Cat Hacking

As many of you know, my cat has had a number of issues the past few months.  Last week, she did the "hairball hack" several times over 4 days, but didn't bring anything up.  I took her to the vet this past Monday to make sure she wasn't ill, and nothing abnormal came up on a general exam.  Her vet felt it might just be the extremely dry air in my apartment and to watch her other behaviors.  She is eating and drinking normally.  She might be just a bit lethargic, but I have been sick myself so I haven't been playing with her quite as much the past couple of days.  Last night she did the "hack" again.  She has had two hairballs in the past and made this same noise.  It's not really a cough, but sounds like she is trying to clear her throat or bring something up.  She does a lot of swallowing afterwards and kind of grumbles and groans-but the noise is in her throat not like a groan of pain or distress.  She almost sounds like she has pleghm in her throat.  This whole process lasts about 20 minutes and then she goes and gets a drink of water.  She also hasn't pooped in 2 days but is peeing normally.  No vomiting or fever.  I have a call into her vet this morning and am waiting to hear back, but was wondering if anyone else had some feedback on this problem.  Her vet did say if she got worse or started eating/drinking poorly then we should do some x-rays...thanks for any ideas anyone might have while I wait for her vet...

MissMindy said:

 
 Last night she did the "hack" again.  She has had two hairballs in the past and made this same noise.  It's not really a cough, but sounds like she is trying to clear her throat or bring something up.  She does a lot of swallowing afterwards and kind of grumbles and groans-but the noise is in her throat not like a groan of pain or distress.  She almost sounds like she has pleghm in her throat. 

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My Aby used to do the same thing: cough/gag and swallow but nothing ever came out. The vet examined him thoroughly, even doing an endoscopy of the throat and a biopsy of throat tissue, but found no cause for the behavior My Aby hasn't done this in a while so maybe it was just a weird phase he was going through.

Has your cat ever been tested for asthma? That's something you can ask the vet about.

Bonnie has sessions of this - like she is trying to cough up pleghm.

It only lasts a couple of minutes so we try an keep Clyde away from her whilst she finished (he always wants to play when she is coughing !)

We had tests at the vets but nothing physical was found - he seemed to think it was stress related (she is still very nervous / shy) and we noticed that these sessions were more frequent the day after something different had happened (like a stranger in the house - strange to her not us I hasten to add) or the window cleaner had been

Could that be a possibility?

One of our cats -- also the nervous one -- did this a few times in the month, never for more than a minute or two, after we adopted her but it has stopped completely (knock wood!) since we switched the kitty litter to Dr. Elsey's Respiratory Relief from Fresh Step, which was very dusty and perfumed. That was about a year ago. We have very dry winter air, too, and I suspect something in the Fresh Step was irritating Ireland's respiratory tract. She digs very vigorously in the box, so I can only imagine how much dust she had been raising and breathing in!

My kitten also has a hacking problem. He has had it for a couple of months. I was feeding him both dry and wet food (grain free). It seemed to lessen/disappear with wet food only. We had had a ringworm problem. He had a little rash on his ear. I wonder if ringworm weakens the digestive system internally. My cat had an xray and dewormer, etc. He is eating Wellness tuna, but I think I should find something else.

teri000reb5 said:

My kitten also has a hacking problem. He has had it for a couple of months. I was feeding him both dry and wet food (grain free). It seemed to lessen/disappear with wet food only. We had had a ringworm problem. He had a little rash on his ear. I wonder if ringworm weakens the digestive system internally. My cat had an xray and dewormer, etc. He is eating Wellness tuna, but I think I should find something else.

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It sounds like you've already had your kitten in for various tests but it might be worth asking the vet about the effects of ringworm. Maybe it contributes to inflammation?

It's a strange coincidence that you posted this today: Ireland, our cat that I mentioned in a post above, had a small bit of coughing today. This one, though, seemed to be caused by her having hoovered something up off the floor. She has a tendency to walk around and sniff a lot -- sometimes she then tries to cough out what she sniffs up. (It's firewood season so there's a lot of dusty stuff, including bits of bark, which she loves, in the wood area, which of course is all the more appealing because it smells like chipmunks.) I've even seen her inhale her own fur and then try to cough it out when she's grooming!

lisahe said:

It sounds like you've already had your kitten in for various tests but it might be worth asking the vet about the effects of ringworm. Maybe it contributes to inflammation?

It's a strange coincidence that you posted this today: Ireland, our cat that I mentioned in a post above, had a small bit of coughing today. This one, though, seemed to be caused by her having hoovered something up off the floor. She has a tendency to walk around and sniff a lot -- sometimes she then tries to cough out what she sniffs up. (It's firewood season so there's a lot of dusty stuff, including bits of bark, which she loves, in the wood area, which of course is all the more appealing because it smells like chipmunks.) I've even seen her inhale her own fur and then try to cough it out when she's grooming!

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Thanks for replying Lisa. It was really expensive going to the vet...but I am thinking I need to go again soon. My cat had stopped eating and the vet and techs helped me out and that is how he ended up on tuna. I have a case of various Merrick cat foods. Tried a couple but he lost interest at the end of the second can. So I returned to tuna Wellness.

Anyway, I used to use wood stove pellets as cat litter for 2 old cats. I used it because they had medium coats and peed a lot (diabetes and later kidney disease). It was not ideal, but affordable and did not turn to cement like clay.

When I got this kitten, the owner told me not to use wood stove pellets. I had them in the car and used them until the next day when I bought clay. When he had hacking problems, I worried about the pellets, the wood, disease, etc.

But now I have a different problem. I was told not to get one yr canary derived rabies vaccine, but get the 2 yr. vaccine. I went to 2 different places with no success. The second place talked me into getting a 1 yr vaccine without canary...My cat was hacking before this occurred, but I had found a better dry cat food...but after the vaccine, the hacking returned with the dry food and my cat stopped eating.

Anyway, I was petting him last night and found some lumps at the site of the vaccine. It has been a little over 3 weeks. Now I am worried about cancer. My little guy, he's only 7 months old...

T teri000reb5 , it sounds like you're dealing with a lot of unfortunate things, I'm very sorry to hear this. Yes, I'd be concerned about the lumps, too, and would definitely bring him in to have those checked and ask again about your kitten's appetite and hacking, too. Not eating can get serious fast, especially for a kitten, so the sooner the better.

I had never heard of using wood stove pellets as kitty litter! We use clay litter for our cats and switched to Dr. Elsey's Respiratory Relief because of Ireland's coughing: it's unperfumed and not very dusty. It's expensive but it keeps her from hacking and is cheaper than treating asthma.

I hope the vet visit goes well -- fingers crossed that the lumps aren't anything serious!

I am not sure why this cat person said no to wood stove pellets. I know you need to get all natural with no black walnut (poisonous to animals). Some people get wood pellets meant for horses to be on the safe side. Wood pellets do produce quite a bit of dust. Some time I will have to find out why. Maybe mice get in the bags? Maybe it retains bacteria or spores or viruses...

What is Dr. Elsey's respiratory relief litter made of?

We use Dr. Elsey's clay litter. This one. And like the person who comments says, it's easier on human sinuses than regular litters: we used Fresh Step for our previous cat and it spread tons of perfumed dust all over the mudroom, where the litter boxes are. Dr. E's is much easier to live with. (I've had allergies all my life so this is an important factor.)

I wonder, too, about the wood stove pellets though would also suspect dust, rodents, and mold spores! We just burn logs, not pellets, and the firewood definitely attracts the cats' attention: we know that chipmunks and mice often run around (even nest) in our woodpiles.

Do let us know how the vet visit goes!