Cat Coughing

My cat had a "coughing" attack today and has had 4 other attacks previously. I wrote them off as hairball hacking but as I was googling today, I'm coming across lots of videos of cats having asthma attacks and I'm freaking myself out. I also read an old thread posted here and someone mention it's hard to tell whether it's a hairball or asthma. Yet reading the symptoms of an asthma attack vs. a hairball, the signs seem pretty clear (lowered body position with neck extended).

The first time, I was petting his neck and he suddenly started "coughing". His head was low and neck extended. I anticipated a hairball. Nothing came out. A few days before this coughing, I found that he had vomited but it was mostly just liquid and it was dried up by the time I noticed. The same thing happened a week or so later. I thought maybe he licked up the hairball or something.

I wasn't there to witness his next coughing fit. My mom watched him cough and then vomit liquid. She didn't mention it to me until a few days later. This was when I thought it odd and started googling. I decided to wait to see if a hairball would surface.

Then he vomited (I don't quite remember the timing of this). It was the only time he really vomited and, again, I was away for the day so I left him some dry food. He very graciously left a pile of kibble vomit topped with hair on a dustpan. Haha! (I stopped feeding him dry after that.)

The third coughing attack happened when I was just waking up and he was roaming around and waiting for his breakfast. He coughed in the same position as the first time I saw him do it: head low and neck extended. Nothing came out.

The fourth time, I was petting his neck again and he started coughing. He coughed twice but his head wasn't down low.

Now, today, a month or so later, he was sleeping on his pillow and he started coughing. Unfortunately, I wasn't there again but my mom witnessed it and called for me to come downstairs. She said he coughed in his sleeping position about 4-5 times.

We did do something different today though: he followed me outside into the garden for the first time and explored in the soil and rolled around in the grass. So him having allergies has also crossed my mind.

However, what's going through my mind the most was what the lady at the shelter said offhandedly before I adopted him. She said (to herself), "Let me check if he's still got his cold" and she looked at his face and nose. I didn't think anything about it after that.

So I'm wondering if it's also possible it might be some residual cough from his cold... 3 months ago.

I do plan to take him to the vet as soon as I can. What tests should I ask for? I'm reading that a chest x-ray is the best solution. Are there other tests that I should ask the vet to do? And what should I expect financially?

Thanks for reading my long post. It's 3 AM and all those videos and symptom lists are scaring me. I'm feeling a bit guilty I didn't take this seriously a month ago too. Thanks again for taking the time to answer my questions

I'm sorry to hear about Ming's coughing. I'm glad you're taking him to the vet, particularly since you mentioned that he's vomited. Beyond that, Siamese (and mixes) seem to be prone to asthma. (Which you probably already know from your Googling.) One of my favorite vet sites is 2ndchance, here's the asthma page.

Our lynx mix had two or three minor/short coughing fits in the first month or so after we adopted her but the problem stopped after we switched the kitty litter from Fresh Step to Dr. Elsey's Respiratory Relief. (We just happened to have a bag of Dr. Elsey's in the house. I also have to admit that I initially thought the coughing was just a failed hairball expulsion.) We were very lucky that the coughing, which had been relatively minor, stopped completely after the litter switch -- even the vet sounded surprised about the result. Ireland must have been sensitive to all the perfumes and dust in Fresh Step. Again, all I can say is that we were extremely lucky. I don't know about tests since Ireland didn't have any but I keep a close eye on her since asthma is so serious and scary. Beyond that, Ireland's a bit neurotic so the stress piece isn't always easy to control!

Good luck! I hope you're able to get some good advice for Ming.

My kitty has coughed a little, off an on for years, but the vet always said if he had asthma it was mild.  Well he started having bad attacks a couple of weeks ago and when we took him we found he had asthma bad enough to treat.

The littler might be the culprit, but I switched to a low dust litter and it didn't seem to do anything for him.

Throwing up foam is a symptom of feline asthma.  Some kitties don't have it bad enough to treat, but you need to make sure he doesn't anything else either.  I am a newbie at this, but been reading a lot on it!

MerlinsMom said:

 
My kitty has coughed a little, off an on for years, but the vet always said if he had asthma it was mild.  Well he started having bad attacks a couple of weeks ago and when we took him we found he had asthma bad enough to treat.

The littler might be the culprit, but I switched to a low dust litter and it didn't seem to do anything for him.

Throwing up foam is a symptom of feline asthma.  Some kitties don't have it bad enough to treat, but you need to make sure he doesn't anything else either.  I am a newbie at this, but been reading a lot on it!

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What tests did your kitty take to diagnose asthma? What did the bad attacks look like, if I may ask?

