I have a lovely red Siberian cat you’ll see throughout this site whose asthma (bad enough) has turned into a chronic nasal inflammation. I call her Snots the Cat for fairly good reason. The lower sixth of all of my walls is sneeze encrusted. Yes it cleans up quickly with a rag and a bit of water, but I’ve never woken up on a day when I said to myself, Yes! Today’s the day I clean the snot off the baseboards!
Mr Siga Microfiber Cloths
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I even made up a showtune for her one afternoon. It’s performed with Jazz Hands and ends, Everybody gotta lova snotty kitty! None of this is the point of this article, though, as I don’t have a solution for snots other than a wet microfiber cloth. Oh hell, here’s the link for those if you want them
Asthma
From what I can see, you really don’t need a veterinary speciaist for asthma in a cat unless it gets pretty dangerous. You do, however, need a vet to prescribe two things:
- Prednisalone 5mg, a feline steroid in pill form
- Albuterol, 90 mcg
Now, the albuterol will be the same dose you as a human are prescribed. So if you’ve got springtime allergies, the likelihood is that your prescription for your rescue inhaler can cover your cat. Just make sure it’s just the albuterol though, nothing else. As to the prednisalone, you need the vet for that. When you get that prescription, listen to what the vet says. If your cat has a light case, primarily just causing coughing, you should expect to be told half a 5 mg tablet every other day or some similar dosage. Be careful of any other dosage and maybe double-check – particularly if it’s higher – because that steroid can cause diabetes and then you’ve doubled your snotty kitty burden
How Do You Know?
The chronic cough was the tip-off that Snots had something going on there. They started by giving her a dose of antibiotics (can’t remember which one but suspect it was clavamox) for three weeks and then waited to see. The antibiotics did work and the cough went away. But. The cough came back in week 4, and that was the telltale indicator of asthma rather than infection.
Next, they recommended an invasive procedure that was presented as rather dangerous and quite expensive. I still can’t believe I let them do that. But I did. And the result was more liquid in her lungs than they expected and the inflammatory result they had expected to indicate asthma.
Now, if I had it to do over again, I’d have tried home-treatment first before doing that procedure. So that’s my advice if you face the same thing. If home treatment doesn’t work, then find a respected veterinary hospital and have the procedure done there. Love the local vet, but you don’t want them doing it on your cat for the first time since they nailed it (or not) in veterinary college.
Pills
Asthma is one of those ailments that requires a regular pill. This page gives an overview of how to give a pill to your cat with the least amount of unplesantness.
Emergency Inhaler
A real emergency for an asthmatic cat can involve blue lips, heavy breathing, mouth breathing, coughing. If your cat is really struggling with breathing, get her to the vet.
What the albuterol is for is clearing the bronchial tubes in an emergency. It causes the tubes to open up to let more air in. Snots needs it seldom, but more in the spring. If I can hear her breathing, I give her a dose.
Can you imagine olding the cat’s mouth open as you puff the inhaler into her mouth? Luckily they make an appurenance for that. The Aerokat inhaler is a tube with a cup that fits onto the cats muzzle and a little indicator that lets you count the breaths. Cats can’t hold their breath (well, they can, but they won’t for you), so the tube holds onto the dose letting the cat breathe it in in multiple breaths. My vet initially told me 6 or 7 breaths, but I find that Snots breathes shallowly when I snap that cup on her face. (Pretty sure she thinks I’ve turned on her.) So I use 10 breaths. She’s not died. Yet.
Snots has become used to the Aerokat and almost always recognizes she’ll feel better if she just holds still. Generally. If you’ve got a wildebeest, you may have to swaddle the animal in a towel the first few times. It does not take long before they figure out the Aerokat is more help than threat.
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To make it non-threatening, I generally go to Snots rather than picking her up. I snap the cup onto her muzzle and keep her where she is with the other hand. You can press the inhaler puff before you put the cup on the cat, but I usually wait since Snots is easy. You’ll get the hang of it. If the cat gets away, you’re fine. Takes a while for the medication to dissipate. Just catch the cat again and finish your count.
Cat Bathing Bag
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This is an easy-to-use swaddler if you need it. But boy does that cat look resigned to torture. Note that this thing actually has handles if you want to carry the poor fucker about. Since I only used this once, what I vouch for is that it’s easy to use and large enough to keep the cat comfortable. It is a mesh, however, intended for bathing, so watch for claws coming through the cloth.
Checkups
I take Snots to her specialist yearly, though I’m pretty sure I could go every other year and be fine. It’s a pricey visit usually, since it includes a lung scan to check on fluid in the lungs and a blood test to make sure she hasn’t become diabetic. Unfortunately, my specialist doesn’t do regular shots, so I recommend you find a vet who will do both and at least save you some money.
Ups and Downs
I change Snot’s steroid dosage routinely, depending on the season and how she is handling it. If she starts coughing a lot, I move the dose to once a day for a few weeks but then back off to every other day for a while. I also routinely use only Monday, Wednesday and Friday as dose days. Because I can know for certain if she’s due. Because of that, I give a full pill on Monday morning.
I have never gone a full pill every day, but that day will come I suppose. Or not. The one thing I’ve learned with this is that it does not necessarily get worse. She was diagnosed when she was 5 and she’s now 11. The sneezing came late, but the breathing remained about the same.
UPDATE: I now give Snots a half a pill a day. It does not cure the sneeze but it does help.
Snots
I think she always sneezed. Some. But it wasn’t until last year that she started being less interested in food. Now, this is a cat that would have eaten the other cats if I hadn’t been watching, so that was a pronounced tell. Then I started to notice that she sneezed (onto her own food at first) before eating and that after she sneezed, she had a better appetite.
It was when she started to coat the walls with snail trails that I paid enough attention to contact my vet. As it turned out, she was due to see her specialist around then. He said that some cats with asthma do develop nasal inflammation. Unfortunately, steroids are not particularly effective in the nose, and there are not any other good treatments.
That said, the one pill that cats can take is Zyrtec 5mg. My vet says a full tablet daily. I tried it, but it didn’t seem to help very much at a half a dose, which is what I gave. (2.5 mg) Instead, I settled for going from every other day with the half a 5 mg prednisalone, to every day with it. And that seems to have had some effect. She goes without sneezing (or dripping) most of the day and eats. I am planning to try the Zyrtec again with a full dose.
Nasal Infections
Cats with nasal inflammation routinely get secondary bacterial infections in their noses. You can identify this most readily by the cats refusal to eat some foods that simply don’t have strong enough smells. But, more delightfully, you can also recognize it when what shows up on your walls is no longer transparent.
Yes I know, TMI.
Vets dislike prescribing antibiotics, but they will do it about four times a year, particularly in a case like Snot’s, where the infections are expected. In our case, clavamox is what knocks the infection out. She goes back to eating and the ciock ticks down …
Conclusion
Having a snotty kitty is not the end of the world. It is the end of your wanting to snuggle her face to face.