rescue cat 5 years old diagnosed with asthma then a call from the vet,,,,,

Hi - I have a question for the group.  My sister adopted a male cat from the shelter who is 5 years old, about 13 pounds and neutered.  He appeared to be in good health until he started having breathing difficulty at times.  She took him to the vet where he was given a steroid shot that seemed to calm his symptoms.  She took him for a blood chem to see how he was doing and received a call that his calcium levels were elevated.  Could this be from his diet? How can it be controlled?  I don't want him to have kidney problems.  My vet wants to do a full body xray to see if calcium deposits are running throughout his body.  He seems fine otherwise.  Any suggestions appreciated.

Hi there. It could be a number of things, but probably an xray or ultrasound is called for. Asthma, herpes virus (FHV), allergies could all be a cause, but it needs further investigation. My Wellington breathes loudly when he is having a herpes attack.

badgersowner said:

 
Hi - I have a question for the group.  My sister adopted a male cat from the shelter who is 5 years old, about 13 pounds and neutered.  He appeared to be in good health until he started having breathing difficulty at times.  She took him to the vet where he was given a steroid shot that seemed to calm his symptoms.  She took him for a blood chem to see how he was doing and received a call that his calcium levels were elevated.  Could this be from his diet? How can it be controlled?  I don't want him to have kidney problems.  My vet wants to do a full body xray to see if calcium deposits are running throughout his body.  He seems fine otherwise.  Any suggestions appreciated.

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Here is a very comprehensive article on iot.

http://catexpert.blogspot.com/2011/12/hypercalcemia-in-cats.html

Before you even get worried and start considering disease processes that cause hypercalcemia, he needs that group chem profile's Calcium verified by the only true gauge of their systemic calcium and that is an ionized calcium test. It is not the calcium in a blood chemistry profile, is ran separately on a new sample of serum that is collected differently, handled faster, and chilled ASAP after handling, so the calcium levels aren't affected in it.

Then, if THAT number is high, you start working up for why. And the majority, not all, are high for no discernable reason atall, and calcium binders or fibrous prebiotics are used, so it doesn't eventually lead to systemic problems, affecting bladder/renal/etc health down the line.

So, in summary, Ionized Calcium, reassess, then look for a problem, if there is one...

Xray for calcium deposits running through his body sounds like you need a better explanation of why your vet wants xrays as that is an odd reason. Bones are calcium, defined. There is a lot of bone on Xray....   Sounds hog washy from your vet, but just ask them to explain, reason, and convince you they either do/don't know what they're talking about OR they did/didn't just try to make something up that sounds ominous to convince you to do an Xray.

A more reasonable need for an Xray is to verify he has asthma at all. It cannot be diagnosed from breathing/coughing or other symptomology alone. Xrays absolutely needed. Even those may not be enough, and chest ultrasound may be needed to diagnose asthma.  Humans' asthma is diagnosed from expiratory flow volume tests, symptomology, ausculting the chest, and history observations, not cat asthma. So says the asthmatic veterinary nurse working with one of the very triggers of her asthma every. tootin'. day.   :]

Thank everyone for your help.  I will pass on the information to my sister and let you know what happens later this week when he goes back to the vet.

Just out of curiosity, what brand of food does he eat? I was feeding my cats dry blue buffalo and 3 of my cats have hypercalcemia and my vet thinks the food has to be the culprit. One of the cats Cali had an incident of trouble breathing a couple years ago and the ER vet said it was congestive heart failure but she's been fine ever since.