Cat with asthma.

Dr. Marie replied:

I'm sorry to hear that Sam is having problems.

Unfortunately I can't give you specific information on whether or not you can give these medications as I can't legally do so without Sam being an actual patient of mine.

I do have cats that I put on Prednisone long term. Usually 5mg a day is plenty. In fact, I have many cats on 2.5mg every other day for asthma. I generally would not use 5 mg twice daily long term unless the benefits really outweighed the risks.

You may want to talk to your vet about possibly getting him a long acting steroid injection such as depo-medrol. There are pros and cons to this. There is a rare side effect where a cat can develop diabetes after having repeated steroid injections but this is very uncommon. These injections often work well and last about 6 weeks or longer. This could be an option.

I have used inhalers in cats but you would need to get one that has a dosage that is specific to your cat (which would have to be prescribed by your vet).

In my experience, cats don't often cough with heart trouble. The one exception is heartworm. If you live in an area where there is a lot of heartworm (such as the Southern US) then you may want to ask your vet to test for heartworm. But, given that he responds to steroids, asthma is much more likely.

I can understand that Sam doesn't enjoy going to the vet. You may want to see if the vet or another vet in your area has a housecall option. It really does sound like he needs some long term veterinary care.

I wish I could offer more to you. Please let me know if you have questions.

Dr. Marie.


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