Possible asthma

Dr. Marie replied:

Thanks for your question. Although I can't give you an exact diagnosis over the internet, I can give you some good ideas as to what could be going on with Neemi.

The most common reason for a cat to cough and hack like you have described is asthma. Often people can confuse coughing with vomiting. Here is a video of a coughing cat that I found on youtube:



Asthma can be affected by Neemi being exposed to things that he is allergic to. So, if he has some mild food allergies then it's possible that when he was being fed the raw food he wasn't exposed to whatever it is that he is allergic to and this is why the coughing was better. (By the way, I'm not a fan of raw feeding. You can read why here: Are raw foods safe for cats?

Asthma can sometimes be hard to diagnose. A vet can sometimes see some hints on xrays, but it's not always obvious.

There are many different treatments. If there is just the occasional cough then I don't do much. But if we're seeing a lot of coughing, then treatment is a good idea. My guess is that the blood is because of the frequency of coughing. He may have some damage to some small blood vessels in his respiratory tract. From what you have described I think it's a good idea to have your vet take a look and see if he needs treatment.

I will often treat these cats with very small doses of prednisone (a steroid) which I usually have the owner give every other day. There are inhalers that cats tolerate well as well, but I reserve these for the really bad cases.

If you live in an area where there is a lot of heartworm, then heartworm is a possibility as well. If you are in an area that sees heartworm your vet can do a very simple blood test to determine if this is the problem.

There are other things that can cause a cat to have these symptoms, but they are not very common.

I think a visit to the doctor is a great idea!

Hope all is well!

Dr. Marie.

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