Asthma from stress?

[Meowmee]

I’m just wondering if Fred one of my former outdoor guys now indoor for a year could have asthma. He is fiv positive and occasionally will sneeze. Today when I was cleaning, he got scared and ran into the closet. He and his buddy cinnamon are still not touchable and will run away from me mostly. When I went into the bathroom to do something, he went out and behind the bed. Then he was breathing loudly for quite a while and I’m wondering if he could have asthma, stress induced, etc. I ended up dusting everything in there because it’s a very dusty room and I don’t have time to dust it as often as I could and constantly sweeping in there, I try not to vacuum because they get scared of the vacuum cleaner.

I can’t get him or anyone to a Dvm right now to get sedated, etc. because of my spinal injury. And it would involve trapping which would be very stressful. I’m not sure if that would be a good idea. Anyway, if it’s asthma, the only thing that could be done would be to give him prednisilone I guess in food or a shot.

Lately, he does come out more when I do stuff there, and I have been feeding him and Xena together when I first going to clean up, he will sit there with Zena eating and purring very loudly. I’ll leave the door open a lot now and he will actually come out and go into my room and look at me if I’m doing something downstairs but if I come near him he’ll run right back in his room etc.

 

[silent meowlook]

Hi. Stress can certainly lead an asthmatic cat into an asthma attack. Could it also be whatever you were cleaning with? Or could it be that perhaps you unsettled some dust while you were cleaning.

Having an untouchable cat with asthma is always kind of walking a fine line. If you try to treat the cat during the attack, you stress them out, which makes the attack worse and causes them to run and maybe hide under a bed or something where there may be more dust. So, it is hard to know the right thing to do.

I also understand that a diagnosis is done by radiograph, and I understand that a veterinary visit would be almost impossible. Honestly, if it was my unhand able cat, I wouldn't want to destroy any progress I had made with the cat by stressing him out with a vet visit. So, I totally understand, I think, where you are coming from.

I have a horrible dusty, dirty house. I am not ready for the next episode of hoarders extreme or anything, but I do live on top of a huge dirt mountain, and it gets windy and dirt seems to constantly come into the house. Dust builds up within 12 hours and I truly despise dusting and don't have the time to dust twice a day, I mean, I could but then the trash would never be taken out and the dishes wouldn't get done. So, anyway, what I have found to help a little is an air purifier with a Hepa filter. You would need to be sure that the sound of it didn't bother the cats. It isn't going to cure anything, but it won't hurt.

Also make sure your litter boxes are not covered ones and that you use unscented cat litter that is low dust. I have tried the special respiratory litter and
wasn't impressed. I didn't notice any change in the amount of asthma attacks and didn't notice a decrease in dust. I read the ingredients and wasn't 100% comfortable with what they were. This was a while ago.

Went back and reread the part about the spinal injury that you have. Uh, don't worry about it for now. Get better. Maybe don't dust when he is around and when YOU HAVE A SPINAL INJURY!!!! Stop that!!! Please get better before you do that stuff. (says the woman who is supposed to be on stall rest for her knee but is still working with giant horses)

 

[Meowmee]

Hi. Stress can certainly lead an asthmatic cat into an asthma attack. Could it also be whatever you were cleaning with? Or could it be that perhaps you unsettled some dust while you were cleaning.

Having an untouchable cat with asthma is always kind of walking a fine line. If you try to treat the cat during the attack, you stress them out, which makes the attack worse and causes them to run and maybe hide under a bed or something where there may be more dust. So, it is hard to know the right thing to do.

I also understand that a diagnosis is done by radiograph, and I understand that a veterinary visit would be almost impossible. Honestly, if it was my unhand able cat, I wouldn't want to destroy any progress I had made with the cat by stressing him out with a vet visit. So, I totally understand, I think, where you are coming from.

I have a horrible dusty, dirty house. I am not ready for the next episode of hoarders extreme or anything, but I do live on top of a huge dirt mountain, and it gets windy and dirt seems to constantly come into the house. Dust builds up within 12 hours and I truly despise dusting and don't have the time to dust twice a day, I mean, I could but then the trash would never be taken out and the dishes wouldn't get done. So, anyway, what I have found to help a little is an air purifier with a Hepa filter. You would need to be sure that the sound of it didn't bother the cats. It isn't going to cure anything, but it won't hurt.

Also make sure your litter boxes are not covered ones and that you use unscented cat litter that is low dust. I have tried the special respiratory litter and
wasn't impressed. I didn't notice any change in the amount of asthma attacks and didn't notice a decrease in dust. I read the ingredients and wasn't 100% comfortable with what they were. This was a while ago.

Went back and reread the part about the spinal injury that you have. Uh, don't worry about it for now. Get better. Maybe don't dust when he is around and when YOU HAVE A SPINAL INJURY!!!! Stop that!!! Please get better before you do that stuff. (says the woman who is supposed to be on stall rest for her knee but is still working with giant horses)

Thanks I wasn’t cleaning with anything like a cleaner(I tend to use very mild cleaners and off, and just water, because I have a lot of sensitivities and I have asthma, too.)

I was just sweeping which he is scared of too, and he got scared and ran into the closet because I got a little too close to the dresser he was under… so, I think this was really induced by the stress… then I went in there in the closet area and he got even more scared and ran behind a bunch of things in the closet. It’s an open closet. he likes to know that he has an exit escape planned etc.

He has had some nasal breathing on and off but nothing that I would have thought was asthma before, although Sybil had asthma, and she never breathed like that but each cat is different.