And I'm glad he can now get treatment. It sort of makes me feel better that it needs to be "bad" to treat but at the same time, it doesn't make me feel good that he has to be severe for me to do anything. 

I hope your kitty is doing well now and his attacks are better!

LisaHE said:

 
I'm sorry to hear about Ming's coughing. I'm glad you're taking him to the vet, particularly since you mentioned that he's vomited. Beyond that, Siamese (and mixes) seem to be prone to asthma. (Which you probably already know from your Googling.) One of my favorite vet sites is 2ndchance, here's the asthma page.

Our lynx mix had two or three minor/short coughing fits in the first month or so after we adopted her but the problem stopped after we switched the kitty litter from Fresh Step to Dr. Elsey's Respiratory Relief. (We just happened to have a bag of Dr. Elsey's in the house. I also have to admit that I initially thought the coughing was just a failed hairball expulsion.) We were very lucky that the coughing, which had been relatively minor, stopped completely after the litter switch -- even the vet sounded surprised about the result. Ireland must have been sensitive to all the perfumes and dust in Fresh Step. Again, all I can say is that we were extremely lucky. I don't know about tests since Ireland didn't have any but I keep a close eye on her since asthma is so serious and scary. Beyond that, Ireland's a bit neurotic so the stress piece isn't always easy to control!

Good luck! I hope you're able to get some good advice for Ming.

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Thank you! I'll check out that asthma page

I'm crossing my fingers that it's maybe an allergy or the litter. I'll look into the brand you recommended. Right now I'm using Purrfect Litter from Costco and it does have LOTS of dust. I've read some people go outside and pour the litter from up high and let the wind take away some of the dust. I might do that too as a precaution. 

I'm SO glad Ireland has no cough now. It's pretty scary to hear them hack away. 

MerlinsMom said:

 
My kitty has coughed a little, off an on for years, but the vet always said if he had asthma it was mild.  Well he started having bad attacks a couple of weeks ago and when we took him we found he had asthma bad enough to treat.

The littler might be the culprit, but I switched to a low dust litter and it didn't seem to do anything for him.

Throwing up foam is a symptom of feline asthma.  Some kitties don't have it bad enough to treat, but you need to make sure he doesn't anything else either.  I am a newbie at this, but been reading a lot on it!

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This is all good to know, thank you, MerlinsMom.

mingking said:

I'm crossing my fingers that it's maybe an allergy or the litter. I'll look into the brand you recommended. Right now I'm using Purrfect Litter from Costco and it does have LOTS of dust. I've read some people go outside and pour the litter from up high and let the wind take away some of the dust. I might do that too as a precaution. 

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Pouring the litter outside is a good idea. Does Ming dig a lot in the box? Ireland is an incredibly vigorous digger (she does this really fast scissor kick motion), I can't even imagine how much dust she must have been stirring up with the Fresh Step!

I hope both your cats are doing better soon!

this is a good article:

Feline Asthma: A Cause of Coughing in Cat

http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=1+2129&aid=209

Oh wow....this is such news to me! My cat coughs with his head stretched out and his body low ALL THE TIME. He's done it for years, though, and the vet has never said a thing, even though he goes in every 3-6 months. He's also had a problem with throwing up for most of his life, but I never really thought the two were related aside from hair balls sometimes. I need to bring it up next time I'm at the vet! I guess it's not life-threatening, though? My guy is 23 and this has been going on for at least 10 years with no dire effects. I just call it his old man cough...I joke that he ended up with emphysema from living with my husband back in his college days.

LisaHE said:

This is all good to know, thank you, MerlinsMom.

Pouring the litter outside is a good idea. Does Ming dig a lot in the box? Ireland is an incredibly vigorous digger (she does this really fast scissor kick motion), I can't even imagine how much dust she must have been stirring up with the Fresh Step!

I hope both your cats are doing better soon!

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Ming definitely digs! And I just cleaned the litterbox and saw a bunch of dust floating around. The articles you and detmut linked were very informative. Thank you. It's relieving to know there's things I can do easily to help with making sure Ming doesn't breathe in dust and other allergens.

I'm going to the vet tomorrow and hopefully it's good news

ishtar163 said:

Oh wow....this is such news to me! My cat coughs with his head stretched out and his body low ALL THE TIME. He's done it for years, though, and the vet has never said a thing, even though he goes in every 3-6 months. He's also had a problem with throwing up for most of his life, but I never really thought the two were related aside from hair balls sometimes. I need to bring it up next time I'm at the vet! I guess it's not life-threatening, though? My guy is 23 and this has been going on for at least 10 years with no dire effects. I just call it his old man cough...I joke that he ended up with emphysema from living with my husband back in his college days.

