Caring for a cat with asthma

Ramouth

Last weekend our cat had a couple of nights stay at the vets with fluid on her lungs.  After a scan, antibiotics, steroids, broncodialators (sp?) and an eye-watering bill she survived and is back home.  The vet has diagnosed asthma and she is currently on steroid tablets with the plan to transition her onto an inhaler after a couple of weeks.  

We initially kept her inside as her breathing was still quite fast and then because pollution levels were very high later in the week.  Today we let her out for a bit and kept an eye on her while she made her rounds.  She would like to go out more but we are worried that she might become ill elsewhere and not make it home.  We don’t really have the time to stalk her every time she wants to go out and feel weird staring into other peoples gardens! 

It would be really helpful to know what other owners of asthmatic cats do?  Should we be trying to minimise her exertion?  Or is it good for her to stay fit? Also interested to see if others have had had success with inhaler training?

Carrot007

Hard to say. But remember that long term steroids (whihc are probably the best option for a cat) will leas to diabeties.

Just give give her the best life you can.

tealady

If you are worried about puss straying have you thought about a catio?

Ramouth

I have thought about a catio but the garden topography would make it tricky.  I am also concerned that we would be moving the point of frustration from the back door to the back door of the catio.  She is 9 and we suspect is used to exploring (we have only had her 6 months and don’t know her full history).  

TripleH

Sometimes even the most explorative cats can calm down.

Our eldest had the roam of the land (she lived near rural areas) for about 9 years before moving in with us in a duplex flat. She had plenty to see and exercise (flat was quite big) and seemed happy enough.

When we moved to other places where she had more freedom, she seemed content to not stray far.

Now she has a courtyard she shares with 3 others and a 3 storey house. Except for 1 instance when she ran out the door and lead us on a merry chase round the neighbours front gardens (cumulating in a scramble half way up our fence), she is content with a quiet life (she is 17).

Ramouth

Thank you - I think it is something we will explore further.  At the moment we are still letting her out for supervised exploring.  She does spend quite a bit of time in our garden but also likes to explore the neighbours gardens and the park behind.  She was breathing slightly strangely after yesterday’s outing so we have been keeping her in since.  We want her to have as normal a life as possible and live in a nice low / slow traffic location so it seems such a shame to restrain her but just don’t know if she has the sense to come home if she starts having breathing difficulties.  She has lost interest in playing with toys since starting on the steroid tablets and is starting to gain weight so we do think the outdoor exercise is beneficial.  We will discuss with the vet next week and hope that she gets her playing mojo back once she has transitioned to the inhaler.

donnac2558

One of my cats had asthma and was on steroids for many years.   She had half a tablet twice a week, the vet will work with you to get the dose correct.   I had people tell me steroids would damage her kidneys, but my vet said he had dogs and cats on them for years without a problem.  She did have to get a health check twice a year.  My cat started them at 7 and lived to 17 when she took cancer.

Ramouth

donnac2558 said:

One of my cats had asthma and was on steroids for many years.   She had half a tablet twice a week, the vet will work with you to get the dose correct.   I had people tell me steroids would damage her kidneys, but my vet said he had dogs and cats on them for years without a problem.  She did have to get a health check twice a year.  My cat started them at 7 and lived to 17 when she took cancer.

Thank you so much this is very reassuring.  She is on tablets twice a day at the moment (thank god for easypill!) but we are seeing the vet on Monday to talk about tapering down the dose or transitioning to an inhaler.  She played a little bit today which was lovely - hopefully a sign she is feeling better.

boots_babe

You mentioned she is on tablets currently. Did your vet discuss the option of using inhalers? We had an asthmatic cat, when he was first diagnosed it seemed really complicated, but actually we soon settled into a routine.

We had a cat specific spacer, via which we administered the inhaler (just a human one, so very cheap). We had a preventer that we had to use twice a day, plus the other type of inhaler to use during an episode. We were also shown how to administer injections so that if our cat got into a sever asthmatic episode, we could give him a steroid injection. This was also much easier than it sounds, and it was very reassuring knowing we had this on hand should we need it (we only had to do it very infrequently as the inhalers worked really well).

Feel free to PM me if you want any more info re getting a cat used to using an inhaler.

Hope you manage to get into a stable routine whatever you do.

TripleH

Our eldest has been on anti-inflamatories on and off for 2 years now.

Her bloods are 0.1 higher than normal whereas a cat her age the vet would expect closer to 5.

As long as they lead a healthy active life (even with asthma) am sure they'll be fine.

Ramouth

Thank you so much for posting boots_babe and TripleH.  It is good to hear of other cats living a happy life with asthma.

We were originally trying to train her to use the aerocat chamber voluntarily as per the videos online but although we could get her to put her nose in we couldn’t get her to keep it there.  The vet said just to force her and actually it’s been fine.  The training we had done meant that she is not scared of it and knows she will get a treat so although she tries to back away, she  still purrs the whole time and even nags us to give it to her if we are late.  She is doing much better since being on the inhaler and we are down to half a tablet once a day with the steroid.

Our worry was that she would become unwell while out and about and we wouldn’t be able to find her but we have found that when she is feeling less good she tends to stay closer to us.  She now goes out freely during daytime hours and really seems to be enjoying herself.

We have noticed on the invoices that the inhalers are actually very cheap but we pay a fee to the vet for to dispense.  Is there a better way to get them?