We took Flowerbelle to the holistic vet in November 2011 because of her cough, which we thought was related to her hairball issue (but wanted to make sure). The pattern in x-rays indicated both asthma and bronchitis. Flowerbelle was on doxy for 20 days, and her cough cleared up.
She infrequently seems to have breathing problems. It's a little difficult for us to tell, because she spends about 50% of her time purring. She's little and her whole body is involved when she's really purring. When she's really happy, she also squeals and squeaks while purring.
We also did all the diagnostics on her sometimes cough to rule out heart disease. She does have high blood pressure due to scarring of the arteries in her lungs from a severe lung worm infestation when rescued. And she lost most of hear hearing (you can hear me "click" in the video - that she can hear that, as you can see. That's what Flowerbelle thinks her name is. :lol3: ) and one of her eyes to herpes, which most likely affected her turbinates - which may also affect her breathing.
So in September, she's coughing. We go get x-rays again. There is NO pattern of bronchitis or asthma. All clear. But we put her on Doxy again - and the cough cleared up inside of three days. This time she was only on it for 10 days. It came back again in November! As always, it started slow enough to leave us wondering... is it a hairball? But it increased in frequency, and we put her on Doxy again. And again - gone in three days.
So we've heard of other kitties with asthma that never presented on x-ray. Is untreated asthma maybe why she seems to be developing chronic bronchitis? :dk:
Here's a video of Flowerbelle this evening as I was about to make the kitties dinner. That means she was purring. But this isn't her normal "I'm excited about dinner!" purring. In fact, she didn't eat as soon as it was ready. She's usually done by the time I'm done making it for all the cats. She ended up sitting at the far end of the counter going through these... leaning her head up to breathe better? episodes until everyone else was DONE with dinner.
Obviously I'll be sharing this with the vet. But I wanted other opinions. Does it seem Flowerbelle is having trouble breathing to you?
She infrequently seems to have breathing problems. It's a little difficult for us to tell, because she spends about 50% of her time purring. She's little and her whole body is involved when she's really purring. When she's really happy, she also squeals and squeaks while purring.
We also did all the diagnostics on her sometimes cough to rule out heart disease. She does have high blood pressure due to scarring of the arteries in her lungs from a severe lung worm infestation when rescued. And she lost most of hear hearing (you can hear me "click" in the video - that she can hear that, as you can see. That's what Flowerbelle thinks her name is. :lol3: ) and one of her eyes to herpes, which most likely affected her turbinates - which may also affect her breathing.
So in September, she's coughing. We go get x-rays again. There is NO pattern of bronchitis or asthma. All clear. But we put her on Doxy again - and the cough cleared up inside of three days. This time she was only on it for 10 days. It came back again in November! As always, it started slow enough to leave us wondering... is it a hairball? But it increased in frequency, and we put her on Doxy again. And again - gone in three days.
So we've heard of other kitties with asthma that never presented on x-ray. Is untreated asthma maybe why she seems to be developing chronic bronchitis? :dk:
Here's a video of Flowerbelle this evening as I was about to make the kitties dinner. That means she was purring. But this isn't her normal "I'm excited about dinner!" purring. In fact, she didn't eat as soon as it was ready. She's usually done by the time I'm done making it for all the cats. She ended up sitting at the far end of the counter going through these... leaning her head up to breathe better? episodes until everyone else was DONE with dinner.
Obviously I'll be sharing this with the vet. But I wanted other opinions. Does it seem Flowerbelle is having trouble breathing to you?