Cat coughing and sneezing

LittleMissAspie

I've realised that my cat has some symptoms all related to her respiratory system but I'm not sure about going to the vet as the symptoms don't happen very often.

She sneezes once every week or two, and she has a coughing fit every couple of months.

I don't think cats are ever supposed to sneeze or cough but if I take her to the vet saying she sneezes once a fortnight I think they will think I'm a mad cat lady!

She also snores, she's always done that but I think it's louder than when she was younger.

She last had a checkup in September. Is it worth the stress to her of taking her for another one now for such occasional symptoms?

lisajane8482

Have you changed her food or litter recently?

OH took our kitten to the vets as he was sneezing a few times a day and the vet put it down to alergies relating to his wet food and litter. She gave him an anti-inflammatory injection and advised we changed his food and litter and to bring him back in a week if it didn't start to subside.

We changed his food (from Felix to Sheba, not the greatest food but he won't eat the decent stuff) and changed the clumping clay based litter to wood based and his sneezing has stopped.

You could always ring the vets and ask for some advice, that's what we did and after the receptionist spoke to the vet we were advised to take him in just to check he didn't have cat flu or something stuck up his nose.

LittleMissAspie

Yes we've changed her food. In September the vet diagnosed some kidney problems, basically the start of kidney failure but I think we caught it early as she doesn't have any typical symptoms, she just drinks a lot of water.

I've very slowly been changing her food to the renal food, increasing it by 5% per week and she is just about on 100% renal food now. I really hope it's not the food as there isn't much choice out there and the one we're using is the best one.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Cats sneeze when stuff gets up their nose. Fur, feathers, pointy bits of blades of grass, the entire tub of fish flakes when your back is turned for a second to pick up a stray water snail.

They make coughing sounds when they have furballs. And then run off and quietly go bleurggggggghhhh under your bed.


But she has an underlying medical condition, and other things can also cause these sounds, so it's worth checking out at the vets.

LittleMissAspie

Oh I'm used to furballs and that's a different sound. The coughing is more like a wheezing sound. I've been trawling YouTube and some of the asthmatic cats sound similar although they tend to sound like a wet cough and my cat sounds like a dry cough. She sounds like this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyyK303Q_Yo

I need to contact the vet soon about another kidney test so I'll mention it then and see what they say.

lisajane8482

Bit of a long shot but your cat doesn't eat random things does she? A friend at work was telling me a couple of weeks ago that they thought their cat had asthma and took him to the vets after a whole load of treatment which didn't work they did a scan and found he had swallowed a 20p piece.

I have my fingers crossed that it's something simple and is easily remadied. Keep us up to date with how things go.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Well, you should see the vet, but, so as to not panic unnecessarily, one of my older ones used to sound like that when a furball was very dry. I think the hairs were tickling her. It invariably ended up somewhere gross.

She definitely didn't have asthma. But you won't be thought of as daft for getting it checked out.

lisajane8482

Any update on how your cat is?

Snuggles

Hi, our cat had similar symptoms - wheezing, coughing and snoring, which our vet initially diagnosed as asthma. It turned out that she had a nasopharyngeal polyp - might be worth mentioning to your vet.