Atrial Septal Defect

My beautiful Amy has been diagnosed (today) with a quite large Atrial Septal Defect and possible Aortic Stenosis. She displayed no symptoms until the start of this week when her abdomen became swollen overnight, and she became a bit lethargic after this. She has been eating and drinking quite normally (in fact seemed to have more of an appetite than usual) and going to the toilet as usual with no vomiting or diarrhoea. The vet spoke to a cardiologist who said that as she has reached the age of 5 1/2 years before showing symptoms that her prognosis 'should be' fair but surely the swelling and fluid in her abdomen mean that she's now in congestive heart failure? The vet wants to keep her in over the weekend so that they can reduce the swelling and keep an eye on her so I won't know any more until Monday, but I just wondered whether anyone else had experience of this particular problem. 

I haven't had any experience of this before but I really hope you find out what is happening for your Amy very soon.   

I am sorry you haven't had any replies from anyone before now but hopefully someone who has had experience of this will see your thread and offer you some advice.

Welcome to TCS and I'm sorry it's under these circumstances.

Heart problems in cats are actually not that rare. I ran a search for "aortic stenosis" and found quite a few threads - 

http://www.thecatsite.com/newsearch?search=Aortic+Stenosis

We have an article about heart conditions that has quotes by members -  [article="30268"]Heart Disease In Cats​[/article]  

I'm glad Amy was seen by the cardiologist. Sounds like she's in good hands. 

I am so sorry to hear about your sick kitty.  I have no experience with heart conditions in cats, but will be praying for you both.  Please keep us informed how she is doing.     AND of course welcome to The Cat Site, so glad to have you. 

Hope that your kitty is doing ok..I only have small experience with heart issues-and the vet has told me that we cant treat until she goes into heart failure=which scares the pants off me=hoping your kitty will be ok.