Hello!
I was just wondering if I could share my story and maybe get some feedback. I have a seven year old cat who has been coughing for probably over a year now. Asked the vet and we tried cat lax since he has psychogenic alopecia which might have caused a hairball. A few months and he was still coughing, but I still assumed it was hairballs; however, back in August, it got more worry-some than it had been, and I took him to the vet where they did X-rays. The x-rays show a diffuse lung pattern with some donut shapes. The vet didn't know what it was, but said possibly pneumonia. He gave him two weeks of Clavamox and made a follow up appointment. After two weeks, not much change and the X-rays looked the same. Vet decided to continue Clavamox for another two weeks, but added Baytril and Chlorpheniramine. Still no change, so we were referred to UT vet hospital where they would keep him for the day, perform some tests, and possibly do a tracheal wash. They did more X-rays, ultrasounds to rule out cancer in other organs, blood work, urine and stool samples for parasites and still could not find anything, so recommended the tracheal wash. The day of the tracheal wash, he did not recover well from the procedure. He was having issues with is blood ox level and was critical for a few minutes. Luckily he came back from that and seems to have no lasting effects; however; the wash culture showed nothing but a few inflammatory cells and a colony or two of a couple bacteria. They said other that his lungs (and weight), he is healthy. The UT vet decided to go ahead with Doxycycline for 4 weeks, then follow-up. I thought that the coughing had gotten better, but the X-rays at the follow-up showed the same thing. They don't recommend anymore procedures because of how he recovered from the wash. We both agreed that he's not getting better, but he's also not getting any worse. He has seen at least 6 different vets or vet students and no one knows what is going on. He is still having coughing fits and I just feel so bad for him sometimes. To top it off, I think he might have arthritis. He's not as active and wasn't eating very much. I took him to the vet, where of course they couldn't find anything wrong with him on paper, and they got him to eat. I keep the food bowl high so the dog can't get to it, but when I bring the food to him he eats. This all started when it got a lot colder here a couple weeks ago, assuming if it is arthritis it was getting worse with the cold. Sorry for the long post, I am just stumped at where to go from here and was wondering if anyone else has come across something like this. Any advice would be appreciated!
Thank you!
Michelle
I was just wondering if I could share my story and maybe get some feedback. I have a seven year old cat who has been coughing for probably over a year now. Asked the vet and we tried cat lax since he has psychogenic alopecia which might have caused a hairball. A few months and he was still coughing, but I still assumed it was hairballs; however, back in August, it got more worry-some than it had been, and I took him to the vet where they did X-rays. The x-rays show a diffuse lung pattern with some donut shapes. The vet didn't know what it was, but said possibly pneumonia. He gave him two weeks of Clavamox and made a follow up appointment. After two weeks, not much change and the X-rays looked the same. Vet decided to continue Clavamox for another two weeks, but added Baytril and Chlorpheniramine. Still no change, so we were referred to UT vet hospital where they would keep him for the day, perform some tests, and possibly do a tracheal wash. They did more X-rays, ultrasounds to rule out cancer in other organs, blood work, urine and stool samples for parasites and still could not find anything, so recommended the tracheal wash. The day of the tracheal wash, he did not recover well from the procedure. He was having issues with is blood ox level and was critical for a few minutes. Luckily he came back from that and seems to have no lasting effects; however; the wash culture showed nothing but a few inflammatory cells and a colony or two of a couple bacteria. They said other that his lungs (and weight), he is healthy. The UT vet decided to go ahead with Doxycycline for 4 weeks, then follow-up. I thought that the coughing had gotten better, but the X-rays at the follow-up showed the same thing. They don't recommend anymore procedures because of how he recovered from the wash. We both agreed that he's not getting better, but he's also not getting any worse. He has seen at least 6 different vets or vet students and no one knows what is going on. He is still having coughing fits and I just feel so bad for him sometimes. To top it off, I think he might have arthritis. He's not as active and wasn't eating very much. I took him to the vet, where of course they couldn't find anything wrong with him on paper, and they got him to eat. I keep the food bowl high so the dog can't get to it, but when I bring the food to him he eats. This all started when it got a lot colder here a couple weeks ago, assuming if it is arthritis it was getting worse with the cold. Sorry for the long post, I am just stumped at where to go from here and was wondering if anyone else has come across something like this. Any advice would be appreciated!
Thank you!
Michelle
