.
Since her normal vet is closed Sundays, I called her backup vet that we use. Once I described her symptoms, they said to bring her in immediately. The vet looked at her and said that she needs oxygen and informs me that when cats get like this they can go from bad to really bad quickly and pass away. He suggests that we give her some oxygen for 45 minutes and then he'll take a look at her. He suspected a fluid build up and also gave her a shot of lasix to help her pee and release some of the fluid. At this point, i'm beside myself since 2 days before this she was running around and was her old normal self.
The vet then comes back and says that he suspects an enlarged heart and that we can try to x-ray her but I should consider putting her to sleep because she's really having trouble breathing. He shows me her gums and they were turning blue. I decide to have the x-rays done since the doctor said that it'll tell us how bad the damage is. We got to play with her for a few minutes before the x-rays since he said there is a chance that she may stop breathing during the stress of taking them. During that time, I actually see her move around a bit and jump from a table to a chair. It was almost like she was trying to tell us there was some life left in her and to give her a chance. It was also the first time I saw any real activity since Friday morning. We get the x-rays taken and the vet says that the lungs aren't as filled as he thought and that it may be a bad respiratory infection. He prescribed a weeks worth of Clavamox and lasix and said to watch her behavior.
Over the two days we force fed her water and food and by Tuesday night she started to show signs of life. She usually sleeps in our bed, but since Friday she hasn't. On Tuesday night she jumped back into the bed as we were going to sleep. We decided to take her to her normal vet on Wednesday for a second opinion and he gave us a good sign saying that cats with bad hearts don't go from almost dying to running around over the course of a few days. He did recommend an ultrasound to rule out heart problems.
So we have the ultrasound performed and the cardiologist said it's an enlarged heart. The vet said to finish the antibiotics and ween her off the lasix. He also prescribed her Atenolol and Benazepril daily and a baby aspirin twice a week and said that in another 4-5 weeks we can do another ultrasound to see if her heart shrinks. The vet also wasn't sure what caused this. In the month preceding the episode, she figured out how to escape from the house a few times. The vet said she may have caught a lung worm while she was out. I also wonder if she ate a poisonous plant (we have birds of paradise and chrysanthemums growing around here, but I'm not sure that poison has a gestation period since it was about a week since she had gotten out last). Her blood and urine work were also inconclusive. I also contacted the person we got her from when she was a kitten (she was from a litter of 6 kittens). Neither the mother cat nor any of litter have had heart troubles either. And up until the initial Friday, she never panted or showed any signs of being sick. She's also been through a bunch of vet checkups and none of them have ever detected anything.
I'm actually included to think she had a really bad reaction to Advantage Multi. The cat occasionally stays at my girlfriends house (this is where she was escaping from) where she can get fleas from their dog. In the past I've given her regular Advantage and we've never had any issues. Since she got out this last time, I wanted to give her the Multi since she may have picked up worms. The regular Advantage uses imidacloprid where the Advantage Multi uses imidacloprid and moxidectin. I'm wondering if the moxidectin did it. The vet doesn't think so since he's never seen it before, but I don't know.
So I guess my question after this long story is what's next? This all occurred the first weekend in January. Now if you look at her, she looks and acts almost exactly like her old self. She runs around the place, climbs our window screens, has her 4 foot vertical jump back, etc. No real difference except that I can still see her doing the abdominal breathing (though not nearly as bad as when this initially started). I still have another three weeks before we go in for the follow up ultrasound so I guess i'll know more then. Has anyone else ever gone through something similar like this? I'm trying to stay positive since she acts (plays, eats, uses the bathroom) normally, but I don't think I'll be at rest until the next ultrasound.
