10 year old cat suffering from severe allergy related asthma. Will it kill her?

Hello cat community! This is my third thread about the same situation. To catch everyone up; Ricecake is still her same old self. She cheated on her diet so we are still hovering at 17.5lbs. Feeding ritual is changing again because she was stealing her sisters food... silly us for not realizing it. 

So I moved from Illinois to Oregon in August 2015. I took both my cats with me. Ricecake is 10 and obese, Winter is 4 and awesome. --Winter is perfectly healthy and up to date on shots and on the proper dosage of Revolution for fleas.  2 weeks after Ricecake arrived she began to make weird noises. In my other post I explained Ricecake's hairball situation; 3-4 per month, every month, for her entire life. THATS A LOT OF MESS. I did some research and learned the true nature of hairballs. any more than 1 per month is a sign on a problem. she is very long haired and sheds like crazy. Ricecake hair everywhere!! I always justified it as Ricecake justs sheds enough to have lots of hairballs... She is now on a Blue Hairball formula.

Since we moved to Oregon 8 months ago we are down to about 1 or 2 hairballs a month. You would think that is a good sign, right? Since day 2 in Oregon Ricecake has developed asthma. or what appears/sounds like asthma. Youtube feline asthma; it is THAT. It is NOT a hairball. Like mentioned above Ricecake used to throw up a lot. I know that nasty sound. The asthma IS NOT a hairball. At the vet she got some radiology; she didnt like the x-ray machine too much. Then blood work. Then urine sample. RESULTS: She is obese at 17.8lbs... She shows signs of early kidney disease; so I'm going to get a supplement. She is concentrating her urine fine. She has fleas apparently; hopefully from the move across country. Revolution is in place and we are cleaning the house and combing the cats. The xray showed no  hairballs and no signs of asthma... just some bronchial inflammation due to the "asthma cough" as I call it. 

The doctors assumption is that her "asthma" is not asthma. it is an obesity issue.. Doc thinks that her neck is so large that the weight is crushing her trachea causing her distress. I thanked her for her time and left. I laughed. that makes no sense. she has actually lost minor weight due to the move... This would have happened in Illinois. So I assumed it was the fleas. These days everyone, people and pets, seems to have some type of allergy. I'm allergic to turkey, tomatoes, and potatoes... I assumed Ricecake must be allergic to flea saliva. She gets bitten, then asthma cough. WRONG AGAIN. After 4 months of Revolution the fleas appear to be gone? just some eggs that we are combing out diligently. Bathing these two cats is hardly feasible and I refuse to have them drugged and groomed by some "pro." So comb comb comb!!

Weeks passed and Ricecake's "asthma cough" comes and goes. The amount of coughs per day is kind of random. But one thing is that it appears to happen most often when she is sleeping or relaxing **When her heart rate is low**. She is always spewing snot out of her nose and swallowing as if a hairball were creeping up or as if she just ate. What is causing this?! perhaps I know.' 

On Sunday April 3rd we finally had an idea - maybe its the pollen!!! We kept the windows closed all day and havent opened them since.  Although she is still coughing once in a while, the amount of cough attacks have decreased significantly to about 4 a day.

Is Ricecake allergic to pollen? Can pollen cause these massive daily asthma attacks? I looked up information regarding pollen levels. Oregon is up there with top 10 allergies. But so is Illinois. So I wonder if it is just a specific type of pollen. Has anyone experienced this? Moving across country to a different ecosystem brings new allergens, new humidity levels, the works... I wonder if Ricecake is SPECIFICALLY allergic to Evergreen... its everywhere here. sorry for the rant community. but details are the key. process of elimination.

THANKS!

Honestly, it sounds like she has a lot of medical issues going on. No one is going to be able to tell you whether or not it's pollen related. In terms of the hairballs, that's usually related to diet. If you feed more meat based foods, hairballs virtually disappear. I have long haired cats that eat mostly raw, zero hairballs anywhere, and I live in AZ where it's already hot. Personally, I wouldn't feed "hairball formula" food, because it's not usually good quality. I would feed meat based wet food, and give a hairball supplement as needed. This is a good one. 


here's a list of good wet foods

http://www.naturalcatcareblog.com/2010/12/the-7-best-natural-commercial-cat-foods-so-far/

Thank you for your response. I will get some hairball treats to give to them here and there. I've been feeding them only Blue brand dry cat food. While I'm aware that hard food is very bad for felines digestive tracts and has even been linked to many forms of feline cancer, I'm confident that Blue is a medium-high quality food. Annoyingly Ricecake hates wet food. It has always been a battle with her. She will starve herself until we remove the wet food. but maybe we can try again. 

I really hope someone can relate to my issue. Her asthma cough seems to directly correlate to the pollen level in the area. Pollen.com has a really nice and easy pollen forecast.

Thank you for your time!