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Wow!!!! 23 is impressive! And lol @ man-cough. It's nice to know he's doing great even with some coughing.

Let us know how the vet appointment goes, @mingking!

And yes, there are definitely lots of things that can be done to really help (at least some) cats with asthma or asthma-like symptoms. I suspect that if there's something environmental that's causing it, it can be difficult to identify the problem for some cats, kind of like finding food sensitivities for a cat with IBD. When Ireland was coughing, I found a lot of online praise for Dr. Elsey's from people whose cats had asthma. I was glad the litter resolved Ireland's problem (at least temporarily, though of course I hope it's forever!) so we don't have to put her through tests. I just hope Dr. Elsey's continues to work for her! (Particularly since I like it, too.)

And yes, @ishtar163, 23 is very impressive! Amazing that he's been coughing like this for so long, wow!

Hello!  They gave Merlin a chest xray and detailed blood work.  They saw evidence of long term asthma on his xray.  They had a radiologist look at it too.  His heart was normal size and no evidence of heart worms either.

They put him on Albuterol and Flovent inhalers.  We are using the Flovent right now until he stabilizes and then going to use the Albuterol

I'm glad the vet was able to help out! How do you use an inhaler for a cat? Is it like a nebulizer treatment?

I am going to switch litters and talk to my vet about an X-ray....even though my baby boy has lived so long, I hate to think he's been miserable and having trouble breathing all these years!! His kidneys are beginning to fail as is...I need to fix what I can!

I use something called and AeroKat. If you google it there a lots of videos on what it is and how to use.

I am using a steroid inhaler currently as I didn't want to give my kitty pills (not that he would take them anyway).  My boy is nearly 15 so I know how you feel.  Mine has been sick longer and probably worse than I thought.  He has been crying at me for a week or so, but he such a talker, I wasn't sure if he was just being clingy.  He can do that too.

He is improving through.  He is still sleeping a lot and eating less than he normally does. 

At first using the aerokat as tough.  He would have none of it.  I didn't do what the video says, taking a week or so to get them used to the mask.  I didnt' have that kind of time.  He needed his treatment now.  But last night it was almost as if he was asking me for it.  He was meowing last night at me and his breathing was kind of rough.  I picked him up in the bed, because he likes to snuggle in bed and he was doing a lot of abdominal breathing.  I got the aerokat out and decided to give him a treatment.  He took it with very little if any problem.  He then got down and followed me to his treat bowl.  He probably wanted the treat, but he was breathing better after the treatment. 

I know that isn't all cat parents experience, but my boy is pretty mild mannered. 

@ishtar163's mention of trying other kitty litters reminded me that in another thread someone posted the link to a rebate form for Dr. Elsey's: you can get a rebate for a whole package. (I think there was another thread where someone mentioned actually receiving the rebate.) There are also coupons (and the same rebate form) at the bottom of Dr. Elsey's homepage.

It's great to hear, @MerlinsMom, that your cat is improving and even doing better with acceptin the AeroKat, even if it's only because he looks forward to the treats!

Hi everyone. I went to the vet today and got Ming an x-ray. The vet said the area around his lungs and heart was not clear - more specifically, "the margins aren't clear". He sent the x-rays to a radiologist to rule out things like cancer, or heart worm. He said it's also possible it's just an infection. Basically, he doesn't know. 

The vet will call me in 3-5 hours when he gets the results. 

Right now, I'm really just hoping it's some residual infection. He seems fine, eats a lot, plays and runs. But then again, cats are good at pretending nothing's wrong. 

mingking said:

Right now, I'm really just hoping it's some residual infection. He seems fine, eats a lot, plays and runs. But then again, cats are good at pretending nothing's wrong. 

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Oh, fingers crossed that it's something easy!

Update: The vet called! The day after though so I was thinking either the radiologist didn't get to him on time or there's not much to worry. I was watching my phone the whole night and wasn't in the mood to do anything besides watch funny videos to distract me.

Anyway, he said the radiologist said it's fine but that Ming's heart looks big. So we should monitor his heart size and get another x-ray in 6 months. He wants to rule out infection and to treat the cough, so I'll be going tonight to get antibiotics.

I'm going to take this as a relief. Whew! I'm happy now

And also for future reference, to those who live around the Vancouver area, my vet charged me $160 for 2 x-rays and $90 for a consult with the radiologist. It is definitely not cheap! 

@ishtar163  How is your kitty doing?

