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I had my vet check her out. He said as long as she wasn't opening her mouth to breathe, had no nasal discharge and was eating, playing and acting normally, he wasn't concerned. Her heart and lungs sounded fine. He suggested giving her Lysine. I did, but that seemed to make it louder so I stopped.
Has anyone dealt with this. What have you done? Could this be a chronic condition? Other than the loud sniffles, she seems fine, is eating well and playing.
If it doesn't improve in another week or so, I will contact my vet, but I wanted some input. Thanks.
My cat has the same problem and it's usually in winter. I think she's worse when the windows are closed and the heat comes on. It's on my list to get my heating ducts cleaned, but it's a long list and I have more pressing problems.
Anyway, to answer your question, I took her to the vet last winter with mucus and coughing and they told me her cough was laryngeal spasms and she could have polyps or throat cancer or all kinds of things, including a throat infection. They did a blood test and insisted on a heart worm test. About $250 later, she had a high white blood cell count and got antibiotics and was fine until this winter.
A few months back we took her again, sneezing and spewing mucus, runny nose and eyes - the usual - and they tested her for like six viruses including herpes and bordatella and I forget the rest, but $300 later they said she had nothing and might be allergic to something in my house, maybe a piece of furniture. ???
I need either a better vet or a home remedy because I give the poor thing allergy pills that they OK'd and they seem to help sometimes, but right now she's a mucus factory again. So I stopped the pills but don't know how else to help her. I asked here about homeopathic stuff (that I don't even believe in), but the vet visits aren't doing anything for her, either.
It can be chronic and to be fair, a cat, especially a rescued stray, can have underlying viruses. It can be allergies - to food, or the same things you or I would be allergic to. My cat is eating, playing, and when she's not dripping snot out of every opening, seems quite happy and affectionate. The rest of the time she looks just miserable to me and I feel like I don't know how to help her.
I have a plan to enclose my tiny front stoop with mosquito net on a track because even in winter, there's so much sun on that side of the house that she could spend an hour or more each day outside breathing fresher air and I hope that might help.
My cat has bouts of asthma so I've become really cognizant of things that might tip it off. Cold weather makes it worse.
Last November her (and ME) were both feeling really lousy. I had moved into a new ("used") house that hadn't seen many improvements in a long while. At one point I got so sick I wondered if the house was making me sick, so I:
1. Got all new carpets, which I'm not sure had been replaced since the house was built in 1975.
2. Got a new floor in the basement. The previous summer it had taken on some water through cracks in the floor after a heavy rain which soaked parts of the carpet that was down there. I had everything ripped up, and before I had them put on a new floor I thoroughly sanded the concrete floor and sealed up all the cracks, to try to prevent any more water from seeping through. The new floor does not include a carpet, which is a bad idea in a basement.
3. Started replacing my air filters every few months.
The combination of the 3 seems to have made a big difference, for both her and myself. Lesson being: if you and/or your pet are getting sick a lot, the problem might be your house. Google "house making you sick" and start reading.
About a year ago, Lucky started to sneeze occasionally, so I took him to the Vet. They said it was a chronic problem and that he would have to take medicine every day for the rest of his life. They gave me a prescription for Azithromycin, and I gave him a daily dose for a few weeks.
The sneezing stopped, and I thought I would stop the meds and see if it came back. It has been a year, no more sneezing, and he has been totally off the medicine. While I always respect the opinion of the vet, in this case they were wrong, and the poor kitty would have been on that medicine every single day of his life.
I would just wait it out and see, sometimes kitties get little kitty colds, just like us.
In early October, we had an upper respiratory (URI) go through our feline household. Three out of four cats got it. Two of them recovered with no problem, but we nearly lost our oldest guy from it (18).
Problematic things to look for: not eating/hiding/lethargic, raspy breathing, lots of mucus, or bleeding from the nose (our old guy had this and it really scared me!)
If he is just sneezing and otherwise it's fine, I'd wait it out. It may pass in time.
Our cat had the exact same, some sniffles and no discharge. We also started giving Lysine but it didn’t really help (doctor didn’t find anything wrong with him either). After about 2 months it has stopped. We try to open the sliding doors to get fresh air in (we can mosquito windows). We are now also on paper litter which is way less dusty.
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