not so good news :(

Off we went to the vet today since he wanted to check out Hobbesâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s heart sounds before we head to the cardiologist in 2 weeks. He called another vet in his practice and they both heard the murmur and itâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s about a grade 2-3. Last time, when Hobbes went for his 1st visit and had bad URI, he thought it was a grade 3 – so itâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s about the same. But the more disturbing thing is that the dry hack that Hobbes has been having nearly daily, he is pretty sure it is not from hairball. Itâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s either heartworm or asthma or heart disease. Although Hobbes has a murmur, the vet does not think that he has what would he a severe enough heart disease to cause that type of coughing and because he is 8 months old. He feels that his breathing would have bee affected, if that was the issue. He drew blood to test for heartworm, but I just read up and it seems that the test is not definitive and there is also no treatment – which is disturbing to know. We will be doing the echocardiogram at the cardiologistâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s and that may give some additional insight. Things may be more complicated if this as asthma since the asthma meds are not good for cats with heart issues. So the doctor things that our only option may be an inhaler, which is not easy to administer. But he will have to talk to the cardiologist before he treats Hobbes for asthma, if thatâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s what he has. So unless he is heartworm positive, he will not be treated for anything else till the cardiologist sees him. This has not been a good day so far.
Would appreciate any insights, experience with anything similar.

No insights, but sending you some big hugs and prayers. You've been through so much with your guys recently.

That is upsetting news. Here you are, first time cat parents, and you've had so many issues with your two guys. It's not usual at all. And I'm sorry it is happening to all 4 of you.

We can only hope the cardiologist has answers, and good ones.

Robin

Sorry to hear. I have a kitten(9 1/2 months) with a grade 4/5 and shows nothing at all except if holding him you can tell. Good luck

Just that you'll all be in my thoughts - and that while it doesn't seem fair that your two young kittens have had so many issues, especially poor little Hobbes, I do think Hobbes was put in your home, and hearts, so someone would love and care for him.

I hope you get some good news soon.

I just feel so helpless. They are just such great boys. We finally got a handle of Calvin's food issues and were about to go tackle Hobbes's heart murmur and now this added issue. I am still waiting to hear from the vet but if we get to know (either the blood test or the echocardiogram) that it is heartworm, I do not know what is there to do than to monitor him. I was just reading up on the American Heartworm Society website and it is disturbing to read. So if he is coughing the way he is, the question will be how bad is it. Also if the heart murmur is a related or unrelated issue. Hobbes just had such a bad start, with the abuse and injury and the overcrowded foster where he was ill. We just want to give him the best care we can to ensure he has a long, healthy and happy life and I just want a chance to give him that.

If love alone could heal Hobbes, he'd live to be 30 years old...and you are doing so much for him, never forget that. Try not to panic, and try not to read the internet too much until you have more results from the vets...the net is great, but you can really panic yourself (hey, I did when I needed a breast biopsy - my doctor was right, I never have googled as much as I did!).

Hobbes and Calvin will be loved all the days of their lives from the moment they entered your heart - and what more can any of us ask?

Originally Posted by darlili

Try not to panic, and try not to read the internet too much until you have more results from the vets...the net is great, but you can really panic yourself (hey, I did when I needed a breast biopsy - my doctor was right, I never have googled as much as I did!).

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We have a tendency to do that, and believe me, it can be worst than not...
Let's see the "ifs": First of all: There are different tests used to diagnose Heartworm, and some of them can come with a false positive if the kitty has intestinal parasites or allergies. Be sure to get a Heartworm antibody specific test.
Second: Treatment is considered almost as dangerous as the worms themselves, as the dead worms can dislocate and get stuck in the pulmonary artery; so in the majority of the cases you just monitor the cat for the life spam of the worm - 2 to 3 years, and offer the cat supportive care: Steroids, oxygen, for example as needed. It is a dangerous disease, but not a death sentence by any means.

If it is asthma: There are adapters for the inhalers such as the AeroKat that do a wonderful job, so no worries there
Quite a few cats here have asthma and live a long, plentiful life!

Also:
Lucky had an unknown cough once that was "cured" with a shot of antibiotics, an antihistamine and a shot of a short term steroid. It calmed down her airways, and it never came back again. It was a weird cough that just hung on for days and days, producing no hairballs.

Hang in there and wait for the doctor to say what it is... usually we tend to think the worst; I learned that with the many ordeals I went through with my Bugsy

I'm sorry to read that Hobbes is having such a hard time.

Poor baby!

I know it's so hard, but try to be positive during this waiting process. Like others have said, the internet can make nearly anything seem super scary. Heck, google the common cold and you'll think you're about to die!

Just keep doing what you're doing, giving your Hobbes (and Calvin!) all the love you have for them.

