Feline Asthma
Published as "The Breathe of
Life" in The Pet Press
by Kari Winters
Most of us take breathing for granted and when we have difficulty
breathing for some reason, it's terrifying. If we don't breathe,
we don't live. As humans, we can have some measure of comfort from people
assuring us that we can take medication and be ok, but if you're an animal.
no amount of explanation or teaching can help you understand.
Asthma is a chronic condition of the respiratory system in
which the airways are chronically inflamed, although symptoms
may come and go. Feline asthma is a subject that has become
a passion for me. Regular readers of The Pet Press know that
I volunteer with and occasionally foster for California Siamese
Rescue (CASR). Last year CASR was asked by another rescue to
take two wedgie (the long skinny type) purebred Siamese who
were described as "highly bred, highly
strung" brothers. The other rescue had tried to place these cats several
times but they had been returned each time for behavior problems. I agreed
to foster them and isolated them in a bedroom. Although they used the litter
box, they also used the bed as a litter box and I was washing bedding a minimum
of once a day. I tried techniques for retraining them, but none of these was
successful. I spent more time with them and even slept with them (much to my
family cats' dismay). One morning I woke to find one of them urinating on me.
(That was fun!)
The standard advice in situations like this is to get a health
exam. Problem was that these cats had been checked out by many different
veterinarians and had lots of normal blood and urine tests that
indicated that health wasn't the issue.
After I'd had these cats for several weeks, one of them had
difficulty breathing. I raced him to the emergency hospital
where they stabilized him for 24 hours and diagnosed him with
an Upper Respiratory Infection (URI). URIs can be common in
cats when first placed in a new home, but you'd expect to see
it within the first few days. These cats hadn't been exposed
to anything recently so I was puzzled about this. I took the
cat to my veterinarian (who I believe is an excellent diagnostician)
because I was truly baffled and wanted to get to the bottom
of this. My veterinarian asked if the cat had been doing any
coughing in the weeks prior to getting sick. I said that both
cats had done some "hairball" coughing
and I'd given them over the counter medication for it. My veterinarian
then asked if I'd actually seen any hairballs and I had to admit
that I hadn't. He took an x-ray and after looking at the film
said that, although he wanted an official diagnosis from the
radiologist, he suspected that the cat had asthma.
Asthma? As
a nurse, I knew a lot about it in humans, but in cats? My
veterinarian knows me well enough to know that I always want
to research anything any illness that my cats (foster or family)
may have. He'd recently returned from a conference where Dr.
Philip Padrid had been one of the speakers. Dr. Padrid is a
world renowned expert on feline asthma, so my veterinarian had
all the latest information. He gave me the web addresses for
two sites he had learned about at the conference. One of the
sites was www.fritzthebrave.com. I was stunned when I went to
this site as it had a greater wealth of information than I could
have ever hoped for. It talked about feline asthma as an illness,
common treatments for it, and even had information about a wonderful
support group for people whose cats had the disease. It had
all the information that, as a nurse, I would want to know,
but it was all written in language that a lay person could easily
understand. The site is maintained by Fritz, who's a cat, (helped
by his human mom, Kathryn Hopper) and they have frequent contact
with Dr. Padrid and others important in this field.
I did a lot of research into the subject of feline asthma
and discovered that it's not a rare disease in cats, and it's
also potentially fatal. Unfortunately, it often goes undiagnosed
because the symptoms of asthma can be so like the symptoms of
other diseases. Many people, like me, think that their cat has
hairballs. Others think that their cats just get frequent "kitty colds." Some
cats are diagnosed with heartworms, lungworms, pneumonia, or heart conditions.
In fact, cats can develop Congestive Heart Failure if their asthma goes untreated.
They can also die in the middle of an attack because they’re
not able to take in the air they need to live. Many cats are also given
up for behavioral problems and lose their lives in shelters.
Interestingly, human asthma and feline asthma are very similar,
yet dogs don't get asthma. In the next issue of The Pet Press,
we'll discuss diagnosis and treatment, but I'd like to end with
an interesting note...After being treated for asthma, there
was no more inappropriate elimination problem.
( Please note that all facts in this article were checked
for accuracy by Dr. Philip Padrid who practices in Chicago,
IL. when he‘s not lecturing.)
Kari Winters is a Registered Nurse and a member of Cat Writers’ Association.
She is the winner of the 2002 Peerless Health CATalyst award
for an article which was first published in The Pet Press. She
volunteers with CA. Siamese Rescue and is the author of the
book, Princess Fiona: My Purrsonal Story which is available
through www.amazon.com. 100 % of the sales go to CA. Siamese
Rescue. Kari can be reached through her website www.shelterpetsink.com
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