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I have an 11 year old Labrador who has been having coughing off an on since Aug. They did a chest x-ray at the vet then and the attending vet at the time said her heart had looked a bit "elongated" but she didn't feel the need to measure it at the time. Lungs looked good, and there was some irritation in her airway. They prescribed a steroid and the cough went away.
It came and went randomly not happening more than once every couple of weeks until about 3 weeks ago.
The cough is basically only at night, and occasionally if she gets very excited (barking at strange people / rabbits in the yard , etc)
She started coughing up a little piece or two of food as well. I switched food from chicken protein to a bison protein and things started to get a little better.
But then she had a horrible night so I made an appointment. She has also been panting in the middle of the night, starting a few weeks ago. Again not every night. Seems to be panting a lot more after just a short walks around the yard, and taking a lot longer to settle down after short periods of exercise.
They re-did the chest x-ray and we had a different vet this time, the full-time vet at the clinic we go to. He said not too much has change, and he did size her heart. She was an 11 on a scale of 1-10. He recommended we send out her blood for a proBNP test, which came back this morning at 1311. <900 normal
He is recommending a referral to get a echocardiogram, which I am going to call tomorrow and get scheduled hopefully this coming week as my manager is out for an out of town meeting the following week and I won't be able to take time away from work.
So i've done some reading online and of course I am left with a ton of questions, which I am sure most can't be answered until the echo is done.
I'm just not sure he called it heart disease, but when I google it says heart failure. Is that basically the same thing?
Heart disease includes heart failure, and failure does have an end. It may be a good long time, or short and precious. Sounds like a plan to get the echo done next, then you should know much more time and/or further testing.
Here's hoping it is better news, sending good energy.
Best of Luck!
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