Sending positive vibes your way...

Oh dear, I will keep him in my prayers. I am so sorry you are going through this. Does not seem fair.

But like they said, you don't know until you know. So love on him as much as you can.

You are quality people for doing all this for your little one.

I don't know if this will make you feel better or not, but I have a cat with asthma who takes the inhaler REALLY well...and I didn't expect that to happen. From what I understand, the pills and the shots that can also be used to treat asthma are pretty harsh on any cat, not just one with heart problems (although obviously you don't want to deal with a heart problem and a harsh asthma treatment). I was worried that we would have a really hard time administering the inhaler to him. In general, he's not a very cooperative cat, but he is amazingly calm when we give him his inhaler twice a day. So just don't panic if it ends up being asthma. I never thought that giving a cat an inhaler would be easy, but for us, its turned out really well!

On the heart disease issue, please don't panic yet. I do what you do - I google for hours on end when I think something is wrong with one of my cats and I've scared myself numerous times. I know that everyone's situation is different so your experience could easily be different than mine but here's are my experiences with heart disease:

~One cat died very suddenly from what we believe to be HCM. He showed ZERO signs of heart disease until about 2 weeks before he died. He had no heart murmur, never coughed...had no symptoms at all. He had regular vet checkups and was always given a clean bill of health. 2 weeks before he died, we suspect that he developed a blood clot, which ultimately led to his death (we opted to not have a necropsy done based on the vet's opinion that it may not even show what was wrong with him - so we (us and the vet) are just assuming, based on symptoms and time progression that it was HCM.

~My cat with asthma showed an enlarged heart when his lungs were xrayed so off to the cardiologist we went. It turns out that there is absolutely nothing wrong with his heart. We were told that since an xray is just a single snapshot, it could have been numerous things that caused it to look enlarged.

~Another cat has a heart murmur and has coughed 3 or 4 times. She also saw a cardiologist who saw absolutely nothing wrong with her heart. Our vet classified the murmur as a 3/4, but the cardiologist said it was more of a 1/2. When I questioned him about the occasional coughing he said that while coughing IS a symptom of heart disease, its often NOT the symptom that presents itself the most. He said that in his 20+ years as a cardiologist, he has seem more coughing cats that have had asthma, or another respiratory problem, and not heart disease. If I remember correctly, he estimated that about 15% of the coughing cats he sees have heart disease, while the other 85% have asthma.

~And finally another one of my cats tested positive for heart worm about 5 years ago. I'm a little unclear of exactly how heartworm tests work, but I do know that the test she was given was one that isn't always accurate and can show exposure instead of actual heartworm. So to be perfectly honest, we never knew if she had heartworm or if she was just exposed to it. Because there is no treatment for cats, we decided along with the vet to continue to give her Revolution (which doesn't do any harm to cats with heartworm) and just keep an eye on her. About 4 years later, she was retested and tested negative. It was explained to me that while there is no cure for feline heartworm, cats tend to get fewer heartworms than dogs (often only 4 or 5 of them) and if they happen to all be the same sex, then they will eventually die. It CAN be dangerous if they die and move into the lungs, but they can also die off and get adsorbed into the cats body. Our vet thinks its very possible that my cat did have heartworm and they all died in that 4 year gap between the two tests that she had, and just didn't cause her any problems in the process.

So I'm sorry I'm rambling, but my point is - don't panic! I absolutely know how hard and heartbreaking it is to get bad news about your cat, especially when they are so young (I cried for days when that heartworm test came back positive), but in my experience, sometimes the things that I expected to be the worst case scenario turned out to be perfectly fine in the end. In fact, the only cat I lost to heart disease didn't have any symptoms at all. And while that in itself is a scary thing, its also taught me to not panic about symptoms that do present itself.

I'll keep you and your kitty in my thoughts and send good vibes your way. So stop googling! (although I know I don't stop when people tell me to) And try to think positively. Your kitties are obviously very loved by you and no matter what happens, just remember that you are giving them the best possible life they can have

Oh sweetie, I'm really sorry.

Originally Posted by Naps With Cats

If there did happen to be an issue with your cats having a problem with it if this turns out to be the case, just hold them gently in a towel, maybe a warmed towel, hold them gently and talk in low tones while applying the mask to their face and do the squirt - make sure it stays totally enclosed to their face.

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I'm just quoting that because its a good idea . And I figured I'd post my own advice too, since I wish someone had given me this advice to begin with. I don't have the Aerokat, but I have something similar to it (not sure of the brand offhand but it came from the vet). So I don't know if the Aerokat has an elastic piece to put over their head to hold the mask on (but I think it does), but mine does and my cat FREAKS if you try to put the mask on that way. When I was first starting to give him the inhaler I was concerned for a day or 2 because I didn't think it was going to work, but then I realized that if I hold the mask to his face with JUST my hand and leave the elastic piece far away from his head...then he does just fine. Its not even that tight, and it can be loosened if it was, but for some reason he just really doesn't like the idea of that mask being held to his head that way. So I just hold it tightly to his face with my hand and all is well. I just wish someone had given me that advice on the first 2 days I was trying to do this .