I sweep numerous times a day in there and this never happened the only time it happened was then. I’m trying to think now if it happened before but not so dramatically maybe and I just wrote it off as his nasal stuff. The sweeping is really not very good for me in terms of dust because I have asthma too. My asthma has been worse lately and I may have to wear a mask when doing certain things. But the vacuum cleaner scares them even more. I haven’t been mopping in there because it’s hard for me to do and I have to limit what I’m doing so I’m gonna make sure I do that tomorrow.

yeah, no chance of me ever trying to medicate him by touching him. Lol. He seems OK now so I think I’ll just keep an eye on it. I guess if it turns into an emergency somehow will have to get to Dvm but not with me lifting etc. I have someone that can help but it would have to be an emergency to do it really. I’ve been thinking about getting a visiting dvm that but I don't know if that would work either.

I was hoping I would be better and more improvement by now but it’s taking a long time and I can’t take the risk of having more fractures is still really hard for me to do a lot of things.
I’ve been using wbcl the anti-tracking one which has larger pieces. I have two very large open boxes and another one is a top entry but nobody uses it. One of the open boxes does have some lightweight clay, I have been mixing worlds best to transition them because it was affecting my asthma. I just cannot tolerate clay anymore and I have had some kind of mild clay allergy too for a long time.

That’s terrible that you have so much dust there. I’m glad the air purifier helps. I used to have air purifiers but they didn’t seem to help me so I stopped using them. But it seems like they could’ve been handy last week when we had an air quality alert for a few days and my asthma was terrible.

I’m gonna keep my eye out for one that doesn’t cost a fortune. This room has always been more dusty than the rest of the house and I don’t understand it. It has the same windows /insulation so I don’t know what’s going on- very strange. I wonder if having some type of seal around the windows might help I was doing that downstairs on the doors to make it warmer and it worked. I guess it could be the radiators because they were never sealed properly in this house and insects can crawl in but that doesn’t explain why that room is so much more dusty. It gets white dust over everything within 3-4 days maybe sooner whereas my bedroom almost never gets dusty like that. .Over 2-3 months maybe. I guess I avoid dusting because one that makes my asthma worse and two it’s tedious, etc.

Please take care of your knee and take a break from that!

* I should add that I dusted after the breathing because I thought that would help him overall but I guess that was not a good idea because it would’ve made the dust fly around more. I did it with wet paper towels so that would stop it from getting in the air as much, although I did get worse asthma even after that but we were just over the sir laerts from the fires so I was worse overall.

 

[IndyJones]

Will the vet do a housecall?

Indy has asthma but she LOVEs people. I found lightweight tidy cats litter was a trigger for her. I use arm and hammer now and she is fine with that.

Asthma was confirmed by the vet when she was at the vet for a bladder infection and had an attack right in the room when five vets tried to draw sterile urine from her. (Idk why they needed 5 when she was so cooperative)

 

[thefiresidecat]

Dante has asthma. luckily he has bonded strongly with my husband and sticks his little nose up for the puff puffs. we don't do the meds during an asthma attack but preventively. but I think he's the one in a thousand cat who allows the inhalers. a mostly feral cat would be never on that one. his attacks have wheezy heavy breathing and the characteristic hunched over position. it does take xray to confirm I think but the vets can always hear it pretty clearly even without the confirmation. ofc I think they need the xray to rule out things like lung cancer

 

[silent meowlook]

Hi. The incident that you reported and the circumstances as well as the fact that he has not had a problem in the past, leads me to believe, that maybe this was just stressed out cat breathing. Please don't do anything to delay your healing. I wouldn't waste the money on an air purifier. When I used one, I kept it in the bedroom where the litterpans are and honestly it got expensive because the hepa filters would clog up with litter dust fairly quickly and they are expensive to replace. I don't use one anymore.
I doubt a house call vet would be much help. They can't take xrays and that is the only way to diagnose asthma. If he is fine now. I would just figure it was probably due to stress. I think just keeping an eye on him for now is a good idea

 

[thefiresidecat]

Hi. The incident that you reported and the circumstances as well as the fact that he has not had a problem in the past, leads me to believe, that maybe this was just stressed out cat breathing. Please don't do anything to delay your healing. I wouldn't waste the money on an air purifier. When I used one, I kept it in the bedroom where the litterpans are and honestly it got expensive because the hepa filters would clog up with litter dust fairly quickly and they are expensive to replace. I don't use one anymore.
I doubt a house call vet would be much help. They can't take xrays and that is the only way to diagnose asthma. If he is fine now. I would just figure it was probably due to stress. I think just keeping an eye on him for now is a good idea

we use one that has a rinseable filter

 

[Meowmee]

Will the vet do a housecall?

Indy has asthma but she LOVEs people. I found lightweight tidy cats litter was a trigger for her. I use arm and hammer now and she is fine with that.

Asthma was confirmed by the vet when she was at the vet for a bladder infection and had an attack right in the room when five vets tried to draw sterile urine from her. (Idk why they needed 5 when she was so cooperative)

I am not sure, I would have to get a mobile dvm and they can’t do xrays. Plus he is not a touchable cat, he will not let anyone near him so any dvm visit requires sedation and would be traumatic.

 

[Meowmee]

Dante has asthma. luckily he has bonded strongly with my husband and sticks his little nose up for the puff puffs. we don't do the meds during an asthma attack but preventively. but I think he's the one in a thousand cat who allows the inhalers. a mostly feral cat would be never on that one. his attacks have wheezy heavy breathing and the characteristic hunched over position. it does take xray to confirm I think but the vets can always hear it pretty clearly even without the confirmation. ofc I think they need the xray to rule out things like lung cancer

With Sybil they diagnosed it with her symptoms which weren’t typical, and xray. I always found that odd because I have had asthma for years but xrays in people don’t show those little circles hers had.