Cat Hyperventilating

[cocoanlace]

One of my cats, Monkey, has a cyst in his biliary system. X-rays, ultrasounds, and a CT scan cannot diagnose exactly what it's attached to, if it's on his liver, bile duct, gallbladder, or all three. To make him comfortable we were extracting fluid from the cyst every other month. Then in May of this year he had an episode where he started yowling, hyperventilating, and his eyes dilated. I transferred Monkey to a specialist in another city. That vet recently tried to remove some fluid from the cyst and he again started hyperventilating causing the vet to halt the procedure. She has no idea why he would do this since he was sedated and had a pain blocker. Has anyone experienced something like this with their cat in the middle of a procedure?

 

[MissClouseau]

I have no experience on this but, when did he get diagnosed with the cyst in his biliary system? I assume it was some months before May, did they check/scan his lungs in May? Did this vet run any tests after hyperventilating while sedated?

You have probably already read related articles online but I will put this here: Rapid Breathing in Cats - Symptoms, Causes, Diagnosis, Treatment, Recovery, Management, Cost

I know that hyperventilating might be a case of, lesser serious issues, pain or stress, or asthma and allergic reaction. Can you think of anything that might be similar between the episode in May and now? If they didn't carry on with the procedure because he hyperventilated, maybe he wasn't totally sedated yet. Did they tell you when exactly it happened? Like "x seconds after sedating", "when he was just getting sedated"?

 

[cocoanlace]

Diagnosed Feb 2018. Did immediate check, either x-ray or ultrasound of lungs, in May after he had the bad reaction. Nothing found. They let me take him home almost immediately and he was better in 10 minutes during the car ride. When the same procedure was aborted this past Tuesday, the vet checked three times via ultrasound to see if any fluid had escaped the cyst and gone into the abdomen to cause this reaction because this fluid is bile colored and probably stings. Nothing found. Cat was calm while getting the lidocaine blocks, calm while getting the sedation, relaxed with inserting the needle catheter. As soon as the wall of the cyst was punctured, Monkey began to react. The same reaction happened last May however as far as I know that vet did not use lidocaine because it was never needed in the past. He also did not sedate. It was never necessary. My take on it is that even though it never hurt him in the past, it hurts now and there is no way to use lidocaine directly on the cyst. Both of these vets have done this procedure hundreds of times have and never seen a reaction like Monkey's.