That mask sounds odd Brooklet.

I have three on flovent. One likes to play hard to get sometimes, one struggles a little(doesn't like being held), and the other one makes little grunting noises… but she does that for other things, too, then I have to push her out off my lap because she's a lap cat and thinks med time is snuggle time.
In short, it's very easy with the aerokat, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

How does his chest x-ray look?
In the case of inflammatory bronchitis, that my cats have, coughing isn't really consistent. Some cough more easily, others have to get quite a bit of inflammation to trigger the cough. Their episodes do not look like the videos of asthmatic cats- it's a spontaneous dry cough. They cough in whatever position they're in then go on with their business like it never happened. I was lucky to catch my vet's son, a veterinary cardiologist, when he was visiting his dad. I caught it before their hearts were affected, though it took a while because at first it was looking like an infection.

Originally Posted by Naps With Cats

Had someone mentioned that the AeroKat was difficult to use per your insinuation? If it wasn't said, why said "Don't let anyone tell you otherwise" as if someone did?

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Oh no not at all! I just said that because the OP mentioned that giving an inhaler to her cat would be difficult. And I absolutely didn't take offense to anything that you said at all. I'm not sure why it came across that way, but I promise - I don't have a problem with a single word that you said . I just quoted you and added onto my personal opinion/experience too. So sorry if I came off sounding rude or annoying - that wasn't my intention at all!

ETA: Oops - sorry, I just realized that you quoted strange wings and not me there. Wow I'm just being extra confusing today - sorry! I thought I said something similar about it being easy to use, which is why I thought you were quoting me. So anyway, I'm so sorry for being so confusing! No one has told me that its hard to use and I wasn't offended or annoyed by anything you said!

strange wings - I might not have described the elastic on the mask very well, but there's a picture of what it looks like here if you scroll down a short ways:

http://www.keriosity.com/?p=186

I just looked up Aerokat pictures too and saw that it definitely doesn't have the same thing like you said. I just pulled it off of my mask after realizing it wasn't going to work for my cat, since it wasn't doing any good by being there.

Per the OP's post…

Originally Posted by Calvin&I

So the doctor things that our only option may be an inhaler, which is not easy to administer.

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My own vet thought much the same and didn't know better. I wish they wouldn't say things like that because it discourages those that don't know better.

Thanks so much, everyone, for the vibes and suggestions. The vet did not call me today, so it’ll be tomorrow before I know anything. After talking to DH I am feeling a lot more positive and calmer. We will proceed as we figure the next steps. I do not know exactly what heartworm testing the vet’s clinic is doing (it was about $65, I think) but I will ask him and will discuss checking both for antibodies and antigens. If he has heartworm, I think Hobbes will be treated with prednisone but I do not know if that’s ok with a cardiac issue but I am sure the doctor will do what’s best. The other thing is that he was given Revolution by the foster Mom the day we got him I February. He had earlier got a Revolution in September/October, I think. I hear that’s a no no is someone already had heartworm but the vet does not really think so.

If it’s asthma, then we’ll do inhalers once the cardiologist okays it. Seems many of you are doing it with successfully, and if that’s the route we take, I am sure I will get some tips for you all. So it’s hearing back from the vet and then cardiologist. In the meantime, I am happy to report that Hobbes has put on nearly 2 lbs since he came to live with us and is 7 lbs 15 oz now at about 8.5 months of age. He has a great curious and playful personality and dealt with the vet trip well. He is fond of Calvin and was so happy to be reunited when he came home. Both were freaking out when I put Hobbes in the carrier and Calvin stood on the carrier and tried to open the door. Calvin, for the first time came all the way to the door when I returned with Hobbes. He usually stands atop a couple of stairs in the kitchen to greet us.

Just know you have LOTS of supporters here at TCS! I have not too much to add here other than you are really doing everything you can for Hobbes. He is loved each and everyday and your care couldn't be better. So hang in there! Sending lots of prayers tonight to you, your DH and Hobbes and lots of hugs too

Just a bit of info per asthma vs. bronchitis. Asthma responds to broncodilaters better than bronchitis does (if it does at all). These cause tachyarrthymias due to not being very specific in what they target - hence the cardiologist's concern. But if it's not asthma, they won't help as much anyways.

As a precaution, have you eliminated all possible inhaled allergens and irritants? Remember, cat litters are both.