Heart Murmur- anyone who had a cat/kitten with this!

I adopted a kitten from a shelter about a month ago. He seemed happy and healthy, until about 2 weeks ago when he started coughing and sneezing. I took him to the vet, and she said he probably has an upper respiratory virus, and she also found that he has a grade 2/3 heart murmur. He's only 3 months old. I've read as much as I could and asked questions, but never really got a straight answer on this one: What age does a kitten outgrow the murmur? I know that some live their whole lives with it but I would like to know if anyone out there had a kitten with one that outgrew it, or people with cats that have had one. I know there's medicine for HCM, but not for congenital heart disease.

I don't want to go get tests and xrays for hundreds of dollars to find out that I can't do anything to help. Should I bring him to a no-kill? I can't bring him back to the shelter where I got him to get a refund because there's a chance they will take his life even though he may be able to live with the murmur. Any cat's life, no matter how short, is worth way more than his adoption fee. Please respond if you have any experience with this or know someone who did! Thank you.

Do the best you can, love him and enjoy what you have-it may never be serious or it may take him early. I have a grade 4-5 heart murmur who is a year and 5 months whos doing GREAT was neutered around 8 months(waited to see if hed grow out and terrified of the risk but he came through neuter FINE) You can only do so much. Is he ok now? far as coughing?

I can hear his but so far no signs and plays alot.

Am sorry about your kitten having heart murmur. The day after we adopted Hobbes we took him to our vet and he diagnosed Hobbes with a grade 2/3 murmur. He was 4 months old and this was in february. Hobbes, too, was in the midst of an upper respiratory infection. He also has asthma, which needs steriod treatment and steriods are not good for cats with heart disease.

We decided to take Hobbes to a cardiologist to check him out in April and again for a followup in September. His murmur is transient and the cardiologist was not able to hear it any of the 2 times. Our regular vet and another vet at the clinic has heard murmurs on occasions. The echocardiograms we got done at the cardiologists showed nothing abnormal. The things is it was expensive but we ready to pay the price for the peace of mind since if he had something treatable we would have provided it and if it turned out to be congenital, we would take care of him as long as he lived with us. We charged the treatment on our Care credit card and have 6 months to pay it off - which works for us.

The thing, what I gather, is that the echocardiogram is the most certain way of knowing if anything is wrong with a cat's heart. X-rays can be inconclusive but if the heart is visibly enlarged, then you'll know. My suggestion would be to keep the kitten and love him, even if you do not want to get any tests done. Add l-lysine to his diet, which will help with his immune system since he has a URI and cats are notorious for having recurring ones. Sometimes murmurs disappear around 1 for cats, some have transient murmurs and many many do just fine and live a healthy and happy life - just like humans with murmurs do (I have mild murmurs). I hope you'll give the little guy a chance.