My cat Tilly is almost two years old. She is a medium haired brown tabby and she is so sweet and cuddly. Over the last few months she started developing a wheeze that got worse and worse - sometimes just when she would be purring or sleeping, and sometimes from activity. She started developing a bit of a cough that we thought was from a hairball, but it didn't seem to be getting better.
Took her to the vet about 3 weeks ago now after she was coughing bad, and they sent us home with prednisolone for feline asthma. Was taking two 500 mg pills a day for about a week where she had pretty much stopped wheezing, but was coughing a lot more. We called the vet and they said give it another week.
After about 5 more days she randomly threw up right near us and we noticed that her hind legs were spread out and she was standing in a very strange position. Went to grab her and she tried to run up the stairs, but stumbled as if she couldn't quite control her legs. We rushed her to the animal hospital where they took xrays and had her on oxygen and gave her a diuretic. She calmed down quite a bit while we discussed options for tests to try to find out the problem as they didn't think it was just simply asthma as the prednisolone should have gotten her back to normal.
The options for tests were out of our budget and we did not yet have pet insurance, so we asked to take her home with antibiotics to treat a lung infection which was their other hope of what it could be.
She has been on the antibiotics (Clavamox) for about two days now. Seems to be acting a lot more like herself, and now the coughing only seems to be happening after she drinks and eats. Usually lasting a couple minutes, or else she tries not to cough and ends up coughing a few minutes later. She has been continuing to use her litter box, eating and drinking regardless of the coughing that follows, and has not thrown up since starting the antibiotics. The coughing sounds wet (like it already was after starting the prednisolone) but once she is over it she seems to be calm and comfortable.
We have about 7 more days of the antibiotics (9 days total) and are hoping they will do the trick - hoping it is just a lung infection on top of her asthma.
The animal hospital thinks we should get a larynx screening to see if she has some sort of problem with the larynx causing food/water to get into her lungs, which we definitely won't be able to afford, plus I keep hearing other peoples stories about vets telling them to do all these tests that end up coming back inconclusive or negative, and then they choose to try antibiotics for a while and the pet gets over it.
Here is a picture of Tilly with our other cat Tesla <3 <3
Took her to the vet about 3 weeks ago now after she was coughing bad, and they sent us home with prednisolone for feline asthma. Was taking two 500 mg pills a day for about a week where she had pretty much stopped wheezing, but was coughing a lot more. We called the vet and they said give it another week.
After about 5 more days she randomly threw up right near us and we noticed that her hind legs were spread out and she was standing in a very strange position. Went to grab her and she tried to run up the stairs, but stumbled as if she couldn't quite control her legs. We rushed her to the animal hospital where they took xrays and had her on oxygen and gave her a diuretic. She calmed down quite a bit while we discussed options for tests to try to find out the problem as they didn't think it was just simply asthma as the prednisolone should have gotten her back to normal.
The options for tests were out of our budget and we did not yet have pet insurance, so we asked to take her home with antibiotics to treat a lung infection which was their other hope of what it could be.
She has been on the antibiotics (Clavamox) for about two days now. Seems to be acting a lot more like herself, and now the coughing only seems to be happening after she drinks and eats. Usually lasting a couple minutes, or else she tries not to cough and ends up coughing a few minutes later. She has been continuing to use her litter box, eating and drinking regardless of the coughing that follows, and has not thrown up since starting the antibiotics. The coughing sounds wet (like it already was after starting the prednisolone) but once she is over it she seems to be calm and comfortable.
We have about 7 more days of the antibiotics (9 days total) and are hoping they will do the trick - hoping it is just a lung infection on top of her asthma.
The animal hospital thinks we should get a larynx screening to see if she has some sort of problem with the larynx causing food/water to get into her lungs, which we definitely won't be able to afford, plus I keep hearing other peoples stories about vets telling them to do all these tests that end up coming back inconclusive or negative, and then they choose to try antibiotics for a while and the pet gets over it.
Here is a picture of Tilly with our other cat Tesla <3 <3