Okay just went to the vet. The x-ray findings reads that Ming has mild cardiomegaly  (enlarged heart) and that mild cardiomyopathy  could be considered. Basically a fancy way of saying he can have any type of mild heart disease. 

Vet prescribed him prednisolone (tapered dosage) and clavaseptin to rule out infection/upper respiratory infection. 

He asked what I fed the cat and explained that taurine is essential for cats' heart health. 

What do you think about supplementing extra taurine in his diet?

I'm glad he's a pretty mellow guy. I've never seen him hiss or stress. Even at the vet, he's just exploring around and sitting quietly when he's in his carrier. I'm reading that cats with any type of heart disease should not be exposed to stress. 

On a funny note (although sometimes humour is subjective), my mom made a joke that Ming and I are the same since I have some mild heart problems and the concern for me is my heart getting too big.   In hindsight, this is probably a little morbid haha!!

Sorry to hear about Ming's diagnosis. At least you caught it early.

You're right in that a low stress life is important. I don't know enough about feline nutrition to comment on the taurine - before supplementing I'd want to know if excess taurine was a possible problem (just thinking that in people some vitamins/minerals do no harm if too much is taken but others can be toxic in excess). Maybe a better option would be to make sure the regular for you give him has a high taurine content.

Columbine said:

Sorry to hear about Ming's diagnosis. At least you caught it early.

You're right in that a low stress life is important. I don't know enough about feline nutrition to comment on the taurine - before supplementing I'd want to know if excess taurine was a possible problem (just thinking that in people some vitamins/minerals do no harm if too much is taken but others can be toxic in excess). Maybe a better option would be to make sure the regular for you give him has a high taurine content.

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I'm glad the heart disease was found early, too, and that it's just mild! I agree about the low-stress life as well.   You adopted Ming fairly recently, didn't you? We found with our two cats that they settled in pretty well from the start but have gotten especially comfortable (and low-stress) in this, their second year with us. Then again, we think they had a pretty stressful life before, where they were underfed in a too-many-cats household. Anyway, my point is that it's amazing to see the difference over time.

I don't know enough about taurine, either, to comment about that. I might check with the vet again to see if supplementing is useful. Or did he already suggest any particular sort of food (or protein source/specific meat) as being a better (natural?) source of taurine? Ming's such a good eater that I imagine it wouldn't be hard to get him to eat whatever the vet recommends!

(And I definitely appreciate morbid humor... I'm a translator, from Russian to English, and oh my, is there a lot of dark, dark humor in some of them! )

Columbine said:

Sorry to hear about Ming's diagnosis. At least you caught it early.

You're right in that a low stress life is important. I don't know enough about feline nutrition to comment on the taurine - before supplementing I'd want to know if excess taurine was a possible problem (just thinking that in people some vitamins/minerals do no harm if too much is taken but others can be toxic in excess). Maybe a better option would be to make sure the regular for you give him has a high taurine content.

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LisaHE said:

 
I'm glad the heart disease was found early, too, and that it's just mild! I agree about the low-stress life as well.

  You adopted Ming fairly recently, didn't you? We found with our two cats that they settled in pretty well from the start but have gotten especially comfortable (and low-stress) in this, their second year with us. Then again, we think they had a pretty stressful life before, where they were underfed in a too-many-cats household. Anyway, my point is that it's amazing to see the difference over time.

I don't know enough about taurine, either, to comment about that. I might check with the vet again to see if supplementing is useful. Or did he already suggest any particular sort of food (or protein source/specific meat) as being a better (natural?) source of taurine? Ming's such a good eater that I imagine it wouldn't be hard to get him to eat whatever the vet recommends!

(And I definitely appreciate morbid humor... I'm a translator, from Russian to English, and oh my, is there a lot of dark, dark humor in some of them!

)

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Thank you both! Definitely low-stress - although, ironically, now I have to shove pills down Ming's throat so that's pretty stressful! The vet showed me how to do it and Ming was absolutely fine when he did it. When it came to me this morning... well, I needed an extra set of hands to keep him still. Maybe he felt MY stress. 

I should have asked the vet if there were alternative ways to administer pills (d'oh!) and how much is too much taurine. I'll do that when I go in on Saturday to pick up the rest of his pills since they didn't have enough for me.

@LisaHE  Yes, I adopted Ming in February! I always wonder what his past was like - he's so sweet and gentle. I can't imagine anyone not wanting him unless they lost him (he HAS been following me outside to the garden against my wishes - that bugger!) or they just couldn't take care of him. He was neutered by the shelter in November so that also makes me wonder. It's so great when cats transition well! 

Now I can only hope his heart stays the same size and he's just a kitty with a bigger heart than most!